
THE
DESIGN
PROCESS
We engaged
with our demographic
to learn what they want and need.

NEED FINDING

INTERVIEWS
For our need-finding interviews, we interviewed 8 participants using a combination of phone and in-person interviewing. Most included an interviewer, note-taker, and audio recording to back up notes. We created an interview guide, but took liberty with the questions to follow up on topics as necessary. After interviewing the first two participants, we revisited our questionnaire and added the following question as a measure, resulting in 36 questions.
​
"How sexually active would you describe yourself?"
not at all (never)
modestly (on occasion)
moderately
frequently
PARTICIPANTS
Initially, we wanted to interview 18-19 year old college freshman. However, after interviewing the first participants, we decided to expand our age range to 14-26 year olds. This helped us surpass recruitment roadblocks and gather a research through difference phases of life.
A-1
B-1
B-2
B-3
B-4
J-14
B-20
E-25
key
insights

After interviewing our subjects, we analyzed our data and discovered insights. Two of the four were used to carry out our design process.



First
iNSIGHT
“They want the human touch when learning about sex, but know that most sex resources are online.”
IMPRESSION
Many participants seemed to trust people in their lives or other “human”interactions
for information over a text resource.
​
INTERVIEWS
A-1: Doesn’t trust stuff online - Wants more information about sexual experiences
outside the clinical environment i.e. sex workers, real-life stories.
​
B-4: Used Planned Parenthood Live Chat to ask questions and get direction on
how to find those answers - worried she had contracted an STD but discovered
latex allergy.
​
B-1: Goes to Google or healthcare provider, but prefers to talk to friends who have
experience with a given topic.
​
E-25: “Quora/Reddit: Anonymous questions and answers but has that human touch” Trusts friends and human reviews as personal referrals. Feels doctors are less invested in her health. Googles to find everyday resources. "Everyone is brought up differently. Wishes there was a way for people to communicate openly with everyone and what their goals are for sex other than just wanting to make someone cum.”


See our other insights here
second
iNSIGHT
“They want answers quickly, but don’t have a lot time to discern what information is good or bad.”
IMPRESSION
Although our subjects spend a lot of time on the internet, there is a lot of competition
for their time and attention - the resources they like have easy interfaces and tend to
be more focused than comprehensive.
INTERVIEWS
B-3: Liked layout of Vice for its simplicity and its continuous scrolling - streamlined
info acquisition.
​
B-2: Likes information in FAQ format, doesn’t want to sift through a lot of text to get
the information he’s looking for.
​
B-20: Google searches for information but usually found weird websites or chat
groups. He talked about looking for legitimate sites like Planned Parenthood or ones
that are “created by a real [legitimate] entity”.
​
A-1: Doesn’t trust websites generally that don’t end in .gov or .org - very skeptical of sex resources that can’t be vetted easily like a typical .com page.
​
E-25: Likes apps/programs that provide instant access such as online banking, Google, and social media.
​
​
DESIGN IDEAS

PERSONAS
Meet BRENDA W. & MIKE
Since our design is based around a website resource that is intended to grow and change over its life, we felt it would be appropriate to utilize all four design techniques, with some taking higher priority than others. As such, we focused on defining personas to live within the world of our design, and then used the other techniques to flesh out their experience.
See our other insights here...
Knowing that the utility of our design is based around a number of hypothetical situations, we decided to ground our scenario in a very relatable problem: choosing a birth control method. Using Brenda's story to ground our design helped us convey the mindset of our user (confused, nervous, curious, uncertain) and create a narrative that ends by providing a solution to the issue. In lieu of real content, we use examples of the kind of content we might commission that would be helpful to the user. In writing the scenario, we kept in mind one of our prototypes as the basis for the interaction.
​
​
scenario
Read Brenda's scenario

During studio time, we split into 2 groups and worked on two different iterations of a paper prototype - one that focused on the AMA/FAQ functionality that many of our interview subjects desired and another that used a dialogue flowchart in the style Jellyvision's ALEX to help guide people to the information they want.
​
We are currently in the process of refining those paper prototypes into something slightly more usable and visually appealing, but the idea is to find the right balance of open and guided in our layout. Our users want to be able to find data quickly when they need it, but also to have information provided to them when possible - as such, our final design will likely use elements of both.
Protoypes
See our prototype process here
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