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THE BIG ISSUE
CONNECT
About The Project
As we move towards a more connected society, The Big Issue Group is keen to identify a deeper and enhanced conenction with younger stakeholders who will sustain their business(es) into the future. This project focuses on understanding GenZ and ideating a service for them that aligns with the values of the TBI group.
X
AN RCA x THE BIG ISSUE COLLABORATION PROJECT
A SERVICE DESIGN PROJECT
Collaborative Team Project
Date
Sept 10, 2022
Location
RCA, London
Duration
3 Months
UNDERSTANDING PROJECT BRIEF
The Big Issue Group is keen to engage young people (18-24) who may or may not be interested in social impact with a new product or service that creates a value exchange, both financial and social in nature.
We deconstructed the brief by developing an understanding of Social Issues, The Big Issue, and GenZ and the common ground between them to employ service design strategies to develop different approaches to target the problem.
INTRODUCTION
THE BIG ISSUE GROUP
The organization exists to support the Big Issue Vendor i.e people who are homeless, at risk of becoming homeless, are long-term unemployed, and in need of extra cash to avoid falling into debt by helping them sell magazines. The organization has a wide range of initiatives including Big Issue Media, Big Issue Shop, E-bikes, Big Issue Recruit, Big Issue Futures, and Big Issue Invest.
HAND UP NOT HAND OUT | DIGNITY | REBELLION AGENCY
DECONSTRUCTING THE BRIEF
We deconstructed the brief by developing an understanding of Social Issues, The Big Issue, and GenZ and the common ground between them to employ service design strategies to develop different approaches to target the problem.
OUR GOAL
Discover different behavioral patterns and mental models about GenZ
Help TBI gain a range of insights to better understand GenZ’s needs, pains and motivations through desk & user study.
Discover opportunities that allow Big Issue to tap into GenZ world
We wish to critically examine the insights gathered and use that to think of impactful service outcomes.
RESEARCH
WHAT WE DID?
In our research on the BIG ISSUE GROUP, we carried out a comprehensive examination of the brand, including customer and competitor analysis. For the social aspect, we primarily focused on exploring Gen Z's views on contributing to society and the impact they hope to make, as well as their motivations and obstacles to engagement.
Additionally, we delved into the emotional and functional values that can be offered to this demographic and conducted case studies to examine how other brands have successfully established value exchanges with Gen Z
OUR USER STUDY METHODOLOGY
We conducted both qualitative and quantitative research for the user study. Each member of our team reached out to 10 GenZs and had in-depth interviews with them. Apart from that we also read tons of GenZ-replaced reports and study cases.
The main purpose of this qualitative research is to form our initial theory of user behavior patterns and gain an understanding of user empathy. And for the quantitative research, we launched the survey and posted it both offline and online, the data is used to validate our theory.
An ongoing survey initiative of ‘Get it all out’ to gain GenZ’s opinion, interests and motivations
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We conducted User Interviews with GenZ participants over different platforms including zoom, social media and in-person meetings
Finding patterns in our research data
To better understand GenZ and the insights we gathered we mapped them on a scale of activity and synthesised the motivation & barriers for each category to help us find the most prominent type of personas
As a result, we identified a couple of mainstream actions ranging from simple acts of kindness to substantial social contributions. These actions have been ranked on a scale of inactivity, occasional involvement, to active participation.
After examining their motivations and obstacles, we found a strong correlation between them and identified three behavioral patterns, which we have labeled as three personas.
PERSONA IDENTIFIED
Persona 1
Generous George
Personality: The Doer - Need for social interaction, feelings and emotions, logical processes and reasoning, along with a need for freedom.
Nature of Engagement: Helping people, Volunteering, Buying food/ providing the needful and so on.
Persona 2
#SocialShoutSophie
Personality: The Supporter - Uses social media to read interesting articles and watch entertaining videos. Very much engrossed in the scrolling process and enjoy learning and exploring new things and linking them in different ways.
Nature of Engagement: Expressing Opinions, Creating content related to social cause/impact, like sharing, commenting, signing a vote, and so on.
Persona 3
Benefits Ben
Personality: The Practical - Extrovert, focused on how to make the most of what is out there for himself while enjoying additional offers and services that contribute towards society.
Nature of Engagement: Personal benefit/ gains focused whilst being glad about the involuntary contribution to things, Buying products from brands, thrift shopping, joining club/community.
DESIGN DIRECTION
We wanted to ensure that the contributions of desperate GenZ individuals reach those suffering from social problems. At the same time, TBI must use its connections with social issues to collaborate with younger generations.
IDEATION WORKSHOP
Based on this we had an ideation workshop with ideas ranging from curation platform, university sports event, reimagining big, issue shop, Storytelling content platform, sustainable lifestyle platform, business venture platform
We aim to address the social dilemma that exists between GenZ and the Big Issue group that impedes Genz from social value exchange due to a lack of trust, transparency, and personal connection
Approach: TBI Curation Platform
Insights: Contributions based on personality type
Approach: University Social Event
Insights: Hobbies based contribution
Approach: Reimagining Big Issue Shop
Insights: Trust & Transparency
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Approach: Storytelling Content Platform
Insights: Personal Connect
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Approach: Sustainable Lifestyle Platform
Insights: Personalised contribution
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Approach: Business Venture Platform
Insights: For GenZ by GenZ
We revisted our research and talked to GenZ for an initial idea evaluation based on the criteria of GenZ traits, inclusion, user engagement and return plaussibility, scalability and growth opportnities for all stakeholders involved.
Evaluating ideas based on GenZ traits
MARKET RESEARCH
Our market research involved looking at various existing platforms that are popular amongst GenZ, and successfully running volunteer platforms in London.
