Project 2 : COURAGE Project

• Purpose
• Objective
• Stakeholder Mapping
• Day of Research
• Design Precedents
• Interviews
• Modeling
• User Scenarios
• Design Framework
• Mockups

Purpose:

10.8.2018

Design a system to enhance how law enforcement and the communities they police, handle sexual assault and domestic violence. To break down gender bias and to create a more aware and trauma informed law enforcement-community alliance.

Objective:

10.8.2018

For victims of DV/SA who were treated poorly by law enforcement, Accountability App will keep law enforcement accountable to their actions. Accountability App uses police data and close interaction with the public to make sure law enforcement are making changes.

Stakeholders:

10.8.2018

In class we researched potential stakeholders and came up with a few of the following:

• law enforcement
• survivors
• medical professionals
• law makers
• judges
• activists
• marginalized communities
• and many others...

Stakeholder map from in class discussion:

Day of Research:

10.11.2018

Interview with Rosie:

The Courage and policing project is working on addressing DVSA from grass roots and from local and state coalitions, working together to make a difference. In addition to coalitions, there are other community based organizations and stakeholders who want access to safety and justice. The Courage Project is working to provide them with information on the department of justice guidance, the Jessica Lanham case, and the resources and tools that are useful at all levels. There are three legs to the problem, passing laws, providing the services that are needed to ensure the laws are followed, and also changing the social norms. All of which take time and effort.

Rosie asked the hard hitting questions:

How do we call attention to:

A. The need to improve the response to SA and DV?

B. How do we put resources into the hands of the community to be partners in that effort? What does that partnership look like of community and stakeholders?

C. How do we link people to resources?

How do we talk about healthy relationships, how do we offer the resources that are needed, how do we mobilize communities, how do we mobilize men to hold other men accountable?

Round Table Meeting:

The round table meeting was very beneficial to be in a room surrounded by advocates and lawyers talking about how we can all come together to make a difference. It was incredible to see the impact that all of these people contributed, COURAGE asked everyone to examine the surveys they were set to release over the next month. These are the notes below on this very topic:

Home Truth Screening: The screening was a very emotional film, that reinforced just what Rosie discussed in our interview. The main point that was driven home for me, was that "A law is not worth the piece of paper that it is written on, if the laws are not enforced"

Home Truth Q&A: After the home truth film screening, there was a livestreamed Q&A where many asked questions.

Design Precedents:

10.21.2018

My group and I have spent the day researching design precedents for our groups presentation on 10.22. After interviewing Damian, our group had a short meeting via google hangout and then I spent my time researching two design precedents, summarizing Rosie's interview and developing our group presentation.

Here are my two design precedents:

Design Precedents #1: Ring the Bell - (Video)

This video is an advertising movement to ring the doorbell of a neighbor experiencing Domestic Violence. The video encourages people to take the time to ring the doorbell when they hear a violent situation happening, this is in order to ensure that a witness is present and to help stop the violence with a simple task of asking for sugar, or delivering “wrongly delivered mail”

This design precedent helps to lead to the development of other ideas similar to this video. Ideas that help to encourage communities to address domestic violence and sexual assault in a very simplistic way. This is somewhat similar to the educational Tea video.

Rose, Bud, Thorn Activity:

Design Precedents #2: Vodafone - "Between Us" - (Application)

This is a secret app that has been downloaded by 24% of all women in Turkey, the app disguises itself in order to protect women from domestic violence. The app allows for women to gather the information that they need about what to do next when facing a domestic violence or sexual assault attack. The app allows for women to alert 3 other people in an event, in order to contact loved ones to let them know about their situation. The app also offers secret videos that have hidden messages within them in order to inform those who have the app about updates to evolve the app and to remain a secret to all women.

This may not be necessary for all women in america; but maybe creating an application like this could help women in communities where it is deemed a crime in itself to go to the police. Those who may be judged critically by their community or family and would allow for them to discreetly receive help from medical, psychologist, or other professionals.

