Increasing access for those hardest to reach - the trauma-informed story of Sunny

Transcript

1. UX Australia 2019 -29th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU2908B) CELSO BORGES: Hello, I'm Celso, I’m the design (inaudible) and I'm with Libbi. LIBBI CUNNINGTON: I'm from 1800 RESPECT. CELSO BORGES: The story of Sunny and today's presentation is about documenting the key moments and learns from the design of this wonderful little app called Tony. In the talk we will try and focus on perhaps practical application of (inaudible) design principles and really touch on some of the considerations when engaging with people that are vulnerable. Now, traumatising events such as war, natural disaster, child abuse and domestic violence can have a really severe impact on how people can communicate, how they can answer basic questions, or even just think and act rationally. This design seeks to recognise those effects and certain experience that it's not going to further traumatise or re-traumatise that user. There was the use of this in physical places such as hospitals and shelters and at school s they are underpinned by safety, trust worthiness, and collaboration. As products become digitised, access to real users becomes increasingly limited. It's more important than ever that we try to design programs and systems for those who are hardest to reach. LIBBI CUNNINGTON: Thank, Celso. I'm Libbi, I'm from the national sexual assault domestic violence counselling service. We offer 24 hour a day counselling for anyone who is experiencing family violence, domestic violence, sexual assault as well as an online chat service. We're run by the Federal Government to run that service. At certain times we get given projects that are outside of our daily core business about areas of need and we found that - and I will show you some pretty alarming statics about the violence towards women with disabilities that prompted this project. So, 20% of the Australian population are Australian women, Australian women with disabilities to that equates to about 2 million people. What we know is that one in five women with disabilities have experienced sexual violence. And 40% of women with disabilities are more likely to experience violence in Somme par ton to women without disability. We also know that women with disabilities are less likely to be believed, if they've experienced abuse, and are like likely to report it. And probably the statistic that keeps me up at night is that 90% of women intellectual disabilities have experienced some time of sexual abuse and 68% of these have experienced this before they were 18. So, because of these statistics, in 2016 Women with Disabilities Australia, who are our peak advocacy organisation for women with disability s were given a project to really look at the way that 1800 RESPECT responds to women with disabilities when they are experiencing this. So, it was a 6-month project and it started off with 100 (inaudible) from across Australia oif comes to give suggestions on how to better improve the service. In the end, the report had about 50 recommendations on how we could improve our service and I guess one of the most important ones and the ones that we've posed to us as a challenge was
2. UX Australia 2019 -29th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU2908B) Page 2 of 5 that existing resources are not tailored to the specific needs of women with intellectual disabilities, constraining their capacity safely to engage with their supporters. So where do we start? We knew that if we were going to - we got given some funding to deliver a project and I knew that if we were going to deliver a quality product that could help women with disabilities that we needed to develop a co design for women with disabilities. We were lucky to work with eight from across Australia who involved projects from the inception to the deployment of the app. Some of the women had disabilities that affected their vision, some had hearing impairments, some had intellectual disabilities, some had acquired brain injuries, and some had brain injuries that affected their movement. Had had been survivors of some pretty traumatic sex use abuse. So, the journey begins. Else can else can as our journey -- CELSO BORGES: As our journey started, we realised we had done some work with 1800 RESPECT. Understanding the context and the specific needs was important. We began with just trying to understand the impact that intellectual disability has on everyday living and at the same time how the different types of violence and abuse by define ed by 1800 RESPECT and is (inaudible) for a woman with disabilities. When aligning our activities and the engagement, we wanted to underpin it with the principle I spoke about earlier. All the activities that we plan and every time we spoke some of these users there were certain considerations we had to keep in mind. SPEAKER: So, I guess there's kind of eight main areas that we took into consideration when walking with people who had women who had experienced trauma but people in general. There's a (inaudible). We always allowed to, within the resetting, we always possession the person near the door so if we were talking quite often traumatic experiences, we wanted it to be quite accessible, so people could get in there, particularly those in wheelchairs. We also avoid sitting or standing behind the participant, especially when doing the user testing. We found that never wanted to stand behind any of the women for them to feel like we were honouring their movements because we wanted their true responses. We all sit or just generally in the room with them. But not behind them. Where possible, we conducted the interview in a room that wasn't corporate. For some of our money in the (inaudible) advisory group, we had a particular cafe that we would go to. It was a quiet Hafey. So, it wasn't busy and allows for that kind of peaceful environment. And it's really important to kind of really stay away from those institutional-rooms. No-one wants to be in there, that is not conducive to real conversation or thoughts. We also made the participant aware that they could stop the interview or the session any time they wanted to. We were really up-front be how long things would take. We would say if they needed a break no judgment, we understood that. And of course, you would have your ample water and tissues within arm's reach. We also scheduled more time for the interview. So, we wouldn't do 40-minute interviews in an hour. As you will see later. One of our participants, Ang, she speaks at a slower pace because of her injury. So sometimes a one-hour interview might take three hours. But that was important to set aside the three hours because we go to hear her
