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Austin Center for Design
Design for Social Innovation
Austin Center for Design teaches students the iterative process of design, emphasizing empathy, abductive reasoning, and collaboration. Students are taught to investigate and drive a positive relationship between design thinking and the large “wicked” problems facing the public sector. While such issues are typically explored and addressed through policy and politics, we believe design is a powerful tool for shaping the world around us.
Over the last 24 weeks, AC4D students have explored the broad topic of financial services for underserved communities, with a goal to design more inclusive products and services for those who don’t fit into the traditional workforce.
Thanks to: Ruby Ku
Participating Students
- Ana Toca and Dan O'Halloran
- Brittany Sgaliardich, Leah DiVito
- Kyle Beck, Sean Tomas Redmond, Lauren Sands
- Michelle Trame, Allison Kissell, and Laura Carroll
Ana Toca and Dan O'Halloran
To Bambu
To Bambu is a social donation platform founded by Ana Toca and Dan O'Halloran based on their research conducted with low income families in Austin, TX. To Bambu began as an effort to better understand marginalized communities in the Texas area with a non-profit that supports latina entrepreneurs. Through interviews, ideation and making this human-centered capstone project turned into something that fosters connection to those who need it during this climacteric time.
Low income parents' struggles are exacerbated by their financial situation, even more so amongst COVID. We spoke with 16 families to hear about their stories and seek out areas for opportunity. These families allowed us into their homes, workplaces, and shared a great deal about their day to day lives. The good, the bad, and the inbetween.
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Current Families Struggle
Ana Toca and Dan O'Halloran
To Bambu
To Bambu is a social donation platform founded by Ana Toca and Dan O'Halloran based on their research conducted with low income families in Austin, TX. To Bambu began as an effort to better understand marginalized communities in the Texas area with a non-profit that supports latina entrepreneurs. Through interviews, ideation and making this human-centered capstone project turned into something that fosters connection to those who need it during this climacteric time.
Low income parents' struggles are exacerbated by their financial situation, even more so amongst COVID. We spoke with 16 families to hear about their stories and seek out areas for opportunity. These families allowed us into their homes, workplaces, and shared a great deal about their day to day lives. The good, the bad, and the inbetween.
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Brittany Sgaliardich, Leah DiVito
Poppy
Cultural stigma and current legislation in the United States have limited sex workers from connecting with each other and exchanging information online. The goal of our project was to help increase levels of safety and agency for sex workers living and working in isolation.
Our team developed Poppy, an online platform created for and with womxn working in the sex industry to benefit from a peer to peer social network and information exchange. "Womxn" is used to include anyone who identifies as female or non-binary.
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Poppy Forum
Poppy is a social platform and information hub for womxn working in the sex industry.
Research with Trust
Acknowledging the diversity of experiences among sex workers was crucial to safety and respect. As they continue to work within this long-standing industry, we hoped to act as advocates by putting their voices at the core of our work.
Designing with Womxn
Built with an emphasis on privacy and trust, Poppy is co-created with its users so they may feel safe and empowered to build community on their terms.
Core Features
The three core features of Poppy are a network of support, a co-created resource directory, and private space to hold open discussion.
Co-created Resources
While Poppy's support network creates a framework for sharing human experiences, Poppy also formalizes the sharing of tangible resources. The platform will harness the collective knowledge of users by providing one place for finding, sharing, and vetting resources.
Secure Access
Poppy establishes and maintains trust with users by thoughtfully verifying user identities. Onboarding will use a secure third-party credential wallet which allows Poppy to verify users are who they say they are without having to store identifying information.
Brittany Sgaliardich, Leah DiVito
Poppy
Cultural stigma and current legislation in the United States have limited sex workers from connecting with each other and exchanging information online. The goal of our project was to help increase levels of safety and agency for sex workers living and working in isolation.
Our team developed Poppy, an online platform created for and with womxn working in the sex industry to benefit from a peer to peer social network and information exchange. "Womxn" is used to include anyone who identifies as female or non-binary.