Rose, Bud, Thorn Activity:

Interviews:

10.11.2018 + 10.21.2018

Questions:

Rosie Hidalgo:

10.11.2018

• How does gender bias impact policing?
• What are some of the major gender biases that can be easily identified?
• What is the biggest improvement that you would like to see within LEA’s policies and responses to allegations of * sexual assault and domestic violence?
• How can failing to respond appropriately to crimes, harm a particular gender?
• What interviewing tactics are there that encourage a victim to participate and provide facts about incidents?
• What is the biggest improvement that you would like to see within LEA’s policies and responses to allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence?
• How have law enforcement agencies reacted to policy changes that were proposed in the past? What is the roadblock between the policies being proposed and implementation? This can be at any level (local, state, federal).
• Why does it seem as though reform regarding sexual assault and domestic violence isn't a high priority for LEAs?
• How is technology already being used to aid LEA response to sexual assault and domestic violence? In what ways does technology fall short? Once things have been reformed, how do we let victims know that reforms have happened and build up trust in LEAs?
• How effective are community-based domestic violence prevention and intervention networks at preventing violence and helping victims? As in, how does the presence of a strong community generally affect the cases of domestic violence and sexual assault locally?
• How effectively are victims connected to the services that they need?
• How do we as a community create more of an aware and intersectional gender lens? What is the greatest barrier to tackling this issue?
• Are the victims always aware of the fact that they are sexually assaulted? Are there any situation where victims were not aware of that?
• What kind of gender bias we are frequently encountered related to DV/SA？And how significant did they undermine the law enforcement to DV/SA?
• Do you think it is necessary to have liaisons for certain communities (eg: LGBTQ, immigrant)?
• Do you think the public has enough awareness and right cognition of the DV/SA and how to deal with it?
• What’s the standard procedure should law enforcement go through to address those incidents? When it comes to intervening those incidents, does law enforcement have limitations? What are those limitations?
• Were victims always willing to seek help from law? What made victims reluctant to seek law enforcement assistance in a DV/SA situation?
• How often do assailants get away with punishments they deserved?
• Are the victims’ needs( incl. medical, emotional, safety and other needs) well taken care of after the trauma immediately? How about 5 years,10 years or longer times later?
• Are the resources addressing to the victims affordable to most people?
• Is there any ways that the law enforcement to DV/SA can reach out to the potential victims in advance, rather than wait until someone is assaulted? Do you think it will help to reduce those incidents?

Summary:

The Courage and policing project is working on addressing DVSA from grass roots and from local and state coalitions, working together to make a difference. In addition to coalitions, there are other community based organizations and stakeholders who want access to safety and justice. The Courage Project is working to provide them with information on the department of justice guidance, the Jessica Lanham case, and the resources and tools that are useful at all levels. There are three legs to the problem, passing laws, providing the services that are needed to ensure the laws are followed, and also changing the social norms. All of which take time and effort.

"How do we talk about healthy relationships, how do we offer the resources that are needed, how do we mobilize communities, how do we mobilize men to hold other men accountable?"

Questions:

Damian Gonzalez:

10.11.2018

• What is the COURAGE project’s biggest hurdle?
• Could you tell us more about the community kit that is being created through COURAGE?
• What is COURAGE doing to help create resources for SA/DV victims and outreach for the community? What resources stand out to you? What do you believe could be worked on the most for improvement?
• How does COURAGE plan to implement their community outreach survey into daily life? What is the biggest challenge to implementation?
• What is the biggest improvement that you would like to see within LEA’s policies and responses to allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence?
• How have law enforcement agencies reacted to policy changes that were proposed in the past? What is the roadblock between the policies being proposed and implementation? This can be at any level (local, state, federal).
• During the roundtable meeting, there was a lot of talk about “a trauma informed way to deal with victims”, in what ways is trauma being studied and understood?
• How effective are community-based domestic violence prevention and intervention networks at preventing violence and helping victims? As in, how does the presence of a strong community generally affect the cases of domestic violence and sexual assault locally?
• How effectively are victims connected to the services that they need? How often is there follow up to these victims?
• How do we reach out to communities in advance? (During the roundtable meeting, it was brought up that in some communities there are issues with going to the police or seeking any kind of refuge for sexual assault “it’s considered a crime in itself to tell someone”, how do we tackle this issue?)
• How do we as a community create more of an aware and intersectional gender lens? What is the greatest barrier to tackling this issue?

