Know Those You Serve

What’s the #1 reason new ventures fail? They don’t solve a meaningful problem for people.

That’s why we start with the people you want to serve, deeply understanding their context: their dreams, needs, and behaviors. We move away from fitting a user into a solution. Instead, we focus on supporting the full human experience with all its complexities.

Process

We move the needle on your most pressing problems through original research and insights. 

We offer ✸ collaborative multi-day workshops where we facilitate your team through this journey and ✸ an 8-week design sprint where we jump into the world of your customers, your clients, your stakeholders, and all those you seek to serve.

  • 1. Design Brief

    Frame the problem and hone in on the audience you seek to serve

  • 2. Field Work

    Actively learn about the audience through surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, etc.

  • 3. Synthesize

    Turn what we hear into actional output for your team: insights, key questions, hypotheses, frameworks, and ideas

Working with fahad helps me and Connective better understand how design thinking works in solving community problems, given the complex systems we play in.

The frameworks, feedback, and thought partnership that fahad brings have been extremely instrumental in achieving our organizational goals.

I’ve used design thinking before and working with fahad pushes the way my organization and I use design thinking to serve our clients.

— Elena White
Executive Director, Connective

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Outcomes

  • Proactive (not reactive) strategy to meet real human needs

  • Understand those you want to serve and where you fit in their journey through personas

  • Collectively align on and add structure to your thinking through frameworks

  • Culture of continuous innovation as you deepen, broaden understanding of those you serve

  • Sticky ideas that give you a competitive advantage through addressing real needs

  • Bank of specific questions to validate as you build or refine your products

Case Study

Understanding Tenant and Landlord Experience During Early Uncertainty of COVID-19

Challenge: How might we quickly design impactful social services to support local landlords and tenants in the face of the uncertainty and tensions of the pandemic?

Offering: Multiple Design Research Sprints Using Screeners, Focus Groups and 1:1 Interviews

Process: We conducted 3 research sprints, focused on understanding the tenant experience, general landlord experience, and the small landlord experience. We drafted clear design briefs with research goals and hypotheses. We conducted screener surveys, 1:1 interviews, and focus groups in English and Spanish with intentionally selected participants.

Outcomes

  • The Client left with a deep understanding of tenant and landlord experience, including frameworks and personas that directly informed their social service offerings.

  • The Client shared the research with the City of Houston. Based on this research, the City of Houston developed a “How To Talk To Your Landlord” informational flyer that was created, published, and distributed widely across the Houston community within one week of our initial suggestion.

  • The research on small landlords during COVID-19 influenced the programmatic and policy recommendations of the Small Landlord Working Group within the City of Houston’s Housing Stability Task Force

Case Study

Designing an Emergency Relief Fund During COVID-19

Challenge: How can we design an emergency relief fund that distributes dollars efficiently and equitably during a pandemic that triggered stay-at-home orders and mass unemployment?

Offering: Design Research Sprint Using In-Depth 1:1 Interviews

Process: We conducted a research sprint to get input from potential participants on the emergency relief fund strategy and process. We did so through focus groups in English and Spanish with local residents. We focused the focus group conversations on program messaging, program communications and website design, and the application process.

Outcomes

  • The Client and their partners left with invaluable insights about people’s experience during the uncertainty of the pandemic and what that means for how people engage with social services such as an emergency relief fund.

  • The Client and their partners were able to prove or disprove some hypotheses about people’s needs and behaviors. Ultimately, it shaped how the funding was distributed to and access by the people

Case Study

Boosting Access To Social Services By Designing Digital Native Tools for Spanish Speakers in Houston

Challenge: How might we design digital tools for Spanish speakers that address their specific social service needs?

Offering: Design Research Sprints Using Prototype Feedback, Observations, and 1:1 Interviews

Process: We conducted a research sprint, focused on understanding how we can build better technology for Spanish speakers who are accessing social services in Houston. We drafted clear design briefs with research goals and hypotheses. We built a prototype of a tool and used it to observe how potential users interacted it, what worked for them, and what didn’t work for them; and then we debrief their experience in 1:1 interviews

Outcomes

  • The Client left with several lessons learned about building technology and processes for Spanish speakers, such as “technology tools built for non-English speakers will always have two audiences: the seeker and those who may be helping them access the tool.”

  • The Client left with exploratory questions to boost ideation, such as “Some populations may have less social capital in our community, such as recent immigrants. How can we use our tools to help them build relationships and networks?”

  • The Client continues to use these insights in building better, more human-centered applications, tools, and processes that enable more and more Houstonians to access social services in a dignified manner!