Project Time
48 hours
Team Members
Eunike - Software Engineer
Aizel - Mobile Developer
Isabella - Experience Designer
Violet - UX Designer (that’s me🤗)
BACKGROUND
On the weekend of October 22-23, 2022, I had the pleasure of participating in the Hacking for Humanity Online Hackathon held by Girl in Tech Australia. I worked in a team of 4 members, and we chose a problem statement given by one of the charity participated in the Hackathon.
The charity we worked with was Amaze.
About Amaze
Amaze is a leading autism organization driving change so that Autistic people and their families can live their best lives. Their mission is to provide support to all Autistic people of all ages and works together with the autism community and a broad range of supporter to create a more autism-inclusive Australia.
What is Autism?
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. Each person with autism has a distinct set of strengths and challenges. The ways in which people with autism learn, think and problem-solve can range from highly skilled to severely challenged. Some people with ASD may require significant support in their daily lives, while others may need less support and, in some cases, live entirely independently.
PROBLEM + CHALLENGE
Problem Statement
How might we support our community of Autistic individuals and their carers to connect with each other to share collective experience and wisdom, and find services, events, and support that are relevant to them.
Challenge
There are 2 main challenges of this project, which include
Budget and Time Restrictions
Issues with User Research
Budget and time restrictions were the primary challenge for us. Cost-effectiveness was our priority. Since Amaze has limited ability to maintain and moderate the platform, one of the requirements was to have a lower possible tech debt, and the platform should be self-sustained. Furthermore, the whole design and development process had to be done in 48 hours, which means, we didn’t have time to conduct comprehensive user research and usability testing.
GOAL
Design and develop a self-sustained and crowd-sourced conversation platform for the autism community.
Providing a safe and inclusive online environment where users can share and create content about their experience and services.
USER RESEARCH
Identify the Potential Users
In the initial client meeting, Amaze provided us with some data they collected about their users.
30% of Amaze's contacts are with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
50% are family members of an autistic person.
20% are ASD professionals who are willing to provide support.
Nearly 50% of autistic people contacting Amaze directly aged between 26 to 50.
There’s an existing contact network of 25k users.
User Pain Points
Lack of Access to Support
Many autistic people and their families are geographically and socially isolated. Service, support, and therapists are in short supply. It is difficult for users to find skilled support nearby.
High Level of Anxiety and Depression
Many autistic people and their carers experience frustration, overwhelm, despair, and loneliness while waiting for support.
Concerns about Privacy and Cyberbullying
Autistic people and their carers may not want to participate in questions, discussions, and events using their personal accounts. This is because they are afraid of sharing too much personal information with the community and being bullied.
PERSONA + USER JOURNEY MAP
In order to give a better understanding of how our users interact with the online community, we created two user stories of the primary user groups.
A Father of an Autistic Child
A Young Adult on the Spectrum
OUR SOLUTION
We had several ideas about the online community, which include designing a mobile responsive portal for the users of Amaze. However, due to the budget and time restrictions, the developers in our team suggested creating a Discord server with a featured bot. The Amaze-Bot would be capable of parsing services and events submitted by users and giving them a shoutout in the relevant channel.
Organized Categories
In order to make Amaze’s Discord server more user-friendly, we decided to add categories to organize the channels into sections. We didn’t consider the information section because Amaze already has a website with all the relevant information about Autism.
Advantages
High Level of Safety
There is a dyno bot that can filter profanities, spam detection, and phishing link filter. As a result, we are able to create a safe and inclusive environment for users. Moreover, Discord allows users to use nicknames to join the community. Therefore, people who prefer not to share much personal information can hide their identity behind their nicknames.
Low Tech Debt and Easy to Host
The server is hosted by Discord. With the help of the Discord bots, it is mostly a self-sustained online community, which doesn’t need the client to monitor frequently. And at the end of the Hackathon, the server was mostly developed and ready for testing.
Cost Effectiveness
There are no fees charged by Discord and the dyno bot we used. However, the python bot will cost our client $60 per year, charged by CapRover.
NEXT STEPS
Refine the layout of the Discord channel
Pass off the bot to Amaze
Deploy the bot onto a server
Start promoting!
LESSONS LEARNED
Start Earlier
If we had connected with each team member and Amaze earlier and got as much as information we need before the hackathon began, we could have done much more brainstorming before the weekend.
Task Management is Important
We were only given 48 hours to design and develop the whole product. Although we were allowed to research and brainstorm ahead, time was still extremely tight. We had a lot to do in the 48 hours. Therefore, the only way we can complete this project on time was to prioritize tasks and manage time.
Trust and Transparency are Essential in Teamwork
This Hackathon helped me to understand how UX designers and software developers usually work together on a project as a team and it also helped me to develop valuable team-building skills.
Thank you for reviewing my work!
Hope you enjoy the project! And I would be grateful to hear your feedback😊
