[meerkapp]Research plan

Author: csr spinozzi, UX Researcher, csrspinozzi@gmail.com

Image 1: Survey header image.

Background

Security is one of the most common issues in developing countries (and sometimes in developed countries too) and a big amount of families that live in dangerous neighborhoods must deal with these situations everyday.

With this study we want to understand the situations of those families that feel insecure when their members are coming back home, especially at night.

Our primary idea is to generate an app that for example, alerts the parents when a daughter is returning home at night and shows their positions in a map, so the parent could be alerted and maybe take an action like going to the bus stop to wait for her.

A tool that allows automatic communication between them could generate a highly appreciated feeling of safety if it helps to solve a real problem. Good UX is completely necessary for generating a real value.

Research Goal

Our team wants to learn about how parents and teenagers feel about the safety arriving home. Understand both users, their needs, their feelings, their routines and if they would be interested in the use of technology as another tool to improve this situation if it’s possible.

1. Understanding users real needs.
2. Learning more about their situations and routine.
3. Understanding the possible affordance of the user to the technology.
4. Create an user journey and other conceptuals maps to order this information
5. Understand if there is a really necessary need to create a mobile app for those users.

Research Questions

[NEEDS]

• How do parents feel about the safety of their sons/daughters arriving home in dangerous neighborhoods?
• How do teenagers feel about arriving home at night?
• What solutions could they make up for this problem (if it exists)?
• What are they doing nowaday?

[BEHAVIORS]

• How do they (parents/teenagers) interact with other applications like Google Maps?
• How do they interact with app notifications?
• How aware are they of their phones?
• Have the users ever looked up for an app to solve this problem?

Methodology

We are going to use two methods:

• Interviews
• Online surveys

The survey is going to be sent like a link via WhatsApp, posted in Facebook and shared in some groups.

The interviews will be useful to consider the answers of those who don’t have a real approach to technology.

Because of Coronavirus, the interviews maybe could be suspended.

Recruiting Participants

We use surveys to collect data from 10 users, divided in 2 groups of 5 participants:

• Parents of dangerous neighborhoods
• Women/Sons/Daughters arriving home at night

The question that makes reference if the interviewed have springoff or not, will split the interviewed into 2 different groups, the parents and the sons (women’s opinion will be taken into account in both cases).

How — The participants are going to be contacted by a message or a calling. Also would be contacted by social apps.

When — March, Saturday 21. Maybe on weekends users feel more comfortable to answer these types of questions because they are in their houses and have more time.

Script

My name is Cesar Spinozzi. Thank you very much for participating in this research study. I am currently working on a project related to neighborhood security.

The purpose of the interview is to understand the needs of the users (parents/teenagers) in this particular situation: coming back home at night in dangerous neighborhoods. We want to learn about their routines, behaviours and feelings.

This interview will take about 15–30 minutes. If you want to leave the session or take a break at any point, please let me know. Some questions will be open-ended, if you have doubts, please feel free to ask. If you make up another question it would be great to know, so please feel free to speak or ask anytime.

Do you mind if I record this session for note-taking purposes? We will keep the recording confidential and it won’t be shared with anyone outside of our team.

Warm-up Questions

1. Please tell us more about yourself.
2. What is your role in your family?
3. What is your point of view on neighborhood security?
4. Are you currently using any security app? If yes, which one?

Screening Questions

1. Do you consider that you are living in a dangerous neighborhood?
2. Do you have a son or a daughter?
3. Do you feel secure for a family member that is coming back home at night? (maybe a son, a daughter, a nephew, a girlfriend,etc)

Survey Questions

1. Age [This option will be a dropdown]
2. Gender
3. Do you feel you live in a dangerous neighborhood?
4. Do you have springoff? Yes [Go to parents section] No [Go to springoff section]

SECTION FOR PARENTS

1. How old are your son/daughter(s)? [Checkbox options]
2. How do you consider your family weekly routine?
3. When your son/daughter is coming back home at night do you feel safe for them?
4. Do you take any communication before he/she is returning home?
5. If you answer YES in the last question, could you tell us when in which context it happened last time?
6. In the last month, have you used any application for this purpose?
7. If you answer YES in the last question, could you tell us which one and the features you like it most and the ones not?
8. Would be it useful to be alerted when your son/daughter is coming back home? When? [Checkbox options]
9. Which feature will you consider great for feeling safe when your son/daughter is coming back home? [Multiple choice grid | Very useful — useful — useless]
10. Could you make up another kind of solution for this situation?
11. Would you like to have the best president in history to solve this problem and not have to create another app 🤪? [Funny question to close]

SECTION FOR SPRINGOFF

1. Do you have a weekly routine?
2. Do you feel safe when you are coming back home at night ?
3. Do you communicate with your parents before returning home?
4. If you answer YES in the last question, could you tell us when in which context it happened last time?
5. In the last month, have you used any application for this purpose?
6. If you answer YES in the last question, could you tell us which one and the features you like it most and the ones not?
7. Would you be pleased showing to your parents your position while you are returning home?
8. What kind of features would help you to feel more secure when you are coming back home? [Multiple choice grid | Very useful — useful — useless]
9. Could you make up another kind of solution for this situation?
10. Would you like to have a personal superhero bodyguard to feel more secure and do not have to create another app 🦸🏻‍♂️🤪🦸🏽‍♀️? [funny question to close]

Wrap-up

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights. Your answers will help our team build a better product. If you have any additional thoughts and comments, I would love to hear about them at any time. You can easily reach me at [csrspinozzi@gmail.com].

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Here I left the Surveys in Google Forms format.
English: https://forms.gle/iwyNHx6MdMi3msPG7
Spanish: https://forms.gle/pzcM2c5CVDSqQmEj9