The Wise Choice
The Wise Choice was created for a nonprofit organization based in New York City, that is a leading provider of sexual and reproductive health services and information. The organization strives to build a world where all communities have full access to innovative, high-quality, affordable, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health services.
This project was created during my first year studio module at Parsons School of Design.
Service
Design Research & Service Design
Year
2016
OBjECTIVE
Our studio module for this class was divided into different groups. Our group was briefed to come up with a solution for organization that looked into improving parent-teen relationships from the parent’s point of view when it comes to conversing about sex.
The objective was to identify an untapped consumer segment and proposing a crowd-sourced platform which will also be an additional revenue stream for the organization.
OUTCOME
Our white paper goes through our entire thought process of creating a platform that will help build a community of people that are knowledgeable about parent-child relationships.
It is targeted towards parents in New York City who wish to talk to their teenagers about sex and reproductive health, but do not know how to approach the topic. The network will elevate the overall quality of interactions and eventually result in bridging the communication gap between them.
Discovery Process
To dig deeper into the customer segment of the organization, we decided to analyze the youth as well as the parents to understand where the opportunity was. We conducted a research on how the non-profit organization can project themselves as a brand that focuses on providing their customers with knowledge that promotes pre-natal care, adoption or abortion in contrast to its currently perceived image of being pro-abortion.
Ethnographic Interviews
We decided to proceed in the process with conducting primary research. We used the technique of interviewing the users, where we prepared a questionnaire that would guide us to gather relevant information. This research method helped us understand our target audience better in terms of their needs, hopes, values and problems.
Collecting insights on how the client’s service was perceived compared to their competitors helped us determine the direction we needed to take to improve and grow the client’s business.
Co-creation Workshop
Besides the information we gathered in our surveys, we did a co-creation workshop with our stakeholders and peers. This workshop was conducted at Parsons - The New School where 25 students, 2 Parsons lecturers, and 6 stakeholders from the non profit organization participated. The aim of this workshop was to create new approaches for products, services and business models by brainstorming with other students as well as members of the organization. This resulted in more creative ideas that helped us to narrow down the focus area.
Crowd-sourcing Platform
After extensive research, we identified an untapped consumer segment by proposing a crowd-sourced platform which will also be an additional revenue stream for the organization. The network will elevate the overall quality of interactions between parents and eventually result in bridging the communication gap between their children and them.
Prototype
We created the prototype of this platform on InVision after mapping out the user flow. The key features include being able to search for relevant topics based on the user’s need, a chat feature that allows the user to converse with a friend or an anonymous member and the option to chat with a health advisor with a real time response built in.
Team Credit: Virginia Maria Alvarez Roldan, Pankhuri Kanwar, Savani Mirashi, Suma Balaram