{"id":180,"date":"2016-02-21T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielleklein.ca\/?p=180"},"modified":"2016-02-21T19:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T19:00:03","slug":"notes-from-the-2016-ixda-newcomers-design-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielleklein.ca\/index.php\/2016\/02\/21\/notes-from-the-2016-ixda-newcomers-design-jam\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes from the 2016 IxDA Newcomers Design Jam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier in January, I took part in IxDA Toronto’s 2016 Design Jam for Immigrants and Refugees.\u00a0It was my first pseudo-hackathon experience and a bit\u00a0out of my comfort zone, and I can happily report that it was a really fun day! I learned a lot, met some great people from the UX community in Toronto and from refugee service providers, and became involved in a really exciting project. Not only that, but my team also took home the\u00a0Most Impactful\u00a0<\/strong>award at the end of the day and won ourselves all the Kijiji swag a girl could ever wish for (thanks, Kijiji!).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0challenge<\/h2>\n

Groups were given the opportunity to choose from a variety of problem areas that were generously brought to the group by some amazing local social organizations. My group went with a challenge brought to the design jam by COSTI Immigrant Services, which asked for groups to design solutions oriented towards empowering refugees and immigrants to take control of the settlement process.<\/p>\n

Monica Abdelkader, a Program Manager at COSTI who volunteered her time as a domain expert at the design jam, explained that newcomers to Canada often experience a sense of disempowerment as they rely on various service providers to get set up in their new country. They often have to depend on unreliable and conflicting information.\u00a0Our challenge was to design a solution to help refugees and immigrants take control of their settlement process and avoid delays prompted by moving around between multiple service providers.<\/p>\n

The process<\/h2>\n

With my four teammates, we started out the day by brainstorming initial ideas and pain points that emerged from listening to Monica describe the challenge and discussing it amongst ourselves. Right away, we were inspired by the concept of\u00a0peer-to-peer knowledge sharing,\u00a0<\/strong>and we sought to approach this idea through a mentorship service. The more we fleshed out the idea, however, the more problems seemed to emerge, which we discussed at length with Monica. In that conversation, a collective lightbulb seemed to turn on for the group and we came up with the idea of channelling knowledge-sharing more specifically onto a review service.<\/p>\n

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Ideating like a boss! #newcomersdesignjam2016<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/u3bTRsks6w<\/a><\/p>\n

— Emily Coffin (@emilycoffin) January 30, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n