Overview

Speak Out is a fine-tuned events app that helps people find information about nearby protests happening in their cities.

This was a personal project that I did inspired by the George Floyd protests happening around the country. I spent 2 weeks to complete the project from the initial ideation to finalizing the prototype for the Speak Out app. My role was product designer where I focused on product strategy, user research, interaction, visual design, and prototyping & testing.

[If you want to skip ahead and view my prototype, click here]

The Problem

People usually find out about protests based on Facebook events or by looking at what their friends share on social media. I was surprised to learn there wasn't an easy way to view protest happening in one place as information is easily scattered. You can view protests on Facebook by going to events and clicking on 'Causes' but this brings up other random events like 'The Fight to Save Sharks' and a virtual tour on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial.

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The Goal

• The goal would be to build an app that would make it easy for the user to learn about local protests happening near them

Users and audience

I reached out to close friends who go to protests to gather information on their various frustrations with going to protests around their cities. I created user personas based on my interviews and conversations I had with them to specify what I want in the Speak Out prototype.

The Design Process

I organized the information I gathered from user research to create a rough outline of information architecture so I could visually see what I would want included in the Speak Out prototype. Here are some of my brainstorming processes on paper that was later refined on Figma.

Brainstorming Process

Based on user research, I made three primary objectives.

1. Show users where protests are happening near them
2. Shoe users information about the protests to help them decide if they want to go or not
3. Help users connect with organizers of the event for future events

After briefly sketching out some potential ways I could go about in achieving these three objectives, I started to sketch out screens on pen and paper.

After some rough sketches, I used Balsamiq to narrow down the screens to create medium-fidelity wireframes.

In the beginning, I made several login options such as requiring the user to login through Facebook or Gmail. But later, I realized the user might be limited if they had to login using those methods to use the Speak Out app. It also didn't align with my goal of wanting to show the user where protests were located near them. So I decided to make the login process accessible to a wider range of people by just requiring them to click on the login button, which would directly take the user to the main landing page.

It asks the user if the app can use their location services to better show them where protests are happening near them. The user can easily see where protests are near them in a map interface. The user can also filter what they see by clicking on the filter button to adjust the date, time, and location.

When users click on the protest, it leads them to a page with relevant information such as the protest name, date, time, and an option to add the event to the calendar. It also has a button to contact the organizer where it will lead the user to find more information about the organizer.

Outcomes and lessons

I really enjoyed creating this app prototype and could see it becoming a real app that users might enjoy. If I had more time to improve on this project, I think it would be helpful if there was a feature that allowed people to message those who are attending specific events instead of just messaging friends. Some challenges were the time constraints to finish the prototype and working with a new prototyping tool, InVision. I'm curious as to what other people who work for nonprofits and the Black Lives Matter organization think of this app prototype if I were to present it to a group of stakeholders.

Here is my final prototype of the Speak Out app. Click HERE to access.