PROJECT focus:
discovery research
Client: New Practice Lab, a team of designers, researchers, policy experts, data scientists and technologists building a tighter link between policymakers and the families they serve. New Practice Lab works to improve family economic security and wellbeing through the way social policy is designed and delivered.
Goal: Create a listening practice through 18-month study to learn from participating economically vulnerable families with young children. Insights from families will inform recommendations for changes to social safety net through other projects at New Practice Lab and through disemminating findings to partners.
Role: Integrate into broader design team to provide bilingual (Spanish/English) workshop facilitation, qualitative research facilitation and analysis, and trauma-informed strategic approach to partnership building, data collection, and synthesis
Questions explored:
❋ How can New Practice Lab center families’ voices in social policy design, ensuring that policy solutions are informed by real experiences?
❋ What is it like for families across a variety of communities to raise children under the age of 6 with limited financial resources?
❋ How can benefit programs and community services be designed so that, through their utilization, families reach their definition of thriving?
Project CONTRIBUTIONS:
Co-Design Workshops
Facilitated two Spanish-language and one English-language co-design workshops with families from diverse backgrounds, including sensitive populations such as those who recently experienced homelessness, incarceration, immigration, chronic unemployment, and domestic violence. These sessions encouraged participants to envision an ideal social safety net and share their personal experiences with current programs.
Co-created workshop materials and design for optimal participation and discussion. Spanish workshop materials and transcripts were translated and back-translated between.
Diary Studies
Moderated three cohorts of 18-month virtual diary studies where families record their dynamic support needs and evolving life experiences through audio and written notes.
Ensured a safe, comfortable environment for participants to share and retained 75% of participants who began study through entire process.
Regularly presented findings via interactive workshops with broader team, ensuring that stakeholders could ask questions to guide future research, that the continued relevance of research to the team, and that insights were integrated into the broader organizational knowledge of families’ needs.
Collaboratively created prompts for diary study to achieve research goals and refine as the project evolves.
Dissemination and Discussion to External Stakeholders
Identify and present key insights and quotes on ongoing basis to community partners, policy and design teams and prompt discussion to guide the application of findings and direct future research.
Strategic support on participatory practices and working with unique needs
Advise team on trauma-informed practices to avoid harm in the research process for families participating in the project.
Additionally, highlight additional opportunities to integrate families in the design process and ensure their co-ownership of their stories in our research.
Impact
By exploring the lived experiences, we are gaining more insight into the common and unique hurdles that different families experience in raising their families, as well as where they currently turn for support. This ongoing research will inform the design of state and federal social safety net policies aimed at improving family economic security and well-being.
Additionally, by incorporating insights from Spanish-speaking participants, there is a more representative and nuanced understanding of diverse family experiences.
Though this is my biggest engagement with New Practice Lab, this work spurred other opportunities to amplify the experiences of Spanish-speaking participants in additional projects with the client, including user research on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service.
Trauma-informed practices established within the study also laid a foundation for organizational practices across various projects.
Feel free to follow this ongoing work and learn more here.
Feedback
Keara has consistently been strong at helping to keep the team focused on our stated goals when there can be a lot of noise and distraction, especially when it comes to conducting humane co-design and user research. There are a number of times I've relied on her for ensuring our work is ethical and accessible. Specifically, this has included everything from contributing to our organization's trauma-informed research practice guidelines to graciously staying longer after a workshop to ensure a participant had time to share their story and feel heard around some extremely difficult experiences. Her ability to work with Spanish-speaking communities has also enriched our findings and the perspectives we can include in our design work. I would trust Keara in almost any user research situation and know she'd handle it professionally and gracefully.
JESSICA WEEDEN, NPL DESIGN LEAD
Why this work lights me up
I know from firsthand experience that, all too often, systems meant to support people are designed with processes and requirements at the center, which makes it harder for families to advance in life. This is especially unfortunate because that is the opposite of what these resources are created to do. I believe end-user voice is crucial in understanding what direction social impact projects should go when building supports, whether that be a policy, a new service, or a digital product.