Summary:

COURAGE's goal is to bridge the gap between law enforcement and women in marginalized communities. Different communities have different cultures around DV/SA, and the police don't know how to deal with it. Police are also criminalizing victims who act out in self defense, and victims that are also sex workers. Big issue that COURAGE has right now: disseminating surveys out to the public. Officers need a guideline for how to respond to DV/SA in general, and how to respond to different communities specifically (the info from the survey will be used to figure that response out) Resources for both law enforcement agencies and victimized communities for spreading info about these topics.

Modeling:

10.22.18

Audience

Our audience for the Accountability App are victims of DV/SA who were treated poorly and not taken seriously by law enforcement, law enforcement officers (but mainly police executives), and members of the concerned general public.

Personas + Empathy Mapping

10.22.18

Empathy Mapping

In class, we conducted the beginning stages of our Empathy Mapping:

Persona 1

Police Officer Diaz:

Diaz the police officer, this is our persona of a police officer who works primarily in the field. He is young and has a lot to learn, but ultimately means well.

Persona 2

Police Chief Frank:

Frank the newly appointed police chief. He wants to help improve accountability and help the community, but he doesn’t have the time or information to do so effectively.

Persona 3

Linda the Victim:

Linda, the victim, is assaulted by her partner who is also her colleague. She biggest frustration is that she felt that she has no reliable resource to turn to.

Concept Map

Our design concept came from one of our group meetings and "How Might We"

User Scenarios:

11.5.18

Each group member took on one persona and one scenario. We found a way to utilize all of our original personas and develop a concept that can be useful to everyone. The scenario I worked on was the Victim & Advocate scenario, found below:

Scenario 1

Victim & Advocate

The victim is seeking advocacy & using the application to report a case.

Linda, the victim of DV/SA case is unsatisfied with her treatment by the police. She enters her case number into the app. Then, she is taken to a page where she can leave a comment regarding her case and take a quick survey. The victim can then get connected to an advocate group. Here, the stakeholder is the victim.

The victim is then providing helpful information into the app while still remaining anonymous.

The app utilizes this information with her permission to anonymously provide statistics for the area, the department, as well as the officer. The app then provides the victim with local advocacy organizations, including the numbers and names of advocates.

Scenario 2

Member of the Community

A member of the community looks at the statistics & leaves a suggestion.

A member of the public looks at the statistics. Here there are statistics that compare multiple demographics, showing info like number of cases left open, number of cases dismissed, etc.

The member of the public notices something in the statistics they think needs improvement. The person leaves a suggestion in the suggestion box for something the police could do to improve.

Scenario 3

Police Officer

Police officer is utilizing the Live Stream feature within the application.

A police executive uses the livestream feature to tell the public about changes they are implementing. The livestream feature is designed to be useable even for people who aren’t experienced with technology.

He reads some feedback from the public as it comes in (during the livestream), and he can answer their questions live.

Key Functionality

Our solution is an app to improve police accountability, using these three Key Functionalities:

• First, the app would be used to inform the public about police statistics - using infographics.
• Second, the app would be used as a public forum for the community to talk about their experiences with the police.
• Third, the police would have live streams, where the public (and/or advocacy groups using accounts from the public forum) could pressure the police into changing their policies.

Design Framework:

11.5.18

The group met every Thursday for a few hours in order to discuss the overall goals and functionality of our application, here are the results:

Sitemap

The group came together during the Design IDEO methods and started to design the site map.

User Flows

Our User Flows:

Wireframes

Our wireframes:

Mockups:

11.13.18

Click Here for the Presentation: Final Presentation

Final Thoughts:

WHY THIS APP IS IMPORTANT? HOW DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

COURAGE's goal is to bridge the gap between law enforcement and marginalized communities. OUR APP , aligns with this goal. This process allowed us to see that there was a missing link between the community and law enforcement. Law enforcement needed to have a platform to listen to the community and the community needed a platform to have a voice in order to communicate with Law enforcement. The app overall, acts as a way to keep law enforcement accountable.

Click Here for the Prototype: The Accountability App