Young Carers Portal
Client
Carers Victoria
What I did
Art Direction, Design, UX Research, Focus Groups, Workshops
Project Summary
Carers Victoria Young Carers (those under 18 years old caring for a parent or guardian with a disability) portal to aid with life skills and tasks
Due to confidentiality not all details and processes can be disclosed
The challenge
Carers Victoria is a not-for-profit that focuses on those caring for a person with a mental or physical disability. With numberous resources for those with the disability, often the carers go unrecognised and unsupported. This where Carers Victoria steps in. Within Carers Victoria there is a distinct group of carers who are known as "Young Carers". These young carers are under 18 years old and are often looking after their parent or parents with little family support. We wanted to come up with a tool that would help them accomplish the day to day tasks.
"These young carers are under 18 years old and are often looking after their parent or parents with little family support."
What we did & learnings
As none of us in the office were 16 and in touch with what was pressing for a teenager we ran 3 focus groups. Making sure the Young Carers felt safe and that it was a environment they could contribute to. Much more care needed to be taken in facilitation than a regular focus group due to their age and also the stressors that were present in all of their lives. What we found was interesting. They craved structure and organisation. They didn't want a tool that would suggest things - they wanted firm, set guidelines. They wanted a defacto parent. With the information from the workshops we developed personas and informal user flows that would shape the design of the product. While due to budgetary contraints the portal wasn't able to be developed, the personas and user flows were used within the business - from counselling to publications to better inform their processes and strategy.