Got Your Back: Supporting Middle Schoolers in Digital Conversations
By Megan Sousa
In Fall 2019, Current Fung Fellows Megan and Nseke had the opportunity to work on redesigning the app Got Your Back, which targets reducing violence among middle-school youth. Here, they share their experience and what they learned through the process.
As Fung Fellows, Nseke and I are a part of a diverse group of UC Berkeley students that have different majors, life experiences, and career aspirations ― this creates an enriched learning environment where we support each other to foster innovation. We tackle real-world public health challenges that matter to us, engage with communities to understand their needs, and develop viable solutions alongside industry partners.
Reimagine Labs is a team made up of leaders and innovators from across California who have been working on new approaches to end domestic violence through human-centered design. Beginning in January 2018, the Reimagine Labs 2018 Cohort, made up of 16 fellows, was tasked with the design challenge to end domestic violence. Reimagine Lab divided these 16 fellows into five teams and told them to address domestic violence challenges through different lenses.
One of these teams was Got Your Back (GYB), an app designed to reduce violence among youth ages 11 to 14. The app aimed to flag sent and received messages for potentially violent communication, while also allowing users to create their own customizable avatar that offered support and resources. GYB contacted the Fung Fellowship, asking us Fung Fellows to research, re-examine, and optimize the app. Over the course of three weeks, nine teams of Fung Fellows worked to redesign the GYB app concept through interviews and research.
Fellows were asked to solve the question of “How might we make youth feel supported in unhealthy situations in digital conversations?” I was initially shocked by this; I did not know that youth needed support in digital conversations. It was not until I saw the facts that I started to see that this was a real problem.
Middle school dating violence statistics are shocking ―13 percent of victims are under the age of 18 and only one-third of students who have experienced dating abuse ever tell anyone about it.
This prompted me to think about how middle schoolers would tell someone that they had been abused or are currently dealing with abuse. Who would they share that information with? And finally, do they understand what is actually happening to them, let alone have the language capital to effectively communicate it? This problem is further complicated because youth between ages 11–14 are in a transition phase, experiencing puberty and trying to find themselves. In addition, the app had to capture the attention of youth away from existing apps like Facebook, Instagram, etc. We needed to create an app that took all of these factors into consideration, targeting the interest of growing teens while being impactful and useful.
This was a difficult problem and the Fellows knew we would have to lean on each other’s expertise and life experiences to solve.
As a class, we went to work trying to create a solution that would help youth confronted with digital abuse. The projects that we came up with were amazing and diverse! Each team focused on a different aspect of the GYB app and had to present their app in front of their class, as well as UC Berkeley faculty, GYB members, and Fung Fellowship staff. This added extra pressure and excitement. This was our favorite part of the entire challenge; we had worked so hard on creating our app that we could not wait to see the reception from our peers and the GYB team.
Some teams expanded the role of the “make-it-yourself” avatars, others incorporated education and connection to resources, and some teams pursued designs that met youth where they were, through memes and Tinder-style dating profiles. Even with the many approaches towards the GYB app, the common theme arose of making sure that the app would actually be used. The beauty of the Fung Fellowship is that we are encouraged to engage with our targeted audience, get key insights, and design based on those learnings. We knew the app would be ineffective if kids weren’t interested in using it or their parents weren’t comfortable with it being on their kids’ phones. Teams overcame this problem by providing incentives for kids to use the app and ensuring that parents were reassured about the safety of the technology.
“The beauty of the Fung Fellowship is that we are encouraged to engage with our targeted audience, get key insights, and design based on those learnings.”
After completing our projects, Nseke and I were invited to Reimagine Labs for their Demo Day on Nov. 7, 2019. At the Demo Day, GYB and the four other teams of Reimagine Lab fellows presented their unique approaches to this challenge. It was clear that a considerable amount of effort and energy went into each solution.
Domestic violence is a complicated issue where many points intersect such as race, gender, family upbringing, and economic status. No one group of experts has the answer; by leveraging the different expertise of the Reimagine Lab fellows and having them work in a collaborative manner, Reimagine Lab is getting closer to new solutions.
Through this experience, I learned that solving social issues is complex. We are often trying to solve a problem with insufficient information, and it seems like the problem is ever-changing. I was particularly amazed at how each of the Reimagine Lab groups dealt with a different aspect of domestic violence. I appreciate GYB’s presentation in particular because they showed us the depth of the issue of domestic violence with children. In the year since they have started working on this project, they have been able to prototype their idea and see how youth interacted with it, and now are discussing launching a fully-functioning product at select places. I also learned that a human-centered design approach to ending domestic violence is important because traditional solutions don’t involve victims of domestic violence in the decision-making process. In turn, key insights from users are not incorporated into making a solution.
Human-centered design acknowledges that those who are closest to the problem are also closest to the solution; collaboration with users is a strong way to develop impactful long-term solutions.
This entire experience made me realize that we Fellows are not just taking a class, we are actually building products that can impact the world. I no longer look at my projects in Fung Fellowship as simply class projects, I think of them as “Is this the one to change the world?” Surely, every project that I create in the Fung fellowship will not be the most impactful, but I know that each time I build a project and put my all into it, I am getting closer and closer to creating that product that someday will impact the world.
“I no longer look at my projects in Fung Fellowship as simply class projects, I think of them as ‘Is this the one to change the world?’”
Connect with Megan and Nseke // Edited by Lauren Leung
Learn more about the Fung Fellowship at fungfellows.berkeley.edu.
