Tarahum is a local aid and development charity working to end poverty, illiteracy, disease and provide emergency response in crisis situations.
Role & Team
As a designer and product lead, I was part of a grassroots team consisting of a product manager, and 3 developers.
Scope
Ideate and design a complete mobile app
Timeframe
10 Days
Designing for a crisis.
The number of orphans in certain parts of the world is large and continuously growing, with conditions changing rapidly in some situations. Internet access is often intermittent or can be completely lost at any time. The population is frequently on the move, and families, including orphans, are separated from each other. These challenges make it extremely difficult for aid workers to manage and track support, resources, and funding, as well as to coordinate communication among involved parties. Therefore, there is a critical need for a tool that enables aid workers to provide effective support under these constraints.
Special Considerations
- All features must be accessible on a mobile device
- Content and features must be available offline
- Admins must be able to perform tasks on behalf of users
- Democratize communication between guardians and sponsors
The Challenge
Currently, there are a group of people in Palestine who work with families to get information of the orphans in each family, and whenever a relative of an orphan registers them, they reach out to individuals within their network manually to seek support for these orphans and families. When a donor is found, they are connected with the family and requested to send monthly donations. Each sponsor owns the communication with the orphan’s relatives and owns the process of transferring the money.
Defining the Users
3 main user types were defined which would interact and utilize the app in very different ways.
Rapid Ideation
Due to the nature and urgency of this project, I conducted rapid ideation sessions to understand the problem, brainstorm ideas, and define the application in a single day.
Low-Friction Onboarding
It was critical to make onboarding as simple and friction-less as possible so I designed an experience that allowed the user quickly learn about the app and create an account with minimal details so that a connection could be established, and encourage users to commit to a sponsorship.
Tarahum Admin
The Tarahum user is from the charity organization and needs to be able manage a wide range of tasks entirely from the mobile app. Some of these include adding new orphans and assigning them to sponsors, viewing new sponsors and tracking their payments, and providing guardians with helpful resources to stay safe and receive support.
Connecting Orphans and Sponsors
The app makes it easy to connect orphans with their donors by selecting an orphan profile and assigning an available sponsor to them. Once an orphan is assigned, the admin can send support instructions to the guardian, and post updates about the orphan so the sponsor can see the impact of their donations.
Critical Updates and Resources
I saw an opportunity to add additional value and efficiency tot he app by having a section where Tarahum can broadcast special messages and helpful resources to guardians and orphans.
This made it much easier for aid works to provide critical updates and a source of truth for latest in a constantly changing situation.
Sponsors & Guardians
After onboarding, I included several touch-points to build trust with potential sponsors and also allowed them to subscribe to a sponsorship plan quickly and easily. Once assigned to orphan, the sponsor can receive updates about the orphan or family they are supporting. Guardian users will use the app to keep track of their sponsorship’s support, and can also access critical resources and updates about the situation around them.
