Company Caritas
Duration 3 Month
My Role IxD Design
Team Size Created in a Team of 4
About
During our three-month participation in the Digital Product School by UnternehmerTUM, Europe's most successful training program for cross-functional team collaboration, my team and I worked with AWS and Caritas Oberbayern.
The team, comprising a product manager, an engineer, an AI engineer, and myself as the interaction designer, were inspired by the question "Wouldn't it be great to make access to social benefits as easy as joining a gym?".
After a research phase in the Caritas environment, we developed a web app that provides simple instructions to help social benefit recipients gather all the important documents they need to submit their citizen's allowance application.
Project Detail
Cooperation with Caritas Oberbayern
During the project, we were in close contact with Caritas Oberbayern, who always supported and made their resources available to us, especially in research. When designing our idea, it needed to have the potential to support Caritas Oberbayern in its work. They gave us a free hand in finding and developing ideas.
Cooperation with Amazon Web Services
The Amazon Web Services team was supporting us with product management and development issues. They helped us a lot with initial introductory courses on how to write a press release and by providing development resources.
Problem Space
Since our goal was to make social benefits more accessible, without any further restrictions, we had many options to support Caritas with a digital solution. After a long research phase, which included setbacks and changes in our scope, we decided that we wanted to simplify the application for the citizen's allowance.
The main problem is that the application is written in rather complicated official German, which many citizens cannot easily understand. Furthermore, a lot of additional documents have to be submitted with the application. Caritas advice centres can already help those in need to fill out the application. However, they still struggle to bring the right documents to their appointment, which must be submitted with the application. Hence, we have decided to develop a tool to help citizens find and store their documents easily.
Target Groups
Social benefit recipients
● 18 - 67 years old
● 45% non-German speaking
● often no access to computers
● struggle to find the necessary documents for the citizen's allowance application
Caritas employees
● 20 - 67 years old
● support their clients by filling out their social benefit application
● usually need 1-3 appointments to fill out clients' social benefit application
Project Goals
Our goal was to develop a product for Caritas that would provide them with added value in terms of simplifying access to social benefits.
Additionally, the Digital Product School aimed to introduce us participants to cross-functional collaboration in an agile working environment with real-life problems.
Additionally, the Digital Product School aimed to introduce us participants to cross-functional collaboration in an agile working environment with real-life problems.
Research
At project onset, we utilized the "Wouldn't it be great" approach to conduct interviews with various stakeholders at Caritas and their clients, including counselling and food bank staff, and social benefit recipients to find out information about their everyday lives and their experiences of receiving social benefits.
One of the difficulties was to get into conversation with the people in need, as the topic is very sensitive. For this reason, we were unfortunately only able to have in-depth conversations with a few people in need.
However, we were able to gain a lot of information about the experiences and problems of those in need from the social workers' reports.
One of the difficulties was to get into conversation with the people in need, as the topic is very sensitive. For this reason, we were unfortunately only able to have in-depth conversations with a few people in need.
However, we were able to gain a lot of information about the experiences and problems of those in need from the social workers' reports.
All the findings from the interviews were then recorded and sorted in a Bull's Eye. This served to identify the biggest problems in accessing social services.
Bulles Eye
Conception
After intensive brainstorming and sketching sessions, we identified a common issue: social benefit recipients struggle to locate necessary documents for their appointments, leading to rescheduled Caritas appointments.
As part of the project, we limited ourselves to the Citizen's Benefit application, as this is the one that Caritas employees most often have to fill out together with their clients.
As part of the project, we limited ourselves to the Citizen's Benefit application, as this is the one that Caritas employees most often have to fill out together with their clients.
To structure our digital solutions, we used a number of methods provided by the Digital Product School. These include a story map, a press release, a lean canvas, the "how might we" method and paper prototypes.
The decision was made to create a web app, as the interviews revealed that many people in need have a low threshold for downloading apps onto their cell phones. At the same time, however, care had to be taken to ensure that the web app was easy to use on a cell phone, as users often do not have access to a computer and conduct all internet transactions on their cell phone. Another important point was that several languages were supported, as the native language of the users was often not German.
The low-fidelity prototype was created using the first paper prototypes and the story map. This enabled the engineers to start implementing initial ideas in the agile working environment, which could then be tested as quickly as possible.
Visual Design
The design language was based on the brand design of Caritas Oberbayern to give users a sense of belonging and strengthen their trust in the product. In addition, simple language and restrained, easy-to-read typography were used.
Colour palette
Typography
Buttton Style
Click Dummy
Try out the prototype by clicking on the "Let´s Start" button
Responsive Design
To make the web app accessible to social benefit recipients, who do not have access to a computer, it was particularly important to us to ensure that the web app can be accessed smoothly on all device sizes.
Promoting
Both a poster and a promotional video were created for the final project presentation as part of the
Digital Product School.
Digital Product School.
Poster
Video
Personal Learning
The journey through the Digital Product School has taught me three major points.
Firstly, effective collaboration in cross-functional teams demands mutual understanding while maintaining individual responsibilities.
Secondly, embracing agile methodologies within tight timeframes necessitates adaptability and flexibility.
Lastly, we had challenges that arose from limited access to social benefit recipients for interviews and tests, which led to heavy reliance on Caritas employees' insights. As a UX designer committed to user-centric design, I would have liked to test the product on the end users and learn from these insights. This lack of access led to two shifts in our problem space and time lost in decision-making. This taught me the importance of prioritizing progress over exhaustive deliberation.
In conclusion, I can say that my time at the Digital Product School was a great boost for my personal and professional growth, shaping my approach to design and teamwork.
