How might we destigmatize Planned Parenthood and educate people on the range of services they provide?
The Open Room | Planned Parenthood
Timeline
6 weeks, July - August 2020
Team
2 UX Designers, 1 UX Researcher
My Role
Service Design, Visual Design, User Research
Tools
Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Google Suite
Overview
The design brief for this project was to pick a brand to reimagine or reposition in a post-COVID context. My team chose Planned Parenthood as our client, in hope of making their services clearer and less stigmatized to the general public. Our new intervention - “The Open “Room” is an extension of current Planned Parenthood outreach programs and aims to educate and engage people with Planned Parenthood through in-person activities.
Note: I am not affiliated to Planned Parenthood, this was a hypothetical research and design project that I was a part of due to my interest and support for Planned Parenthood and its services.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
There is a huge lack of knowledge of the full range of services provided by Planned Parenthood.
While Planned Parenthood has existing educational programs to educate people on sexual health, there aren’t many efforts to educate people on what Planned Parenthood actually does.
How might we destigmatize Planned Parenthood and educate people on the range of services they provide?
“I think highly of the organization and the much needed services they provide. Most people I know are not aware of all they do and often they think of the organization negatively around abortion rights.”
“You have to search for PP information, and I feel that it’s not readily provided to young people.”
PROPOSED SOLUTION
We propose “The Open Room”, as an extension of current Planned Parenthood outreach programs.
The Open Room is an allocated safe space within community centers for people to learn and engage with Planned Parenthood services through interactive activities.
The implementation of “Open Rooms” has three goals:
Support communities with educational and informational resources.
Provides the opportunity to engage with a younger audience but also with adults who may need Planned Parenthood’s services.
Creates a more lasting impact on community members who could use this space for individual learning, discussions and informal consultations.
WALKTHROUGH
What would this look like?
As visitors approach The Open Room, they are greeted with a short introduction to the space.
Upon entering, visitors would see that the space is somewhat split to encourage more independent exploration and learning on the left side, and more discussion and collaboration of the right.
The first interactive activity within the space is a simple “Did you know” board, in which visitors can learn fast facts about Planned Parenthood and get a glimpse of how their community members perceive the organization.
Visitors can also independently familiarize themselves with the wide range of services Planned Parenthood offers, and take home interactive info cards.
In this section of the space, community members can anonymously share experiences they have had with Planned Parenthood to de-mystify and de-stigmatize these experiences.
Twice a week, there would also be a Planned Parenthood representative or volunteer in the space to answer more specific questions about clinical services.
In the collaborative area, community members can engage in weekly discussions and guest talks surrounding topics such as sexual and reproductive health.
Before leaving the space, visitors can anonymously post questions regarding sexual and reproductive health, or Planned Parenthood, on the question wall and receive answers from both community members and experts.
PROBLEM TO SOLUTION
Design Process
We used the double diamond model to help guide us; the phases consisted of discover, define, develop and deliver.
The discover phase consisted of primary (interviews and surveys) and secondary (business model canvas) research. The define and develop phases lasted 3 weeks each and culminated in a final presentation & pitch of our solution.
User Research
Our initial research focused on better understanding Planned Parenthood’s brand values and areas for potential interventions to improve the service. We did this by creating a business model canvas, touchpoint map and customer journey map based on primary and secondary research.
We conducted interviews, sent out surveys and did secondary research to collect information on how people view Planned Parenthood and their knowledge on the service.
Our two main findings were:
There is an overall lack in knowledge of full range of services
A call to be perceived as more approachable
How do we promote this space?
We designed promotional materials within community centers and at a larger scale on the Planned Parenthood site. We continuously iterated on rebranding efforts which included logo designs, posters and other promotional materials.
Next Steps
Moving forward there’s several directions this project could go. Some ideas include:
1. Conducting user research to get feedback on this intervention and how to improve it
2. Creating a how-to guide on creating an “Open Room” within your local community center
3. Role of technology in the space to create a more interactive experience
4. Adapting the concept to other public locations
Reflection & Takeaways
Although our new service ‘The Open Room’ was a hypothetical intervention and will not be implemented by Planned Parenthood, this project taught me a lot about service design and user experience design for in-person experiences.
Find ways to collect primary user research when possible
Due to the short timeline of our project we initially considered using mostly secondary research. However, the rich information we gathered through interviews and questionnaires led to us identifying a clear gap early on. Without doing primary research our project would have looked extremely different.
Try to include users in all stages of the project
We continued talking to users as we designed our solution ‘The Open Room’ and the feedback we received throughout the project was invaluable. Including users in all stages of the design process made our project richer and allowed us to envision the Open Room as a real, tangible experience for users.
If you enjoyed this case study, check out my other projects!
