SozialHelden

During the 2021 Integrative Design Studio (final grade 1,0) at Hochschule Anhalt, we had the opportunity to work with several different NGOs from all over the globe. My team, in particular, was assigned to work with SozialHelden, a german based NGO with several inspiring projects, but our focus was on the IncluScience one.

The problem

The NGO project is in partnership with the Social Research Centre (sfs) from TU Dortmund. It aims to collect data regarding the accessible movement in vertical infrastructures such as theatres, cinemas, and medical facilities in Germany. Ideally, citizen-scientists — people with disabilities — will provide data the researchers need to implement new features in the Wheelmap platform — the main project from the parent company.

After the first meeting with the NGO's collaborator, our group grasped IncluScience’s requisites and particularities. Subsequently, we elaborated a feasible working proposal with four main approaches to support our recipient in attracting, informing, engaging, and compensating their target public. These four deliverables led us to several desirable assessments. But not without some routes recalculation and uncertainty.

The process

We agreed to provide tools and methods to ease the design strategies implementation and graphic materials usage due to the NGO team size limitations. By enabling our recipients to be self-directed, our team would also support them in independently fulfilling their purpose after our collaboration conclusion.

Since our solutions aimed to support the IncluScience team is properly reaching their audience, our proposal intended to address the following questions:

1. How to attract experts in an efficient/accessible manner?

2. How to inform the audience regarding the project?

3. How to engage and bond with the target community?

4. How to compensate the citizens for participating?

Henceforth, our four main design propositions were: 1. Branding Materials; 2. Website Landing Page; 3. Social Media Campaign Strategies; 4. Newsletter Strategy. To organize these deliverables and align them to our collaborator expectations, we created a timeline in a Miro board and frequently updated our blog featured in the Geographies of Innovation Studio’s webpage.

The solution

Back in the briefing phase, the group argued that a complete logo redesign would be necessary to improve the IncluScience visual language and attract citizen-scientists. However, a physically impaired professional designed the original logo, and thereby our initial intentions became unethical.

The logo and its visual identity would determine different solutions proposed by us. So it was still crucial to perform minimal adjustments regarding legibility. We adapted our deliverable and tried to improve the logo aesthetic while respecting the original concept to achieve our visual communication goals. Consequently, maintaining consistency and alignment with the company values.

According to Frascara, “graphic design is viewed only from an aesthetic perspective, without enough consideration of communication and social significance. Surely, aesthetics is important, but it is by no means the sole measure for quality.” (1988, p. 20) Although holding a few caveats regarding Frascara’s values, I agree that quality is a relative concept. Thus, conveying ethical aspects in design projects should be a compulsory requirement for all of us.

The outcome

While developing the Branding Manual, I researched accessibility guidelines and realized design for inclusivity implicates considering human diversity to create accessible and meaningful experiences. Because of that, the IncluScience landing page had to be objective, simple, friendly, robust, logical, affordable, and adequate.

The outcome was a layout carefully planned to suitably inform the audience under suggestions summarized from WCAG, Apple Developer, UK Government, UX Collective, and Material Design. The learnings about disability gathered in this Studio extrapolated my professional dimension, though. In general, I am now more aware of impairments and social struggles I was oblivious to.

Besides, our team comprised people with varying cultural, religious, experiential, study, and work backgrounds. Latins, Pakistanis, Muslims, LGBTQ+, and Feminists — these aspects connected us to the relevance of inclusivity. Thanks to our overlapping differences (intersectionality), we could develop mindful design solutions for our recipients. Although not measuring the outcomes of our deliverables yet, I can attest that I achieved my academic objectives.

MAIN TEAM

Professor: Erik Bohemia
NGO Collaborator: Sarah Krümpelmann
Designers: Darakhshan Noor, Maria Huma, Rebeca Guedes, and Shakeeb Ahsan

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