Social Project for Imagin Planet Challenge 2023
In Spain, only 26% of youth and young adults consider themselves fully informed on the subject of drugs, which compared to the 93% that have consumed at least once in their life and about 40% that consume daily, shows a real problem in our society.
How can we reduce harms and generate awareness on consumption of psychoactive drugs?
I developed an App based on a calendar, which allows the user to take notes of their consumption, symptoms and state. The platform provides information about each drug; history, effects, posible risks, and preparation, while also taking into account your medical history.
For the development of the app I followed 5 phases which allowed me to make a more rigorous design process and take into account multiple factors.
Mental Map
In the challenge themes provided by Imagin Planet, the most interesting one was social transformation, as it has a wide range of possibilities and is directed mostly towards communities and people. The following map diverges through the different segments that Social Transformation could approach.
Choosing Segment
Decided to focus specifically on the sustainable development goals of; quality of education; alliances to achieve goals; and health and wellbeing. As I understood better the problems related to f drug awareness, prevention & harm reduction, this segment and challenge, I believe the best fitting values for our team are: Honesty, Tolerance and Comprehension.
Investigation & Empathy Map
Through secondary research, reading articles and understanding the problems related. I learnt from governmental and institutional recollection of data, how consumption of drugs varies from ages, substances
and reason, in Spain, in order to better understand our segment of investigation. We found a lot of information that led us to a better comprehension of the specific problems related to psychoactive drug consumption.
Continued with primary research by making an empathy map based on a series of interviews responses, filtering and simplifying the information obtained by hear, think/feel, say/do and see. Giving the possibility to understand the gain and pain points of the segment.
Problems Identified
This made it possible to create a chart of the secondary and primary research problems. The biggest problems
in the segment was related to Taboo around drug awareness conversations, not being informed beforehand, and having situations gone wrong that could have been avoided.
Persona Profile
Finally, once choosing a specific problem to work on and getting to know better the possible users for the investigation, I created the persona profile of the typical young adult from university, that could be seen in the situation of getting to try drugs, without actually understanding them.
Reformulation of Challenge
For the ideation process, started by brainstorming various solutions for the problem, connecting different existing platforms like Netflix, Spotify or Instagram, to the problem. The best fitting solutions could be:
- With GentCat (local center of primary medical attention) and Dice (party promoter app) working together, the drug awareness and harm reduction programs and help centers can participate in parties.
- Application based on a calendar (like flo) where users can keep track of their consumption, and it provides information related to harm reduction.
- Podcast channel to remove taboo around drug awareness conversations and hate speech related to consumption, stereotypes and generalized ideas.
Convergence of 3 Best Ideas
With the help of diagrams divided by viability, impact on the world, innovation, social impact and solution to the challenge, I filtered the more approachable and impactful solution.
Validation of Chosen Idea
For the validation of the idea, I presented the project to 7 different people, which gave us some feedback of
our ideas and commented on whether they validated or not the idea. This part of the process was necessary
to understand if our idea was actually viable and easy to understand to others, but it also helped us to get new ideas to add to our own and improve what we had before.
Validation of MVP
Validating the Minimum Viable Product was a process of understanding how our project could be monetized in order to be functional and prosperous. This part of the process was kind of complicated because we had to have very clear how every aspect of clients, associates and our idea connects. But it was very interesting to come down to a B2B program directed to festivals and users at the same time, and know how profitable it is.
Prototyping
I made the prototype on Figma, a complete version with all the information and fully functional, this prototype
is a clear vision of what we want our project to look like, and it includes most of the characteristics discussed previously at the validation.
The design responds to the user experience and interface basis, taking in mind the touch points, pain points, user actions, auto-layout and constraints, and many other concepts. I followed a process for UX/UI design, combining with the investigation and development of a solution in order to have a more plausible project.
Communication
The fourth phase consisted on the making of mockups seen above and creating a video that can explain and sell the project to the Imagin Planet judges.
