PACE SOCIETY
Redesigned an online platform to spread awareness to the general public about the stigmatized sex industry and provide workers a safe and intuitive way to easily report any unethical treatment by the customers.
Note: Please be aware that this case study may contain sensitive material.
WHAT IS PACE SOCIETY?
PACE is a non-profit and peer-driven society located in Downtown, Vancouver. The organization seeks to reduce the violence and isolation associated with the sex work industry. They also help to improve the health, safety, and empowerment of its members.
Our client wanted an easily accessible platform that empowers the workers to confidentially report any unethical and violent activities against them primarily by their customers like; Bad-date. This platform also aims to spread awareness among the general public to reduce the stigma around the sex industry.
The opportunity
The opportunity for this project was to redesign the existing website to a responsive one that seeks to reduce the vilonce and isolation associated with the sex work industry. Pace websites introduce program services to their users and also to generate funds and bring awareness amongst the general public about the industry. With this in mind, we set forward and completed the UX process from research and telephonic interview to build, and collaborated with a UI design duo to deliver a hi-fidelity prototype.
The outcome
We successfully redesigned the website and app for Pace Society with simplified navigation and layout. Introducing platforms like 'Chimp' for donation and 'Eventbrite' to promote the activity improved and provided lots of space in the website which helped the UX team to handover the mid-fidelity clean. The redesigning of the website creates empathy and aligns with the value of Pace that empowers users associated with Pace and spreads awareness in public.
My contribution
• During the client interview, I asked a few critical questions about the organization and its work culture. It helped the team to get a better insight into the requirements.
• Research online to understand the struggles of sex workers. This helped the team and myself to discover the existing workers' pain points.
• Participated in brainstorming sessions with the team for mind mapping and to share ideas on the user flow.
• For the usability test, articulated tasks to the users and drafted the user’s feedback and observations
• Designed the wireframes for the web and mobile phone. 40 out of 80 wireframes were designed by me including the bad-date reporting workflow.
Goals
User
Attract more members to their organization through their website, especially from the indoor sex work community.
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Business
Attract more funding in the form of sponsorship and donations by having a credible website.
Challenge
The two biggest challenges faced in this project were, to connect with the workers and to prepare questionnaires to discover their pain-points without making them uncomfortable. Generally, they were hesitant to talk in open because of the social discrimination around the industry.
We were able to connect to a few workers via social networking and Pace members for user interviews. These members agreed to share their experiences on the condition of anonymity. Also, after multiple brainstorming sessions and feedback from peers, we prepared a series of questions for the interview.
Research
Please note that the research data is only based on the Canada region.
We were unable to send the survey to the audience because workers did not want to disclose anything related to their work or identity. So, the research phases are divided into three subcategories, based on domain research, user interview, general facts, and data analysis.
Domain research
Our client suggested a few organization’s names like Swan, WISH, Peers Victoria, SWOP USA, and Saint James Infirmary, etc. We explored and analyzed that the features were similar to Pace.
User interview
Despite the challenges mentioned above, we conducted two user interviews and collected good data points. Some of the findings were:
• Events for workers to socialize and feel connected in the community were important like meeting new friends, celebrations, or movie plans.
• Workers must meet supportive people to feel homely and safe.
• Organizing events frequently for workers would be nice for the community.
• Awareness of websites amongst the community should be raised.
• A list of bad-date names to make the workers cautious and safe.
• A feature where workers can easily report bad dates if needed.
General facts
We did some research to educate ourselves and explore data for our research about the current conditions of workers and industry in Canada, BC.
Demographic
In Canada, workers’ age range varies from 16 to 61 however the average age is between 22 to 25 years. Sadly, teenagers are primarily involved in sex trafficking. Considering the hardships and risks in their profession, they barely make enough money and the median income of workers is 32,000 which varies with gender, ethnicity, and education.
In Vancouver, the ratio of workers is around 1300 to 2600 out of which 500 are underage. Workers belong to different communities including migrants and indigenous (First Nation, Inuit, or Metis). The ratio of workers varies between 52-60% in which 25% are female migrants. Work practice wise, 20% of workers solicit clients on the street while the rest work indoors.
Work conditions
Prostitution happens at many private and public locations, the primary being personal homes, strip clubs, and brothels. Around 86% of indigenous workers struggle to make up a living or are homeless. Around 30% to 35% of workers are forced into this profession because of circumstances they had not voluntarily joined. Only one-fourth of the workers find the work genuinely appealing and enter the field.
There is a lack of standards and policies in this industry, exposing the workers to high-risk medical conditions.
Prostitution law
Prostitution is the legal term for sex work. Selling your own body is legal. Buying sex is illegal. Therefore the transaction as a whole is legal on the part of the seller and illegal on the part of the buyer. See Prostitution in Canada, Prostitution Law in Canada, and The Department Of Justice for more details.
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There is a difference between sex work & sex trafficking and also survival sex is different from freelance [1]. The government helps in creating non-profit organizations like pace. In Vancouver, there have not been any recorded murder cases for sex workers in over a decade. Please see the reference link for more details.