It helped us understand what makes them successful and we used these insights to our advantage while we were ideating our service.
Creating a Big issue platform for Gen Z to make a social impact by helping them find their personality type to match with suitable opportunities, ranging from small acts of kindness to volunteering events or campaigns.
The service targets GenZ who are aware/interested/passionate about social causes but need support in finding ways to take actions that suit them.
ABOUT OUR SERVICE
Our service aims to empower GenZ to make a meaningful social impact by connecting them with opportunities that align with their unique personality type.
Recognizing that GenZ individuals have varying attitudes towards social causes, our service provides the support and resources needed to help them make a difference.
With its resilience and agility, our service will drive GenZ users to develop or utilize their personal skills, experiences, and opportunities to positively impact social issues.
By doing so, our service can help GenZ users showcase their initiatives on our website, generate additional revenue, and increase their social media presence.
Take test to discover your social contribution type, the value you can bring and some attributes you can build
How: Range of fun and creative questions
User Engagement: Avatar Creation
Driving Force: Curiosity
Match with different contribution activities personalised based on your interests, goals, time contribution and strengths
How: Context, Impact Goal, Role type
User Engagement: Active/Passive Support
Rewards: Certification, % from Big Shop
Driving Force: Personalised experiences
Connect with people who share interests, Chat rooms for people to discuss their thoughts on a specific social problem.
How: Support ongoing petitions
User Engagement: Connect, Talk & Share
Driving Force: Freedom to express their own opinions
Based on your personal goals, view your personal and collective impact to the world to gain badges
How: Social Portfolio Development
User Engagement: Sharing
Driving Force: Need for recognition
OUR SERVICE OFFERINGS
We mainly wanted to offer 3 key features to our users. Firstly, we wanted to empower them to explore their social impact through our "social tag" feature. This helps them find opportunities that align with their values and interests.
Secondly, we provide a platform for GenZ to connect with like-minded individuals and engage in meaningful conversations. Think of it like a dating app or TikTok comments but with a focus on social causes.
Thirdly, we recognize and reward their efforts through badges that are approved by TBI, a trusted credit agency. It also boosts the morale of GenZ and helps increase their credibility among their parents and teachers.
TYPES OF SOCIAL TAGS
The Catalyst
Ability to inspire and take actions on,often leaders in the community
The Sustainability Champion
Passionate about sustainable practices, knowledgeable to find solutions to complex problems
The Connector
Skilled at bringing social topic on social media, opinion and thoughts
The Global Citizen
Making positive impact on global scale, very well informed about the issues
The Social Justice Warrior
Not afraid to speak up and take action to challenge issues
Journey Map
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PLATFORM ECOSYSTEM
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Web App + Mobile App
The ecosystem would include a web based platform and a responsive mobile application.
The web-app would be an easy to access platform which wouldn’t require any downloading. It would consist of all the MVP features of the app.
Other features can be accessed by downloading the mobile app.
We would also put in a lot of effort into designing a unique and creative app that users would possibly get hooked on to.
PLATFORM FEATURES
MOBILE APP
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WEB APP
Social cause media space, to exchange thoughts, concerns & raise awarness about about social issues.
Matches users with events, actvities, etc based on their preferences, skills, location, time.
Unique “Personality test” based signup process.
Image based questionnaire, to make personality test interesting
Fun offline games, activities, etc based on social issues.
Suggestions on event participation based on test results
Unique user experience catered to imporve GenZ’s engagement.
Reward system based on active participation.
Connects users with other users who have same personalities or are interested in socail issues.
Skill-set based suggestions for contributing to social causes.
Hassle free, transparent & user-friendly interface.
TBI certificate programes based on personality.
Based on the insights gained from research and surveys, we devoted a considerable amount of time to conceptualize a game-changing social value exchange platform. Our team brainstormed several features that would set the app apart and appeal to the GenZ demographic.
Some of these include: a TBI certificate program based on personality, a reward system for active participation, a distinctive signup process based on a "Personality test," and more.
Although these ideas were intriguing, we concluded that it would be wise to further refine them and conduct additional surveys to solidify the impact and user experience.
ROUGH WIREFRAMES
These are few rough wireframes we designed to set a direction for the design phase.
We would also be doing moodboarding for inspiration and competitor analysis to understand market trends.
Once the app’s wireframes are completed, we would user test the app to gain insights and accordingly improve if required.
NEXT STEPS
Our next step was to prototype our service to validate our hypothesis and see how GenZ audience react and respond to our service. We had couple of hypothesis that we wanted to test before going ahead with the service.
Few hypothesis we wanted to test :
Brand Hypothesis
Does membership in a particular community or group increase engagement and participation among individuals?
Quiz Functioning
Will a personalized list of events boost participation levels? Does adopting a social identifier impact behavior and align with the corresponding tag? Does connecting with individuals who share similar interests increase event participation? Investigating the intricacies of social contribution labels and categories.
Channel Testing
Does the type of platform impact motivation to participate? What platform is likely to result in the most engagement, taking into account the context of the service?
Prototype Plan
Further develop the nuances of the personas’ strengths and goals.
Create rough wireframes to test with around 25+ people to validate the service idea
Update our features and marketing plan for the service based on the feedback we receive.
Support from TBI
Enquire with TBI about our concerns of brand policy and it’s flexibility?
Address concerns about the feasibility and execution execution of the platform
Requests for resources and to connect with initiatives already in place in TBI.
Keep an eye out and revisit in a few months to see the outcome of our prototype plan.
Every great design has an even better story. Ping me and let's exchange few stories :)
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