Unite and Fight Hackathon

A mobile app connecting resources to people

 Background: When I was in my UXUI Immersive program in the summer of 2020, George Floyd was killed by police officers. The shock and pain affected us all in a moment further complicated by COVID-19. These transformational events for our society confirmed deeply for me that I want to use technology and the tools we have available to us, to design for positive impact.

The Unite and Fight Hackathon was announced as an initiative to bring our tech community together to design solutions to fight against racism, and fight for social justice. Some Designer/Developer friends and I formed a team. Below you’ll find our MVP version of a mobile app for the local non-profit, Smile Trust.

“Restoring dignity and power by feeding hearts, souls, and minds.”

-Smile Trust

Description: Hackathon teams had the opportunity to partner with a local organization. My team selected Smile Trust who shared hard facts with us about inequalities in Miami and how they are working to address such inequalities. Smile Trust places a focus on food insecurity, while providing other basic needs as well. Their Director told us, that in times of crisis, “Our communities are the last to be responded to, and the most vulnerable.”

This hackathon was organized in a way that we were able to hear from Smile Trust during a lightning talk. We took notes, and would then have the day to create solutions. Two weeks later we would meet with the organization again and continue to refine this on-going project. 

Using Design Thinking, my team got to work to organize our way forward.

Step 1: Empathize: We did an assessment of the current website, a quick competitive/inspiration-seeking audit, and complied what we understood about who our users are, based on what Smile Trust shared with us.

Step 2: Define: We began to define our goals and objectives. Clarifying a Problem Statement helped us to have a shared vision of what we were working on solving and how we would do it.

Problem: Historical inequality in Miami leads to racism, lack of access to healthy food, quality homes, healthcare and other basic needs. Smile Trust’s current website intends to fill the gap of such needs.

The organization has observed that they are not reaching as many community members as they would like, or as efficiently as they would like. Additionally, the website crashes in moments of increased use (ie post-hurricane).

Solution - The Task at Hand: Design a mobile app that: connects Smile Trust’s resources to community members, facilitates communication between Smile Trust and the community, is easily shared so members can spread the word about Smile Trust services, receives donations, educates all members of the Miami community. 

Step 3: Ideate: This was our first shot at an MVP feature list. It would end up changing later due to conversations with Smile Trust and also with our Dev team. However these are the key features that the team agreed would be designed:

Member creates profile/Admin approves - App saves member’s basic info so that unlike the current system, they don’t need to re-enter it each time.

Member can drop a pin for their location and it can be updated at any time - This is aimed at improving the experience for members who don’t have a stable address.

Member creates request/Admin approves - We want this central action to be easy to complete.

In-App messaging - Members will be notified when their request is about to be delivered and can easily communicate with the Smile Trust team

Step 4: Design & Prototype - My teammates and I divided and conquered, taking responsibility for various flows. We worked, and continue to work in Figma, which makes sharing, collaborating and viewing progress very convenient .

Submit an Application Flow - For the MVP, the Submit Application flow simply mirrors the current questions asked on the Smile Trust website request form. The benefit is that members only have to fill this out once on the app. Once they are an approved member, they can return to the app and complete the shorter flow of submitting requests for their needs.

On the design, we discussed keeping it very minimalistic. Clean and simple, no distracting elements. The shade of blue comes from Smile Trust’s logo and blue is a great option since it inspires calm and trust, emotions we want users of this app to feel.

Once a community member completes the above flow, their application will be ready to be reviewed on the Admin side. Here we have the Manage People Flow, including what an approved member’s profile looks like. Smile Trust Admin can search members, access an alphabetical list, efficiently approve or deny (with a message as to how the member can be approved in the future), and they have an easy ‘direct message’ option from the member’s profile.

In-app messaging facilitates communication with members and ensures goods are delivered to the accurate location.

Step 5: Test and Iterate - We are currently testing, iterating and wrapping up our final touches on our prototype.

Outcome: We presented to a panel of judges in November 2020 and were announced as the winners of the Unite and Fight Hackathon 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

We are extremely excited to continue our partnership with The Smile Trust team and get this product live, connecting community members to essential resources. Stay tuned as we share our progress.