Finish Line Mobile App
Project Overview
Finish Line is a hypothetical product created as a final project for Informatics 284: Advanced Design and Prototyping as part of the UCI Master of Human-Computer Interaction and Design program, Winter 2021. The prompt was to identify a problem that would be solved with a digital product, then present the idea and solution as a final deliverable.
As an AFFI volunteer for KFAM, a social services agency based in Los Angeles, I was interested in designing a solution that might help agencies like KFAM. I reached out to the AFFI director and quickly learned about the need to provide foster parents more options with respite care.
The problem was two-fold:
1. Lack of quality volunteers
2. Limited human resources to efficiently coordinate volunteers with foster parents
I chose to focus on the second part, as volunteer recruitment involves strategy and approaches that seemed beyond the scope of the class assignment.
The following is a compilation of the project deliverables.
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Contents:
1. Defining the Problem
2. Concept Sketches (Main Features)
3. User Flow
4. Lo-fi Wireframes
5. Hi-fi UI Design + Annotations
6. Final Prototype
2. Concept Sketches (Main Features)
3. User Flow
4. Lo-fi Wireframes
5. Hi-fi UI Design + Annotations
6. Final Prototype
1. Defining the Problem
With over 440,000 children currently in the US foster system and a seeming constant shortage of foster homes to place them into, a closer examination reveals that there is an opportunity to not only increase the number of people who become new foster parents, but decrease the number of people who stop.
Research shows that there is a 30-50% turnover rate of foster parents, where most do not return to fostering after their first year. Foster parents cite social support as being critical to their ability to continue fostering, yet few resources exist that help make that support more accessible. Finish Line aims to change that.
2. Concept Sketches (Main Features)
3. User Flow
4. Lo-fi Wireframes
5. Hi-fi UI Design + Annotations
6. Final Prototype
Promoting Foster Parent Retention through Innovations in Respite Care and Social Support
Finish Line is a community-based app designed for child protection agencies to provide more social support for foster parent clientele because fostering is a marathon that needs to be ran together, not faster.
The design employs value-sensitive design philosophies to ensure that privacy and security for all users involved remain at the forefront of all flows and processes.
The main feature of Finish Line is to offer an easy way to request private respite care, to help foster parents tap directly into their agency's volunteer resources and allow them more flexibility to manage their time. The clickthrough video demonstrates the user flow of onboarding onto the app as well as sending a private respite care request.
