Evan Barosay

User Research

Background

We entered this project knowing a fair amount about our stakeholder. Es Por Los Niños is a non-profit organization that supports children, woman and adolescents living with HIV/AIDS in Tijuna, Mexico. The founder, Rosalva Martha-Patten, started the foundation in memory of her son . The organization works to prevent HIV transmission and provide support to families. They have medical clinics and doctors associated to prescribe medication, however Rosalva began to notice a problem with the children in terms of medication intake. She had been looking for a method to incentivize the kids to take their medication.

Target Audience - Affected Mothers & Children

Our main users in this scenario are the affected chilren. However, mothers are also not only affected and use the resources at Es Por Los Niños, but they are also supervising the children on a day-to-day basis. We wanted to be sure to keep in mind both the mother and child when designing since they would both be in interaction with the finalized app. Key features we knew we needed included: Android-based (almost all users owned Androids), an app that was in fluent Spanish, and AIDS/HIV focused.

Surveys and Interviews

Our first step in our user research method, was to gain survey data from a similiar demographic as our target audience. I wanted to target a group that had a chronic ailment and/or took daily medication for an extended period of time. To filter our survey audience, I added screener questions to the survey. Overall, we collected 18 valid responses and noticed common trends such as users using iPhone alarms, being self-motivated, and wanting their treatment to fit into their everyday lives.
To delve deeper into the root problem, our team conducted in-person and Skype interviews with a variety of stakeholders. An example of the script used for one stakeholder's interview can be viewed here.
We interviewed a diverse group of interviewees and gained valuable insight. Below is a brief summary of main findings we gained from our user research. Our team was able to reevaluate and create our problem statement: Youth and adolescents in Tijuana aware of their HIV or AIDS diagnosis need motivation and communal support to foster consistent medical compliance because they are exposed to social stigma that restricts their education and awareness of their diagnosis, as well as prevents them from receiving life-long treatment.

Interviewee

1. Rosalva, Founder

Relation to Es Por Los Niños

operates the foundation and oversees all interactions between patients, families, and assisting professionals.

Feedback

The children have been inconsisent with medication. There is no app she has found that reminds users to take AIDS/HIV specfic medication and is in Spanish.

2. Andrea, 13 years

Mother-to-child transmission. She has been going to Es Por Los Niños for 1 year with her mom.

Wanted an application that does not obviously show that she has an AIDS/HIV diagnosis.

3. Mateo, 15 years

Mother-to-child transmission. Goes with his mother, who also has AID/HIV, to Es Por Los Niños.

Grew up not knowing he was diagnosed with AIDS/HIV and was told to take vitamins, which was his medication, to make him healthy. Was not told about diagnosis until 12 years old.

4. Dr. Kern

Works with AIDS/HIV children in San Diego and Es Por Los Niños.

Many kids with chronic diseases are against taking medications because they just want to fit in and be 'normal.' If they do not consistently take the medication, patients fall into resistance which requires more medication and more usage.

5. Mariela, mother

Has a child that participates in Es Por Los Niños

There is a large social stigma around AIDS/HIV in Mexico. Families try to keep it a secret so the surrounding community does not form opinions.

Design

Ideation

Our user research gave us more information to assess what our root problem was. We needed to create a tool that was HIV/AIDS specific, in Spanish, and reminded users to take their medication. On top of that, we also needed to address that our users felt overwhelmed and stigmatized by society, the tool should be discrete and not obviously about the disease, include an incentive so that users continue to use the app, and provide support and education to all users.

Constraints

We had a few holdbacks on this project. First, we had to realize that our main target audience was in another country, which limited accessibility for user-testing. Thus, we had to find similar users that were closer to our team and availability. Secondly, no one on our team had designed on Android platforms before. Myself and two other teammates took 'crash-courses' to understand how we can program and use Android tools to develop the app. We also had about 5 weeks to completely program a working app, so not all functionalities became a reality. Lastly, we had to use Spanish in the app. Thankfully, one teammate was a fluent speaker and was able to translate all of our text.

Version 1 Prototypes

We used Android Studio and Sketch to flesh out our ideas and come up with possible paths we could take with our app. Our main challenge was finding a way to incentivize users to come back to the app. We thought of using a game, rewards/points system, and journal to do so. After some in-class evaluations, we decided to implement a system of unlocking achievements based on a user's 'streak' of medication-intake.