Designing a Food Insecurity Resource for Out-of-State ASU Students
Project Participants: Naomi Chau, Melia Curl, Carla Figueroa, and Sarah Sliman
Research Phase
The purpose of our user research was to address the issue of food insecurity among online, out-of-state students attending ASU and understand what this student population needs from a food insecurity interface. The main challenges identified to addressing food insecurity in this student group include: a lack of awareness of resources and programs, time and energy constraints (particularly for students who work full-time and/or who support families), and geographic location preventing these students from accessing resources that are based on campus or in Arizona.
My role: I created the survey, interview questions, and informed consent. I also conducted the research and co-wrote the research summary report with Naomi Chau.
User Personas
My role: I provided suggestions and feedback based on the research I conducted and also helped edit the personas.
Concept Story
My role: I came up with the idea of including an online quiz to quickly match students with relevant resources, suggested strong security measures due to the sensitive nature of information provided by students, and helped edit the concept story.
Susana Ruiz, 28, facing the challenges of single parenthood after her husband's passing, juggles a demanding job as a retail manager and online classes at ASU to provide for her daughter Sammy. Despite a recent promotion, financial strain forces Susana to sacrifice her own meals to ensure Sammy's well-being. Desperate for assistance, she explores an app recommended by ASU to streamline the food assistance enrollment process.
Initially, Susana is hesitant due to past difficulties with technology. She isn’t great at using apps (she can’t even seem to make Facebook work), and she’s highly concerned about uploading sensitive documentation on an app. However, Susana is reassured by screenshots of the app's user-friendly interface and the outlined security measures, including using the Duo app and protection equivalent to her ASU account. Deciding to give this app a shot, she decides to download the app and log in using her ASU ID.
The app's efficiency becomes evident as Susana completes a brief questionnaire matching her with the appropriate assistance programs in under five minutes. The home screen has a “to-do” section, providing a clear roadmap to the application process. She can see what documents she needs and how long each task should take her by clicking on each task.
Clicking "begin," Susana discovers the app's automatic saving feature every 60 seconds and the seamless integration with her ASU account, which pre-fills data such as her name, address, and date of birth. Uploading necessary documents becomes a breeze with the app's simple photo-scanning process. The app features question mark icons next to confusing prompts, offering clear explanations and guidance. Thanks to the app's intuitive design, Susana finished the first form quicker than expected.
Susana continues to the next step and appreciates that the app retains her information, making subsequent forms even more straightforward and quicker to fill out. She can complete them between cooking dinner, running errands, and taking her daughter to and from her dance class.
Susana feels confident as she completes the last form and knows the app will notify her when there’s an update to her case. She feels a weight lifted from her shoulders, knowing she’s taking steps to build a better present and future for herself and her daughter.
Sketchboards
For this stage of the project, I was tasked with designing the online quiz portion of the app to match food insecure ASU students with relevant resources in minutes. Below you can see the initial sketchboards I created before making the interactive mockup.
Mockup of Online Quiz
*Please note this is just a three screen mockup of what the quiz might look like, and not a fully fleshed out quiz. Because the assignment needed to be submitted as an interactive pdf, it was created through Balsamiq rather than Figma.
Design Explanation
In the research phase of this project, our findings revealed that current ASU food resources are geared towards in-state and in-person student populations and do not adequately support students who attend ASU as online, out-of-state students. Additional user data also indicated that time and energy constraints and lack of assistance with finding food insecurity programs were two major barriers for seeking food assistance within this student demographic.
The redesign goal was to address the barriers mentioned above by coming up with a solution that makes it easy for students to find programs they are eligible for, minimizing the time and energy needed to find these programs, and to expand the online resources available for students residing outside the state of Arizona. The idea that was eventually selected was an online quiz that would collect information from students to quickly match them with programs based on their individual circumstances and needs. Additionally, the resources provided upon completion of the quiz include resources that can be utilized by students living out-of-state.
