Native-Veteran Support Circle: Facilitator & Attendees
Role: UX Designer
Team: 1 UI Designer, 1 Native Designer Consultant
User Research, Expert Interviews, Trauma-Informed Design, UI/UX, Concept Design, Service Design, Prototyping
The problem
Veterans can feel isolated, lost, and helpless when they return to home, if a home still exists for them. Returning to society can be very difficult when also navigating the assistance they may need from various resources. This leads to high rates of substance abuse and suicide, particularly in the Native Veteran population.
67% of suicides can be reduced with access to mental health care services, according to Televëda’s research.
Televeda wanted to make an impact towards reducing suicide rates. Read about the grant whhich funded the design and development of this project here.
Design Goal:
Design a virtual support group with traditional storytelling principles to reduce suicide by military veterans on the Navajo Nation.
Users and Stakeholders
Cultural Research
Along with literature review guided by Televeda, our cultural consultant, Brittany Gene, helped the team become culturally aware and understand the added layers of complexity that the Navajo audience was experiencing in their struggle to return home after their service.
Felt disowned by their family and tribe members. This led them to feel lost as their clanship was a large part of their identity.
Experience issues with Veteran Affairs such as:
inhumane treatment
difficulty navigating resources
Did not identify as “heroes”, but rather felt ashamed
Furthermore, each tribe is unique. There are 547 federally recognized tribes, which doesn’t include the tribes that remain unrecognized!
Many have experienced improper portrayals and use of their culture, including but not limited to mascotting, costuming, and tropes.
Ethnographic Research
I attended multiple virtual talking circle events, including native and non-native ones to understand their structure and functionality. I learned so much from attending and saw the need for a better virtual circle experience.
I was able to map out a typical talking circle agenda and pinpoint key features and characteristics.
Circle Agenda
Confidentiality: “What is shared in the circle stays in the circle”
Intimate Sharing: Groups were usually 5- 10 people for the best experience
Rounds: The support circle could have multiple rounds of discussion and sometimes ended with a questions or gratitude round.
Attendee Journey Map
Cultural Context - Network Access
About 30% of native veterans live or are located on the res at some point. This was 30% of the population that we had to design and account for. Because of time constraints, we could not implement a Audio- Default “call-in” feature in the first design round, but I made it very clear that it was absolutely necessary to implement this feature.
UX flows
Psychiatrist Insight
During an expert interview with Dr. Bhupin Butaney, I expressed my concerns regarding the training and qualifications necessary for facilitators to maintain transcripts and identify attendees as "At-Risk." Dr. Butaney validated these concerns, and the Televeda team and I acknowledged that we were blurring the line between a virtual support group and clinical services.
Transcriptions did not align with our product goal and therefore were removed. I redesigned the identification feature into the “Flag Attendee” feature. This feature no longer required clinical training. If the facilitator/host had a concern, they could flag someone, which then became a responsibility of the organization to reach out.
“If you have a concern about someone, you need to connect them to a clinical space. There must be a process for this.”
Brand Style Guide
Televeda already had Brand Guidelines but we made sure to update them to meet WCAG Accessibility standards.
Our UI designer created a culturally relevant design style.
For the talking tokens, I made the decision of including 4: a seashell, stone, branch, and feather.
Final MVP Design Coming Soon!
Business Impact
Televeda plans on launching the support circle in time for Veterans Day 2024.
