Good design doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Whether it’s a washed-out road that delays supplies, complicated stakeholder interactions, or a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, design teams around the world must remain flexible despite whatever challenges arise. 

But HOW?!

When the unexpected happens - how do you keep a project running? In 2020, our Cocoon project team was able to conduct design research and prototyping in the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement in Northern Uganda despite the incredible challenges that the year brought. In partnership with Alight (formerly American Refugee Committee) Kuja Kuja, and Elrha, our team co-designed safe, private, and accessible spaces and services for menstrual health management (MHM) and menstruation education.

Here are five ways that they were able to continue to lead design work when everything went wrong.

Pivot like you mean it

When planning the Cocoon project in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns, we realized very quickly that there would be no shortage of unexpected developments. Risk mitigation became our one and only true friend. As a team, we sat down and discussed all the possible risks to the project and our team. 

“Flexing our pessimism to the max was actually the most positive thing we could have done for ourselves,” said Joe Kwesiga, a senior designer at YLabs based in Uganda. By planning for lockdowns and travel restrictions, we gave ourselves more options for conducting our research.” These sessions helped us to create a handful of fallback plans - and as difficult as it was being so uncertain - we realized that there wasn’t one clear path forward, but several paths. Working with this uncertainty prepared us to fail fast so that we could easily pivot like we meant it and head down a new path together.

Blended model for distributed design

YLabs has offices in the US and in East Africa, so our teams are used to collaborating remotely. But in 2020, Uganda closed its borders completely and we realized that we would have to find new ways to train our team in a distributed model. “We found that in order to train and share knowledge with non-designers, we had to create a blended training model to make sure we were meeting our team where they were at,” said Tanya Bhandari, a design lead at YLabs. 

To meet this challenge, we hired an additional Ugandan designer to help with the project alongside Kuja Kuja, our implementing partners. To train and support this new team, we created a blended model of distributed design that included remote, in-person, and recorded modules. 

First, we conducted virtual training sessions with the team in youth-driven design, data collection, prototyping, and our protection policies. These trainings happened in the first two weeks before we went to the field. Once our local team was in the field, we conducted in-person training sessions to repeat and reinforce the material. We conducted two sessions over two days and practiced the process so that we could ensure clarity and uncover any questions or concerns. We also recorded videos of our training sessions so that our team could reference them at any time.

Local is the new global

Local partnerships were paramount in this project. We worked with Kuja Kuja, a local organization that collects and analyzes real-time customer feedback for humanitarian decision-makers. In this case, the Kuja Kuja team was also our eyes and ears on the ground. Additionally, their recognized presence and long-term involvement in the settlement made it easier for our design team to reach and interact with our target demographics.

Our research team was from the community so they were very familiar with the location, languages, customs of the settlement. They were able to offer valuable insight into our synthesis and ideation that our remote design team might not have been able to see or understand. Kuja Kuja was also able to provide us with tools to conduct initial temperature checks in the settlement so that we could build a better contextual and historical understanding.

“This project would absolutely not have been possible without the support of our local partners, said Bhandari. “We know that the need in humanitarian settings is greater now than ever before. So we’re thankful for partners who are as committed as we are.”

Scorched earth policy and HCD

HCD relies on a personal relationship between the designer and the participant. It requires trust, empathy, and a feeling of safety. So how does one go about being personal in the time of COVID when the first thing you and the other recognize in each other is the risk? 

“We literally had to remove the personal touch from our HCD process, said  Kwesiga. “First and foremost - it is our duty to prioritize the health and safety of our participants and our team. At YLabs, we think a lot about how the process of our research will impact young people.”

For this project, our operations team supported our design team in following CDC and WHO guidelines for preventative measures, and we trained our team on how to follow them. “Planning with health and safety as the most important factor in our research - lead to everything being baptized in sanitizer.” All printed materials had to be laminated so that they could be cleaned and participants were not made to touch any assets as an added precaution. Face masks were worn by both the participant and interviewees. The inability to see facial expressions and limited personal interactions had the risk of making the sessions feel very clinical -  but our field team was able to compensate for this.

Often, our field team would extend sessions as needed or hold interviews in places where people were already going about their daily routine. That added layer of comfort and convenience helped the participants feel more comfortable with answering questions and opening up about sensitive topics, despite the sanitizer and masks.

It’s Always Sunny

One benefit to having a radically distributed design team was when one team's day ends the other team's day is just starting. This meant we were able to work ‘around the clock’ allowing more time to rapidly implement suggestions from the team on the ground. 

For example, when our research team found that they were reaching saturation points with certain topics - our remote team was able to spring into action and by the next morning, they had a fresh set of questions that helped them get new data and cut the interview times shorter.

“Most people might consider having a spread-out team to be a problem, but it worked for us, said  Kwesiga. “No piece of content or data was left alone for more than an hour, it was being held 24 hours a day.”

Even before the disruptions due to the pandemic, our global teams have had to navigate, plan, and adapt when everything goes wrong. At the end of the day - what matters most is that your participants and your team were positively impacted by the process. By choosing what you value most - the physical and emotional safety of the people you are working with - you too will be able to design well, even when everything goes wrong. 

After successful design research and prototyping, the work continues! In 2021, our team is working with the community to build and test the Cocoon prototypes, aiming to provide privacy, dignity, and comfort to 400 women and girls managing their menstruation.

To learn more about this project, join us for a webinar on Tuesday, May 4th for a conversation with PSI, MSI, ThinkPlace Kenya, and Leonard Cheshire. Register here.