Labor2Day

THE CHALLENGE

How might we make the city of Richmond a smart and sustainable city with respect to employment related issues the city currently faces.

SOLUTION

Labor2Day is a text-based messaging system that connects day laborers in the city of Richmond with local employers. Many of Richmond’s day laborers have no idea where to look for jobs, other than maybe standing outside a Home Depot for the day. Using the new system, employers input today’s or tomorrow’s job needs via a web app. The laborers text their name to a number and are led through a sequence of questions. The information is automatically processed and queried in real-time, and potential matches are sent back. Labor2Day doesn’t require WiFi or online access, making it as accessible as possible to day laborers.

MY ROLE

Primarily User Research. I also contributed heavily to Product Design and UX Design.

METHODOLOGIES

Personas, Affinity Diagramming, Flow Diagram, Contextual Inquiry, Stakeholder Interviews, Prototyping.

PROCESS

USER RESEARCH

After assessing the general employment scenario and pain points of the city of Richmond by talking to Richmond locals and city officials, I got a sense of the scale and nature of the problem. Taking a deeper dive, I recruited some participants for Contextual Inquiry and Stakeholder Interviews. All this user research yielded the following insights, which later informed key Product Design decisions - 

1) The worst served in terms of access to employment opportunities were the day laborers in Richmond. They did not have a means to look for jobs or access to any sophisticated technology like smart phones, Wi-Fi or web apps.

2) Standing outside Home Depot or Lowe's for the whole day, not knowing if or when an opportunity might come was counter productive, uncomfortable and the laborers had their own inhibitions in doing so.

3) Employers did not have a means to connect with the Day Laborer for short term tasks like help in the backyard, fence painting etc.

                                                                   My team with the Richmond locals we spoke to

 

Personas

The User Research shaped the two personas - Employer and Employee/Laborer.

                                                                                                     Employee Persona

                                                                                                     Employer Persona

 

Feature Definition

I brainstormed with my team about various ways to connect the employers and laborers using lo-tech options and narrowed down on the following key features - 

1) A simple web interface for the employers to submit their requests for short terms tasks.

2) A simple text based interface for the laborers to find employment. 

3) A mechanism to connect demand with supply.

We did affinity diagramming, feature storyboards and flow diagram to hash out the details.

Affinity Diagram

Affinity Diagram

Feature Storyboard

Feature Storyboard


                                                                                                  Product Flow Diagram

                                                                              Early Stage Information Architecture 

 

PROTOTYPE

The prototype of the web form and the text messaging interface is as follows - 

                                                         Web Form Prototype

                                                    Text based messaging interface prototype

“The most rewarding project”