SF Service Match

SF Service Match is our solution to relieve SF's Homelessness Crisis. SF Service Match started as a project developed for Girls In Tech SF Hackathon 2019, where it won First Place and the $1,500 reward

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24 hours to solve San Francisco's largest epidemic: homelessness. SF Service Match is a platform that matches those who are at risk of eviction with local non-profit organizations and resources to help them in a personalized way. My team, Wonder Womxn, aimed to focus on empowering individuals with information and direction to legal assistance.

In 2019, SF reported 8,011 people met the federal definition of homeless. Those who are at risk of losing their homes are issued eviction letters with information about the Eviction Defense Collaborative (EDC), a non-profit organization that provides legal and rental assistance. One case manager at EDC handles 9 lawyers with at least 50 cases each - that's 450 cases a year per case manager.

Those on the verge of losing, or have lost, their homes often feel a loss of pride, and are confused about what to do. Additionally, workers in non-profit organizations are overwhelmed with cases, and need an effective way to help as many people as possible.

Approach

We spent the first 10 hours researching and understanding our users before beginning any design.

Solution Thinking

SF Service Match creates an empathetic, warm on-boarding experience that is educational and accessible in order to empower users to be their own advocate.

1. Lifestyle Questionnaire
   
   Will help assess the user’s needs, and which direction SFSM should take them.

2. Zero-barriers

   
   From my personal experience, no personal information or credentials are required for receiving basic legal advise. So, SFSM will also not request personal information or require accounts from users.

3. Next Step Actions

   A user would obtain an Action Plan that can be uploaded and shared with case managers, which would speed the process of solving the user’s eviction issues.

User Stories

We watched EDC interviews of three individuals, and utilized the data our speakers presented, to collect anecdotes about their experiences and create user personas.

User Flow

Since receiving basic legal advice doesn’t require any personal information, we opted for a solution that provided the least barriers: our service match does not require account creation.

Wireframes

Due to the time restraints for a hackathon, we sketched very briefly, and chose to wireframe and ideate the frames simultaneously.

Branding

My team and I knew the direction we wanted to take SF Service Match, and that was a calming, reassuring tone. I explored several icons and typography styles for SF Service Match’s logo in order to find a one that feels modern and clean. Our hermit was chosen to represent a sense of home and independence.

This is the final logo we came up with:

I echoed our ideas into the platform’s design, which the judges really enjoyed.

Key Features

03

Pictorial format follows best form practices to build a seamless experience, and lessen fatigue that comes with filling out long surveys/questionnaires.

04

Results are a personalized action plan with information from organizations and necessary documents, which can be submitted to case managers.

We believed our final product satisfied many aspects:

Metrics of Success

• Decrease in time spent with each client at intake

• Increase in form completions before first session

• Increase in rate of cases triaged to legal attorneys

Presentation Deck

We prepared a deck to present to the judges, and split the deck equally among our team members.

Reflection

Overall, Girls In Tech 2019 Hackathon was a fun time! I really believed in our idea, and I definitely worked harder and sacrificed more sleep than usual for this project. In the end, our team, Wonder Womxn, had so much love for each other. We felt like we each put in equal amounts of hard work into this product. We couldn't be prouder of each other.

The judges enjoyed the design, illustrations, organization, and solution. While many teams put product design last on their priorities, we made design just as important as functionality, which really made us different from the competition. This was a great start to more hackathons in the future, especially since this was the first hackathon for all my team members including myself.

If we had more time, I would love to interview actual people going through eviction or homelessness to really confirm how helpful our product could be for them. I would also love to refine the design even more!