John

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John Sauer

Population Services International

WASH Senior Technical Advisor
[email protected]

VIEW PSI'S EVENT POSTER

PROBLEM

When applying UCD to sanitation, describe a problem your organization was trying to solve?

Liberia: develop a standardized toiled design based on consumer preferences to be socially marketed in Liberia

 

SOLUTION

What solution did you design to solve the problem?

  • Low-cost, durable, safe, hygienic, easy to clean toilet that does not require desludging
  • Commode designed by Liberians for Liberians

 

WHAT WORKED WELL

What part(s) of the UCD process did your organization do very well?

  • Empathy research and insights
  • Involving government private sector, community stakeholders in market development workshop get everyone on board for HCD
  • Different levels of stakeholders
  • FGD
  • Turn talk into actual prototypes
  • Informal approach by PSI staff

 

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

What part(s) of the UCD process did not go well?

  • Too much in too little time: wanted pit latrine layout, commode and building structure
  • Traditional FGD guides were rigid and didn't allow for participants to freely express themselves

 

TOOLS AND FRAMEWORKS

What UCD tools or analytical frameworks did you use?

Integrated WASH market facilitation:

  • government, private sector, community, NGO (MDA)
  • empathy research
  • prototyping (commode only)
  • used typical HCD process - IDEO field guide

WHAT WAS REALLY HARD

What were your biggest struggles?

Shifting mindset of the HCD challenge team from more traditional sprint research standards to HCD approaches

 

BIGGEST A-HA

What was your biggest a-ha moment? 

The original discussion guides, created to follow PSI/Liberia’s strict research standard were too rigid and limited participants being able to freely express themselves. So after the first FGD, the team decided used a more informal tone of the discussion and stopped taking notes during FGD. As a result, community members felt more comfortable and shared more.

 

MY PIVOTS

So then what? What did you do? Discard the idea? Change course?

  • The team decided to be more informal in tone of discussion and not take notes whilst doing FGD
  • After 3 FGDs data saturation was reached, so the team shifted to one-on-one conversations

 

TIPS

What advice would you give other organizations?

  • Avoid taking notes to fully engage
  • Record conversation and listen again later