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Kyle Beck, Sean Tomas Redmond, Lauren Sands
Foresight
Foresight is an application that helps independent contractors working in creative industries—"makers," as we call them—accurately plan and save for taxes. As more of the American economy shifts to contract-based employment, makers stand as the original contract workers, enjoying freedom and independence while forgoing many of the benefits that traditional employment provides. Taxes for contract workers are particularly difficult: employees must calculate how much they owe and save for it proactively. Our application makes this easier. Foresight was created based on research conducted with 18 makers, including artists, carpenters, audio/visual technicians and others. In our conversations and observations, we learned that makers appreciate their independence, as it allows them time to pursue their passion projects. We learned that makers are unsuspecting business owners with a skillset that doesn't align with administrative work, and that they often work gig to gig, focusing on the present at the expense of the future. From these insights, we formed the following design criteria to guide the development of our product: We strove to allow flexibility for individual lifestyles, to reduce the mental load of tax planning, and to integrate tax preparation into makers' routine workflow. Following many iterations of wireframes and prototypes guided by 15 user testing sessions, we are currently speaking to developers about bringing our product to life. Foresight was created by Kyle Beck, Sean Tomas Redmond, and Lauren Sands
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Kyle Beck, Sean Tomas Redmond, Lauren Sands
Foresight
Foresight is an application that helps independent contractors working in creative industries—"makers," as we call them—accurately plan and save for taxes. As more of the American economy shifts to contract-based employment, makers stand as the original contract workers, enjoying freedom and independence while forgoing many of the benefits that traditional employment provides. Taxes for contract workers are particularly difficult: employees must calculate how much they owe and save for it proactively. Our application makes this easier. Foresight was created based on research conducted with 18 makers, including artists, carpenters, audio/visual technicians and others. In our conversations and observations, we learned that makers appreciate their independence, as it allows them time to pursue their passion projects. We learned that makers are unsuspecting business owners with a skillset that doesn't align with administrative work, and that they often work gig to gig, focusing on the present at the expense of the future. From these insights, we formed the following design criteria to guide the development of our product: We strove to allow flexibility for individual lifestyles, to reduce the mental load of tax planning, and to integrate tax preparation into makers' routine workflow. Following many iterations of wireframes and prototypes guided by 15 user testing sessions, we are currently speaking to developers about bringing our product to life. Foresight was created by Kyle Beck, Sean Tomas Redmond, and Lauren Sands
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Michelle Trame, Allison Kissell, and Laura Carroll
Vouch
Vouch facilitates lending between family & friends. We provide tools for borrowers that enable clear and proactive communication through the creation of loan terms, communication agreements, and a repayment schedule. We provide Vouch users with an intuitive, accessible, and thoughtful experience, so that borrowers and lenders may protect their relationship beyond the life of a loan.
Vouch is the product of research conducted at Austin Center for Design. Primary research was conducted in October 2019, and we spoke with 14 participants, ages 20-63 across a platform of on-demand services. We chose this growing employment sector to better understand the financial resiliency of gig-economy workers as they deal with significant income volatility due to the nature of their work.
We found that not having a safety net makes people increasingly reliant on their own personal networks and vulnerable to predatory financial services. Subsequent qualitative and quantitative research took the form of surveys, ad tests, usability tests, and competitive and comparative analysis. We wanted to understand how borrowing between family and friends really plays out, to better understand how this affects people's lives, and to understand how we might support people in this process.
This project was collaboratively researched, designed, tested, and built by Michelle Trame, Allison Kissell, and Laura Carroll.
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Real talk
A 2018 Finder survey found that 88 million Americans borrow money from family & friends.
Human-centered design
In-person research gave us insight into financial behaviors and the emotions that surround interpersonal lending.
Behavioral insights
Understanding the emotional qualities behind friend and family lending helped us understand how to design for a more positive and supported experience for both the borrower and lender.
Turn a hard conversation into a simple request
Vouch puts borrowers in the driver's seat and builds their confidence through easy to use features. This borrower focused loan calculator is designed for flexibility and designed to show users how different inputs impact the loan over time.
Put the relationship first
Based on user feedback, we found that borrowers and lenders are most concerned about their relationship. Communication agreements support both parties throughout the course of the loan.
Stay on the same page as you repay
A big thing that differentiates friend and family lending is flexibility.Vouch supports flexible terms that are shared and visible to both borrowers and lenders.
Michelle Trame, Allison Kissell, and Laura Carroll
Vouch
Vouch facilitates lending between family & friends. We provide tools for borrowers that enable clear and proactive communication through the creation of loan terms, communication agreements, and a repayment schedule. We provide Vouch users with an intuitive, accessible, and thoughtful experience, so that borrowers and lenders may protect their relationship beyond the life of a loan.
Vouch is the product of research conducted at Austin Center for Design. Primary research was conducted in October 2019, and we spoke with 14 participants, ages 20-63 across a platform of on-demand services. We chose this growing employment sector to better understand the financial resiliency of gig-economy workers as they deal with significant income volatility due to the nature of their work.
We found that not having a safety net makes people increasingly reliant on their own personal networks and vulnerable to predatory financial services. Subsequent qualitative and quantitative research took the form of surveys, ad tests, usability tests, and competitive and comparative analysis. We wanted to understand how borrowing between family and friends really plays out, to better understand how this affects people's lives, and to understand how we might support people in this process.
This project was collaboratively researched, designed, tested, and built by Michelle Trame, Allison Kissell, and Laura Carroll.
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