Client Project
Safe place for
minority professionals
Brief
In Equal, users can find a safe community primarily focus on professional life.
My team developed this project at Equalithon, which social good focus hackathon organized by Essteem and STARTOUT. Jessica from STARTOUT challenged with us the problems they hear from their LGBTQ+ users. We made an assumption and conducted our research to define potential users’ needs and problems.
We successfully developed a prototype and won the hackathon, and also I received the “Design and Research Expert” award for myself.
Problem
LGBTQ+ professionals seek safe communities to connect with other like-minded people.
We discovered in our research that over 73% of LGBTQ+ professionals had experienced discrimination in the workplace, especially a person who works in a small company who doesn't have a place to share the experience and get support.
Solution
We designed this website "Equal" to help minority professionals. In Equal, users can be part of a community.
People
Connect with people and help each other
Group
Join groups within the community
Company
Research a company culture
Challenge
The biggest constraint was communication, between design, developer, data was not smooth at all in the beginning. So I proposed several ways to communicate with them and asked for their feedback. Developers and data scientists gave me a compliment about my effort at the end of the project. They loved especially adding a screenshot of the wireframe and prototype to user flow, and we also use it as the workflow for the team.
Think out side of the box.
Result
In our research, there are only 20% of users shared their personal life in the workplace. But 80% of users answered to share their personal life in Equal safely.
I believe that this result proves Equal will provide a safe community for LGBTQ+ professionals to be themself and feel free to share an opinion or seek advice when they face an obstacle and help build their career.
Duration
One Week
Client project, June 2021
Client
STARTOUT
Team
Andrew
Aimara
Melvin
Mieko
Ren
Tool
Figma
Mural
Miro
Google Form
Canva
Method
Survey, User Interview, Competitive & Comparative Analysis, Affinity Mapping, Persona Development, User Flow, Site Map, Design Studio, , Wireframing, Usability Testing, Prototyping
My role
I was a team leader and I worked on end-to-end processes from research, analysis and design and iterate. I also made a project plan and make sure to communicate well as a group to achieve the best result in a short timeline.
Team Lead
Project plan
Communication
Work flow
Research
Survey
User interview
Competitive Analysis
Synthesis
Affinity mapping
User persona
User flow
Site map
Design
sketch
wireframe
prototype
usability testing
design guide
Research
Survey
Over 19, LGBTQ+ professionals in the United States.
26 participant
Interview
LGBTQ+ professionals in the United States who experienced discrimination.
5 participant
Synthesis
88% Responded that they had experienced discrimination.
73% had an incident of discrimination in the workplace.
California and New York are among the highest concentrations of people experiencing discrimination.
But 69% moved away from their family or to a different location to escape the discrimination.
How people cope with discrimination.
Hiding a personal relationship.
Moving away from family.
Researching LGBTQ+ friendly workplaces.
Moving to a different city.
Dressing differently.
Avoiding public places.
Design
In UI and Visual design phase, I focus on users feel cozy and comfortable and they can solve their tasks easily and fast in Equal. I incorporate the trend of gradation to show as rainbow colors and all CTA components are black and white which gives high contrast and accessibility.
Design Guide
Prototype
