Integration by design
Role: Service / UX designer
Company: Startup Refugees
Year: 2019
In my own Master thesis, I defend the importance of studying experiences as complex phenomena. The angle for that thesis was immigration, so I now how complex it is for people to move and set to a different place. For refugees and immigrants that come to Finland, finding a way to get independence and ownership of their lives is crucial. Startup Refugees is an NGO that helps them and I collaborated with them in the 2019 edition of the DASH Service Design hackathon to improve their services. This concept was the winning project that year and selected by Startup Refugees to be developed further.
The Startup Paths is a service concept that aims to prepare its users to achieve their goals whether those imply finding a job, start a business up or find up-skilling options. The service works in this concept as an app and could also be a web-based service. Startup Paths allow users to create a profile and provide data about themselves, their goals and life situation. Their data then is matched to a "Path" suitable for them that the users can start with the help of Startup Refugees.
My role in short:
Service designer
Research and analysis
Ideation, concepting and validation
UX and UI designer
Responsibilities:
1. Research on immigration context & users
2. Benchmarking
3. Data analysis
4. Service design
5. UX design
6. User personas, journey mapping and service blueprinting
7. Interaction design and prototyping
Context
Startup Refugees partnered with DASH in 2019 and provided a challenge for Service Designers to solve. The challenge was basically how to help refugees and immigrants to reach them and use their services. Part of the issue that Startup Refugees finds when working with their customers is that they might not be ready for a job or starting their own business. This does not mean that they cannot find help and support but makes the interactions between them more difficult. Me and three more service designers took on this challenge.
"How can we help refugees and immigrants to set realistic expectations and guide them towards the best Startup Refugees services for them?"
Research
Our team's first step was to get a deep understanding of the different elements revolving around refugees' experiences in Finland and their needs regarding integration, specially in terms of joining the job market.
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About integration:
Immigration is a complex experience, especially when it occurs involuntarily. We acknowledged the importance of understanding the thoughts and feelings of refugees before designing any solutions. In our initial phase, we engaged with individuals willing to share their experiences with us. Due to the time frame we had, we could not dwelve into each and all of the different complexities immigration as a refugee deals with, but we could understand that the lives of those who do come to Finland on that basis are packed with many feelings and emotions but sometimes, not enough space to cope with them. Refugees are expected to belong to society and integration policies are not effective, nor human-centric enough. When it comes to integrating to the workforce, we discovered that refugees and immigrants often have different perspectives on work and entrepreneurship, shaped by their countries of origin and these perspectives can clash with the realities of the Finnish job market, which often favors Finnish-speakers, connections and follows the local laws and regulations rigorously. Many expressed a need for guidance, preferring personalized support over a generic list of services. This was where our concept idea was born.
Ari, one user persona to open up the discussion:
With the insights we got from the research I created a persona that would encapsulate our findings in the best way possible. Our persona is Ari, a refugee that has come to Finland not long ago and is still adapting to the change in his life.
Ari
Ari is a young refugee in Finland. He has come as a refugee and will be residing in Finland from now on. He is still discovering his surroundings and trying to make a home out of his new surroundings.
Key needs:
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Accessible information
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Human-friendly services
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Services that reflect his context and needs
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Guidance and clear processes
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Needs personalised attention
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Sense of ownership
Key challenges:
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Offer a personalised experience
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Maintain engagement
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Meet expectations regarding quality and amount of help
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Keep a human-friendly approach through digital.
Ari as a persona would help us to communicate the service concept we worked on during this hackaton and put it in context while offering a more realistic perspective.
The service:
Startup Paths is a service concept that helps refugees and immigrants with personalised guidance on how to get started in the job market in Finland. This service aims to give customers a sense of ownership over their lives and work future by understanding their situations and give recommendations and guidance based on them. It combines digital and physical interactions with Startup Refugees that focus on building trust between them and the refugees. The service is accessible to anyone that approaches Startup Refugees and does not require an immediate commitment, which means that the first approaches are completely up to the service users.
People can easily approach the service first through a digital application where refugees and immigrants can create their own profile and provide data used to shape the services provided by Startup Refugees. The main value Paths provides, is matching user data with pre-made profiles. These profiles are associated with one or more step-by-step programs offered by Startup Refugees. In other words, each path is a step-by-step plan towards an end goal and depending on the data provided. These plans are called Paths and each path will guide the users step-by-step into achieving different goals such as: starting a business, getting a job or upskilling. The key to success of these paths does not lie only on using a digital tool, but also in a systematic interaction with Startup Refugees personnel and network. What users get is much more than a catalogue of services, but meaningful help and guidance towards the best option for them.
PATHS is not just a list of services, but a guiding experience that focus on finding the best option for each customer. PATHS does not feel like a sales person but as a friend that listens and walks step-by-step with you through the uncertainty and challenges of starting a new life in a foreign place.
Ari's journey
I created this small customer journey as a story where the main character Ari comes to Finland and finds out about Startup Refugees and the PATHS application. The story illustrates how the interaction happens also outside of the application and the service is dynamic and personal.
The three main interactions
(Above) Setting the application and creating a profile is very easy. Signing up also establishes a connection between the user and Startup Refugees.
(Above) The mindset quiz helps users reflect on their readiness for starting up a business or find a job. This also helps Startup Refugees guide them and know beforehand how to address different topics and give better advice.
(Above) Finding a PATH requires users to go through a series of questions and activities that reflect on their current life situation, their goals and dreams and their different skills. The results are calculated and reviewed by Startup Refugees to match the user with a PATH to follow. Examples of these different PATHS could be: Entrepreneurship, Job-seeker and Up-skilling. Each PATH can be previewed by the user and, when chosen, facilitated as a service by Startup Refugee and guides the user step-by-step towards their goals.
Remarks
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Startup Paths was the winner of our DASH challenge with Startup Refugees receiving praise for its human-centric approach and focus on finding the right problems before jumping to solutions.
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I took a personal interest in this challenge as my Masters thesis was on the topic of immigration as a phenomenon and this project shed more light on the complexities of it.
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As this was a hackathon, it meant that the time we had to create was limited but luckily, Startup Refugees took interest in continuing the efforts on this concept and was used to shape their future services.
