Challenge: In a partnership with St. Joseph’s Candler’s African American Health Information and Resource Center, Healthy Savannah launched the HERO (Health Effective Resource Organization) database. However, in support of the REACH grant, this database needed to be strengthened and humanized in its impact. Healthy Savannah partnered with our team to provide diverse design knowledge, research capabilities, and people power to raise awareness, highlight value, and strengthen the impact of the HERO database initiative for the priority stakeholders: low-wealth African American population in Savannah, GA.
Time Period: 10 weeks
In Partnership with: Healthy Savannah
Role: Research Lead
TEAM
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Given the short duration of the project, our priorities for research were to get acquainted with the intricacies of the REACH grant, the systems that Healthy Savannah operated in, and, most importantly, the historical and current context of health inequities that exist within the priority population. Being a diverse team ourselves, we knew we had to get deeper within the community to be a part of the conversation at the grass-root level.
PARTICIPATORY ART
We had the opportunity to participate at the Black Heritage Festival in Savannah which coincided with the research phase of this project. We leveraged the event to volunteer with Healthy Savannah for a HERO-related survey, interact with the community, and create participatory art with them. With 116 participants, the priority population created a beautiful art piece with their answers to a rather simple question, “What does a healthy community mean to you?”
By analyzing information from the interviews, the survey, and the participatory art piece, it became clear that our that the idea of a healthy community goes beyond the practical indicators for the priority population, towards a deeper sense of wellbeing. With these values in mind, our next step was to synthesize and outline a design criteria.
DESIGN CRITERIA
Our goal for this project was to contribute to the resilience and self-organization of the priority community with a flexible design that could create the conditions for positive self-reinforcing feedback loops. In order to find a leverage point in the system, we aligned our research insights with Healthy Savannah’s mission and priorities. This served as fuel for defining a criteria that would ensure that the solution would become a small win in Healthy Savannah’s larger work of the REACH Grant.
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Following multiple ideation sessions, we generated a few initial concepts which were then evaluated on the basis of the formulated design criteria. The concept of an offline, physical representation of the HERO database struck the chord. The idea was to create a physical access point that would connect people with information relating to health, nutrition and clinical linkages. Spontaneously, the team starting drawing parallels between the Little Free Library and the chosen concept. We decided to register our concept as an official Little Free Library. The idea of a little house-shaped cabinet that brought the community together seemed apt. We decided to call it ‘Neighborhood HERO’.
Using the 5 E’s of Experience (Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, Extend), we fleshed out four user journeys for the concept. These journeys focused on creating community engagement and strengthening Healthy Savannah’s partnerships with other non-profits such as the Forsyth Farmers’ Market.
PROTOTYPE ITERATIONS
Putting pen to paper, we started sketching out low-fidelity prototypes. The priorities for the prototype included accommodating extra space for food-storage and information resources, weatherproof design, and design that created community engagement. For the last priority, we decided that the outer surface of the library be painted by an artist from the community. We partnered with Re:Purpose Savannah to source repurposed wood and Maven Makers to help us with their woodwork expertise for building a high fidelity prototype.
