Case study on Immigration challenges — How I and two friends solved this wicked problem at Ironhack.
In this case study, I will take you through the process of solving a design challenge. My team and I will focus on research to gather data, transform that raw data into information and gain insight. I will take you through my thought process and design decisions, sit back, relax, and enjoy!
The Challenge
To offer more context on the immigrants, immigration in Portugal has grown exponentially in the last 10 years, and guess what? Brazilians are the largest foreign community in Portugal. Never have so many Brazilians living in Portugal as now. This information was something we could not ignore.
These immigrants, in pursuit of a better life, have to deal with many challenges, such as adapting to the language and culture, the bureaucracy of opening bank accounts and issuing important documents, finding a place to live, and in the midst of all this, facing all the formalities to get their residence visas.
We started the project with just one idea: help immigrants to settle in Europe, somehow ease their pains, and make the process simpler. However, the data initially gathered, were directing us to a narrower scope, we then decided to focus on the Brazilians, who today are 150.000,00 living in Portugal according to data from the SEF.
I believe there is something critical for you to become an outstanding UX, UI designer: To learn about the project, to know the product, to read about the audience, to go deep into the details, to become obsessed with the topic.
At the end of this stage, you will be able to ask the right questions and collect relevant feedback. The right questions, for the right crowd, are golden!
CSD
Even though we had a good base after researching, we still had many ideas and theories, happily, we were introduced to a very cool and useful tool, that changed the way I asked questions.
The CSD which is the Portuguese acronym for “Certezas, Suposições e Dúvidas” (Certainties, Suppositions, and Doubts), is a technique that uses shared spaces to define the scope of the challenge, considering: 1) what is already known; 2) hypotheses raised and 3) what is still unknown but needs to be investigated.
By working together on the CSD matrix, we had the chance to identify points that we would like to go deeper into and validate in our interview with the users, the next step in our process.
Research & Interview
We started by gaining an understanding of the immigration process in Portugal, what are the motivations and goals of these immigrants, taking into consideration the pains and challenges during this process of settling in a new country.
Qualitative research did the job, giving us deeper insights into how these immigrants feel and think.
We found some interesting facts about this group of immigrants:
* The motivation of most of them is basically the same: to achieve a better life, more safety, and financial stability.
* There is a community that helps each other, foreigners who went through the process are solidary with Brazilians.
* Among the reasons why Brazilians choose Portugal, the main ones are the ease of speaking the same language, and the ease of getting an informal job in Portugal
* The systems in Portugal are inefficient and bureaucratic.
* The biggest difficulties for these foreigners are related to accommodation, work, and documentation.
It is extremely difficult to find correct information online, and on the official government websites there are still many lacks in clarity and communication
* The residency process is painful and costly, but for these foreigners to enjoy a better quality of life and safety is very worth it.
From this and other pieces of information, we built an affinity map, which definitely helped us a lot to understand points of similarity among the people interviewed, this information brought new excitement and enthusiasm to the project.
Still focusing on understanding who these immigrants are and what they do, say, hear and feel, we designed an affinity map.
The affinity map then guided us to our Persona.
Mari is born — Our Persona
Mari represents a lot to our group, Mari holds all the pains, challenges, and dreams of thousands of immigrants in Portugal, and to be able to create her from an empathetic process is very rewarding and fulfilling.
Mari genuinely represents the immigrants in Portugal, and every detail in the creation of this persona, was based on data, user statements, and other information gathered in our interviews.
Define
The life of an immigrant is not easy, they go through many difficulties, but since it is not possible to solve all their problems at once, we focus on 3 main obstacles that usually every immigrant has to face.
Information about the Portuguese residency process is incomplete and often inaccurate, immigrants do not have a clear sense of how the process works, where to start and what the steps are.
Renting a house in Portugal is extremely difficult for a foreigner who has just arrived, which leads them to rent rooms instead of houses. However, when renting a room, they do not have access to proof of address, which is an essential document for the paperwork for residency.
