A one-week design sprint for a website based after LGBT+ adoption in the PNW, the Pacific Northwest LGBT+ Adoption Forum is set on "empowering and uplifting LGBTQ+ couples and individuals to build a family and community through adoption."
For the Pacific Northwest LGBT+ Adoption Forum, I was the Lead UX Researcher and wrote the primary paper used to summarize the team's 40+ total pages of compiled research. In this project I also illustrated and designed the storyboard to visualize the user scenario and lead the presentation design to be cohesive with the forum's existing branding.
User research for the forum was conducted through virtual ethnographic research. Each member of the team initially gathered at least 10 pages of research using forum threads regarding adoption from LGBT+ individuals to be coded.
Listed below are the categories defined to encompass the trends identified in the data.
Barriers, including instances of discrimination, prejudice, or related concerns
General questions
Personal concerns over identity of parent(s) or identity-based discussion
Location mention
Research mention
Legality mention/legal process
Agency mention, with inclusion of issues relating to agencies or the adoption system
Narrowing the scope lead to the team focusing on gathering legal information in Washington state and information provided by real adoption agencies specializing in LGBT+ adoption.
In threads where LGBT+ individuals are either in the middle of the adoption process or thinking about adopting a child, several questions come up regarding the clarity or expectations of the process itself. We found that individual agencies were emphasized in how the process would go over location despite location being a frequent worry. However, location is a more relevant element when it came to legal mentions and the legal aspects of the process itself. Lowering the scope, Washington state does not allow adoption discrimination based on gender or sexuality, meaning that LGBT+ people in Washington state should largely be able to adopt without agency-based discrimination. Location-based struggles are largely due to community.
For those that have been through this experience, it is also recommended to draw from personal accounts. There are very few times that individuals can point to defined resources on adopting and raising a child as a LGBT+ parent. This indicates some lack of clarity on adopting until one decides to actually go through the process.
Developed personas.
User scenario for interacting with the resource forum.
The design prompt was to create an adoption website for any topic of the team's choosing. Wanting to create a project that would be helpful to marginalized communities, the team initially conceptualized a general LGBT+ adoption website.
After initial research, the team began to tailor its content to the Pacific Northwest area in order to create a more efficient resource for connecting to agencies and learning about the legal aspect of adoption. This focused location also allows the resource to generate local community within its userbase.
Sitemap.
Select samples slides from the team's stakeholder pitch deck.
Select pages from the Figma high fidelity mockup to show research translation into content, as well as cohesion between the presentation and website branding itself.
Throughout this project it was valuable to gradually learn about the shared struggles of the local community. Even past the team's initial human-centered approach, it became increasingly important to center the idea of serving local communities through consistently evaluating the purpose/use of each of the resource's features.
If this project were to be re-explored, an early priority would be directly interviewing LGBT+ individuals looking to adopt for qualitative data. Having these direct conversations are important to identifying further nuances in the frustrations of our users, which would allow us to serve them more effectively than through virtual data alone.
