Donating to homeless individuals, with empathy.
giiive is a 2-day designathon project focused on tackling stigma and highlighting personal stories to empathize with homeless individuals. While 2 days is not enough time to cover the complexities of this issue, we begin to speculate ways everyday people can feel comfortable donating.
RESEARCH FOCUS
One of these changes was the increase in homeless individuals present we pass by daily. With Seattle being notorious for its crime, however, it’s difficult to feel safe aiding these individuals alone.
RESEARCH FOCUS
Our team wanted to foster a balanced relationship between donors and homeless individuals.
Goal: Empathize
THE PROBLEM SPACE
Whether through personal experiences or news online, stories of violent, erratic behavior from such individuals reduce donors' willingness to help in dire times. This only makes donors feel more cautious when living in dense, populated areas such as cities.
THE PROBLEM SPACE
When interviewing participants on their views on homeless individuals and their opinions on donating, we found that almost everyone is willing to extend a helping hand, but is concerned about their personal safety.
THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we provide resources for college student passersby to give back to the overlooked population who cohabit in their areas?
College students in urban areas frequently pass by homeless individuals. By focusing on college students as our users, we can safely help encourage empathy and understanding for homeless individuals early in their life.
FEATURES
The key: design features that digitize the donation process, with anonymity, while giving homeless individuals a chance to tell their stories.
Homeless individuals can create their own profiles. Utilizing a map system, donation centers, and which homeless individuals are local to your area invites you to learn more about them and their situation.
FEATURES
Why giiive works
Homeless individuals can create their own profiles. Utilizing a map system, donation centers, and which homeless individuals are local to your area invites you to learn more about them and their situation.
You're donating to someone who needs it
THE FINAL DESIGN
Featuring the final prototype!
Despite only having 48 hours, we learned a lot and had fun making giiive. Play around with it!
ACCOLADES
Winning first place
Our 2-day design sprint soon came to a close, and the designation results were announced! After a very brief yet intense design session, we're proud to say that we earned first place in the Coexistence Track at Boston University's BUFORGE Designathon.
TAKEAWAYS
Collaboration is rewarding, if done right
So much happened within two days, but it was all extremely rewarding. As a team, we wanted to succeed in the designathon, but it wasn't the main drive to create a good product; being genuinely excited about our app concept and wanting to display our idea the best way did.
It's important to let your brainstorming ideas go and understand that your teammates are just as knowledgeable if not, even more than you. Everyone will contribute something, and if everyone embraces this you’re bound to create excellent ideas.
CONCLUSION
Conclusion & Thoughts
I’m proud of the work and effort that we put into this project, and I’m thrilled thinking about how we could take our concept to the next level. Creating an app that we believe will have an impact on the world was our goal, and we accomplished it with our heads held high. Doing research for this designathon helped us reframe assumptions and cast them aside. And as we know, in the eyes of a designer, assumptions are dangerous.
Special thanks to my teammates, Annie Pao and Bella Lee for working alongside me during (one) late night to get our concept done!