Planning
In the early stage of research, we discovered the drawback already that there isn’t going to be enough data. Therefore, we planned to audit, analyze the content, and the number of URLs on the Pace website. Manually we found there were 65 Pace URLs.However, systematically one of our team members found it to be 227 Pace URLs.
Affinity map
An affinity diagram is an organized output from a brainstorming session. It helps to generate, organize, and consolidate information concerning a product, process, complex issue, or problem. Constructing an affinity diagram is a creative process that expresses ideas without quantifying them.
User journey
The customer journey map is a tool to visualize the experience of interacting with your brand from the customer’s point of view. This map is critical because it forces you to look at how your customers experience your brand versus how you think they do. By better understanding your customers, you can better deliver on their expectations.
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The emoticons on the journey map below are used to share the expressions of users. It is a graphical representation of emotions when the users visit on the existing Pace website.
User persona
A user persona is a semi-fictional character created to represent different customer types that use a company’s products or services.
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Based on our research to represent different user types. We created two fictional characters to help understand the user’s needs, experiences, behaviours, and goals.
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Escort - Persona 1
Meet Cheri, who is 26 years old and is an Escort by profession. She lives in Vancouver and she loves everything about fashion and being physically fit. Cheri has been working in the industry for 5years and she is tired of dealing with the stereotype that she is a victim of sex trafficking. Often she struggles to see the bad dates list which had not been posted online.
Donar - Persona 2
The second persona we created was for the donor. Meet Karen, who is 34 years old and is a community outreach coordinator based in Vancouver. Karen finds it challenging to find organizations that align according to her values. She remains suspicious of whether her donation goes to people who are in need or not.
User scenario
User scenarios are stories that designers create to show how users might act to achieve a goal in a system or environment. Designers make scenarios to understand users’ motivations, needs, barriers, and more in the context of how they would use design, and to help ideate, iterate, and usability-test optimal solutions.
Storyboard
A storyboard is a visual representation of a film sequence and breaks down the action into individual panels. It is a series of ordered drawings, with camera direction, dialogue, or other pertinent details. It sketches out how a video will unfold, shot by shot.
User flow
User Flow is a type of diagram used in UX Design. It represents the workflow or process from the user’s perspective. In the basic form, User Flows represents the task in the form of a picture with blocks connected by arrows.
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Once we understand what all features need to be included and the best possible flow for the initial prototypes. We started to build the onboarding user flow, where users can become a member of the organization by filling in details about themselves. Supposedly, the verification would be done by the administrative department of Pace to check whether a person can become a member or not.
Bad Date
Bad-date is a list that circulates details of persons that may pose a threat to sex workers. Bad-date lists can serve as a warning system, allowing sex workers to avoid people who fit descriptions on the list.
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Bad-date user flow where members of the Pace community can view the list and report against any abusive conduct by their customers. If any member faces a bad date, Pace supports and takes care of the health and safety consequences.
Design
We were then ready with the initial sketches of our paper prototypes for multiple usability tests and based on the feedback we would start iterations. We asked users to perform various tasks to cross-check the flow of the responsive design.
Usability test
Before using the sketch tool to build wireframes, we asked users to perform tasks so that we receive feedback on each step possible.
Iterations based on user feedback
• After receiving feedback, we refined and decided to remove the account confirmation option. Pace needs to be sure about its members, hence the administrator will have the authority to approve it.
• Option to add the user’s phone number will help admin staff to contact the new or any unknown member applicants.
• Added a pop-up notification, where admin staff had to confirm the account within two business days.
• We shifted the quick email subscribe button to the bottom as not all visitors might want to be a member of Pace.
Wireframes
In these usability tests, users walk us through the main design flow like how users will view events lists, report bad dates, or buy things from Shopify.
User feedback
Final responsive UI prototype
Future consideration
We delivered the amount of work in 3weeks time includes both UX and UI team effort. During the course of time, we were able to achieve the MVP of our product. We were fortunate to share some additional information with our client which would lead this project to be more flawless if the below features are considered in the future:
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• Platforms like Eventbrite and Shopify simplify and enrich the experience of users. These platforms will benefit from organizing events and managing their online e-commerce stores.
• Google Analytics will help Pace keep track and report of the website and can help in brand recognition.
• Search Console tool will help to measure the performance and will help in fixing the issues. The website will shine on the Google search results.
• Authorized policy to show the list of bad dates on the website which will help Pace members to be alert from them.
• As specified above, there were more than 65 URLs on the Pace website. Instead, blog creation would be nice to consider.
•We recommended our client to bring back FAQ. As it provides quick information to help the members make decisions and also reduces the time to answer simple questions by the staff.
Conclusion
I am glad to share that we collaborated so well with the team which helped us to make the project a success. Coming from a different country, I didn’t expect to unveil the darker side of this beautiful city of Vancouver. In the research phase, I was downhearted to read and learn about the struggles of sex workers in the industry.
After acquiring the goals and being a part of an amazing project we were able to help the community and workers to resolve their issue and make their life less stressful. This thought makes me feel super happy.
Our Client, who was full of happiness and tears in her eyes, made us feel rewarded for the outcome of our project. I pray and hope to keep getting chances like these to keep helping those who are in need.
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