Colorado COVID Food Resource Assistance is an IOS mobile app is intended to connect those in need of food resources during these troubling times due to COVID-19.
Objective
The overall objective of this project was to design an IOS mobile app that is centered around COVID-related health and human services.
Coloradans recently underemployed/unemployed need a better system to access available food assistance resources because their loss of income due to COVID is pushing them towards food scarcity.
The global pandemic that we are currently experiencing, Coronavirus (COVID 19), has made many families afraid of food scarcity due to loss of income and potential unemployment. On March 11, 2020, an executive order was signed and released for Colorado declaring a disaster emergency due to Coronavirus Disease (COVID 19) becoming a worldwide plague (Gov. Polis). Due to the mandates enacted to keep Coloradans “safer at home,” many jobs were required to be cut for the time being in order to slow down the spread of COVID by minimizing as much unnecessary contact as possible. The order affected businesses like bars, gyms, restaurants, and similar business facilities. Coloradans were recommended to stay home unless they needed to go to the grocery store, exercise outside, or any other activity that was deemed necessary to leave your home; all while remaining socially distant and wearing proper facial coverings. Thus, resulting in roughly 323,500 jobs being lost, skyrocketing the unemployment rate to 11.3% (DenverPost.com). Although there has been a significant amount of assistance for those affected, not all individuals qualify for any unemployment or SNAP benefits. In Colorado, roughly every one-in-three are struggling to eat; “it would be impossible without the food banks” (DenverPost.com). My app will assist those individuals and/or families experiencing food scarcity due to COVID related difficulties. The app will connect those in need by connecting them with resources throughout their communities that provide food for individuals and families in need during these tough times. The app will connect individuals with resources like local food banks, food pantries, or community gardens that will allow for those individuals/families affected to have access to food. The overall goal of the app is to help those that are facing difficult times due to COVID and to make sure no one goes hungry throughout our community.
Refrences:
indi, S. (2020, August 08). 1 in 3 are struggling to eat in Colorado: "It would be impossible without the food banks". Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/08/food-banks-help-coronavirus-covid-colorado/
Svaldi, A. (2020, May 22). Colorado lost more than a Wyoming's worth of jobs in April. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/22/colorado-unemployment-rate-april-covid/ (Links to an external site.)
Governor Jared Polis. (2020, March 11). Executive Order D 2020 003. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.colorado.gov/governor/sites/default/files/inline-files/D%202020%20003%20Declaring%20a%20Disaster%20Emergency_1.pdf
Through the design of this mobile app, my approach was to create a mobile app that was easily accessible to a variety of markets. I wanted the information to be clear and concise as well as provide consumers with any and every resource possible available to them at the palm of their hands I had to find my target market and discover their "pain". Once the target market was discovered I had to come up with a "painkiller" for the market. I then started creating designs from my ideas. A logo was created, a persona, a user journey flow chart, a competitive analysis was conducted, and the IOS mobile app was designed. Software used to design/prototype this mobile app: Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Xd.
Design Research
The design research for Colorado COVID Food Resource Assistance began with researching COVID-related health and human services. I found food insecurities to be a very common issue I came across, thus I chose that to be the pain for my consumers. Once the pain was identified, I now had to create the painkiller for my market. My market consisted of individuals that are experiencing food insecurities due to COVID-19. My persona Macey Jones was created; Macey is a single mother of 3 working as a server full-time while being a full-time student. Coming up with a plan(painkiller) that would best achieve the goal of connecting consumers to available resources nearby. Once I had my ideas in place I started with a user journey flow chart to act out different scenarios, this was created with Adobe Illustrator. Then I conducted a Competitive Analysis of similar IOS applications created using Adobe InDesign. I then started sketching out design ideas for the app and created it using Procreate. The finished product was created using Adobe XD.
Below you will find the gallery for my design research elements
App Logo
My inspiration behind
the logo was the CO
state flag.
Created using Procreate for iPad
Mobile App Design
Usability Research Findings
Due to the current global pandemic, COVID-19, normal human contact/interaction is not what we once knew. COVID has greatly impacted our learning environments and we’ve all gone remote. Virtually attending school is nothing like being there in person, if there wasn’t a pandemic taking place my forms of user testing would have gone over so smoothly, and I would have probably gotten a lot more testers for my mobile app. But due to the current circumstances, I had to make do. My unmoderated remote usability test consisted of having friends and family test out the usability of my mobile app. My main concerns for the app that I told them to focus on were accessibility, flow, readability, and efficiency. Is it an app that is easily accessible to maneuver through? Does it all flow together? Can you understand/comprehend what each page is intended for? And is it efficient, does it cover all the resources one would need in order to get access to COVID related food resources? From there, I collected all my feedback and tweaked the app design to be more efficient.
As I continued on this mobile app design, the more I felt I needed to deeper research who would use my app. I continued to add different features for accessibility onto the app, removed some features. Continued to add onto sections of the app to better provide for my consumers. The qualitative aspects consisted of how many different demographics I would have, the age spans, the income they make, how many dependents they have, how many customer service representatives would be needed for the app. The qualitative aspects consisted of the region of CO they lived in, employment, ordinal data (rating the app on a 1-5 star rating system), education, etc.
My design updates were prioritized based on what aspects needed the most work and continuously was brought to light. A better customer service section on the app was a big want for the app. Some sort of live chat for those who need assistance now as well as being able to schedule an appointment with local gov’t official offices nearby. The way the events section was organized; I added an alphabetical A-Z list of the counties in CO for better flow.