3. UX Australia 2019 -29th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU2908B) Page 3 of 5 ideas. SPEAKER: We are also really aware that telling your story condition quite therapeutic. For others it can be quite distressing, especially in a group environment where we're really aware of that. So, we could always offer follow-up counselling with 1800 RESPECT but checking in with each other as well. It's something to be super aware of. CELSO BORGES: So, what these key considerations in mind we were ready to have our first meeting withed a hd. When we meant to meet with them, we weren't very certain about their level of Coffs with applications, with devices or content. We were quite surprised that the findings and the apps and the interaction that they were quite use to. One of the key findings is his English content is key when delivering to an audience like that. So, we would need content and graffiti for a 6- year-old. I have had a vital role in developing the content and I helped the develop the questionnaire. The real approach is the conversational pieces with them, and they were quite similar with Facebook messenger, not surprised most of them were on the Facebook app and they're quite used to that interaction. So that is something to consider, the (inaudible) method - this is through content and then the quick exit button, a preferred feature in the sector to hide the (inaudible) of the app in case the device is being monitored. Some of the apps we suggested which uses a shaking gesture to hide the app. We had to think of a much easier way to do it and at the same time making it too difficult to access and that wouldn't suit the fundamental ability of the app in the function at the same time. From there we had another workshop and the workshop we began with first asking all the applications to tell us what each of these principles meant to them, safety, trust worthiness, what does each mean to them, collaboration and power. Once we establish that we move to the trauma model, so we look at the needs of this audience. Then designing for and with people that are vulnerable, it's really important to have continuous collaboration and testing. We produced over five prototypes to test and consolidate our process. We have had a naming work shop that they're all contributed to and they've produced over 70 games which is a lot, very interesting names, which we will then use to divide into two brand directions that help with the design of Sunny. SPEAKER: We then wrote those directions out to make it for the members to understand what they meant and what they would recommend because they are so designing this app with ut. The first research was a calmness, selfless community that is better together and on the other side they had the action to choose from which has to be a proud, purposeful and we presented the photos to the 2G A direction most. They felt session 1 was the one to use. Sonny helping to explore options for support. But who better to take you through some of the features than one of the members, Ange. ANGE:
4. UX Australia 2019 -29th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU2908B) Page 4 of 5 Hi, I'm Ange (inaudible) advocate and I would like to introduce you all to (inaudible). I have been very proud to be involved in developing. The app is called Sunny. And it’s (inaudible) for women with disabilities (inaudible) can help you tell your story (inaudible). Sunny helps you (inaudible) together and (inaudible) we always click the hide button and Sunny will transform into another app. It's a very important app. (Inaudible) give many people as possible (inaudible) to have (inaudible) around Australia. [APPLAUSE] SPEAKER: We will pass that on. CELSO BORGES: So Sunny uses interactive story techniques to help women with disabilities to understand what violence and abuse is. It does that in an interactive way at the pace that suits them. It helps capture their story by utilising an easy to use accessible keyboard that combines a very familiar pattern for them with easy English to help capture their story and share it with someone that can help them. It's really important that Sunny can teach these women about sexual violence and the content and writing content in a way that helps them retain is really important. So, we worked with members from (inaudible) to help us bring the English content. You will see on the left-hand side the World Health Organisation definition of sexual violence is a lengthy paragraph and difficult for them to comprehends. But taking into account some of the language considerations on the right-hand side, you can see how that content is simplified into an easy to understand phrase and the way it's delivered in the app is in combination with an icon or ill frustration that is familiar to these people and it really helps with universal comprehension of this content. Now, because of the (inaudible) principles we have put in to help us with the design, designing the app for everyone and the accessibility effort that we went through, it's starting to look like Sunny is extending beyond its original purpose. And we have some amazing stories. LIBBI CUNNINGTON: I've been really fortunate, since the launch of Sunny, go to lots of events and promote Sunny and not just in the family violence and accessibility space. But I went to a conference at UNSW and I was speaking to a maternal health nurse who works in Blacktown in NSW and they have a high population of migrant and refugee - migrant refugee community. And there was a woman that she was working with who was pregnant, who was experiencing abuse, who didn't - she couldn't speak English so she used Sunny to help that woman identify what was helping her. So that was an amazing story. Also, speaking to people at state trustees who you need - who work with people when they're developing wills and guardianship for people be disability, quite often those contents they're talking at wills and instructors and testaments can be quite difficult to understand. So, the idea is simplifying those difficult concepts into something like Sunny in 12 words or less so people are not afraid to talk about Wills and things like that so that could be of benefit to them. Probably the most feedback I've got is - had is from people saying that every teenager should
5. UX Australia 2019 -29th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU2908B) Page 5 of 5 have Sunny - teenage girls but also teenage boys because of the language we're using and because we've condensed its words, they use at iconography so they can identify with. Who knows, it might be in respectful relationships curriculum one day. CELSO BORGES: And in conclusion we've been hearing as a constant theme so far in the talks be we want to echo it, involve real users throughout the process, continue to collaborate while you're designing with them and for them. Have the universal assumption that trauma impacts how we interact with products. Keep that in mind and make it accessible for real and we think if we all have to do and create products and systems in this way, we can increase access for those that are hardest to reach. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]