The tax identification number (NIF) one of the most important documents, necessary to settle in Portugal, is extremely difficult to get, and it is necessary to have a Fiscal Responsible, resident in Portugal or a Portuguese citizen who is responsible for that immigrant, in order to get the NIF.
As the title of this article says, this is a wicked complex problem, and there is no simple solution that will help these immigrants immediately. However, we have not given up, we have conducted an HMW (How Might We) session in order to find innovative and creative opportunities to solve these problems.
While discussing and brainstorming, we decided to continue investing in the NIF challenges. To better understand the problem and continue iterating on this process, we built a journey, where Mari would start the research process about the document and concluded her task by finally obtaining her NIF
We noticed that some highlights of the journey had excellent design opportunities.
- Make the search process for accurate and precise information easier.
- Assist in connecting our Persona with Portuguese/Residents who could be the legal representatives.
- Educate Mari about the laws and procedures in case of any objections from the public officer.
Through the Journey, we decided to attack one of Mari’s biggest pains, which was the difficulty in finding information about how to get her NIF
So we defined the following problem:
Brazilians looking to settle in Portugal need clear information to get the NIF and other essential documents since the information nowadays is very disconnected and difficult to understand.
After defining the problem, we went on to the hypothesis, which was the following:
We believe that by centralizing the information about obtaining the NIF and other documents for Brazilians who want to settle in Portugal, we will simplify and optimize the process of issuing documents. We know we are right/wrong by comparing data on NIF issuance.
Ideation
In the ideation phase, we used The worst idea method, and we had pretty bad ideas. (I Found out I’m great at it)
We reached the conclusion that the best idea would be to invest in a solution that facilitates access to reliable information on how to issue the NIF and other documents.
For that, we started the ideation of possible screens, by using we used the crazy 8 technique, in which we divided a piece of sulfite paper into 8 pieces and used each piece to draw possible screens and functionalities for the application.
Prototype
After the ideation phase, we chose a solution which was the development of an application for Brazilians who are already in Portugal and seek to settle in the country. This application provides information and step-by-step instructions for issuing a series of fundamental documents for those who want to live there
Would you like to see how it looks like? Check our interactive prototype.
Conclusion
In this challenge we focus on genuinely understanding the process immigrants go through, crucial to ensure we are solving a problem that actually exists in people’s lives. And what would be the best solution to tackle.
As UX designers, we have a responsibility to come up with the best possible solution, even when the problem itself is undetermined, and the best solution doesn’t exist yet.
We learned a lot, not only about UX and UI, but about teamwork, time management, focus and concentration, and freely exercising our creativity.
Interesting insights about the process:
* Each person is different, and has a different way of expressing themselves, many times we are so attached to our ideas, that we don’t want to let go, I found myself defending my ideas but we can’t get emotionally attached to any idea, let go and listen to others, they have very interesting things we don’t know how to say yet.
* Time is too precious, and to start the process seeking to optimize time is the best idea EVER.
* Again, I feel this is my new mantra, better done, than perfect.
As designers, the drive for immediate perfection leads us to failure. The process is iterative, changeable, we don’t have all the information immediately, we are not the user, and we need time, testing, once again interviewing users, using data analysis to our favor, all of this maximizes the chance of success, however, perfection should not be the goal
* Listening carefully.
A very good tip for interviews is, listen, listen to everything your interviewee has to say, don’t interrupt, don’t compliment the answers just listen carefully.
Practice listening to a good podcast (I recommend On Purpose) notice that the interviewer is attentively listening to all the time, and only starts talking when the interviewee has finished.
*Our brains are fantastic and we are capable of amazing things, I am incredibly happy with the whole learning process so far, for me it is fascinating to be able to improve people’s lives, and solve problems, using empathy and creativity.
I am proud to have learned so much from this challenge and to have shared my knowledge with my friends: Jonatas Fontes & Ana Luiza Fontana and absorbed it from them as well.
Thank you for reading this far, and stay tuned!
