Using Design Thinking to Break Social Barriers: an Experience Report
with Former Inmates
Abstract
Context and motivation: Design Thinking techniques have been
widely used in the elicitation of software requirements, since such
methods obtain satisfying results when applied to understand the
necessities of both stakeholders and end-users. However, there is a lack
of evidence on their effectiveness when applied to populations
considered vulnerable. Question/problem: What are the
implications of using Design Thinking techniques to elicit requirements
in a community of former inmates - and what would be the benefits of and
challenges in this deployment? Principal ideas/results: In this
paper, we report our experience on using Design Thinking for
Requirements Elicitation of a mobile application, customized for a
vulnerable population: the former inmates of the Brazilian Prison System
and their families. Research approach and methodology: We
utilized the d.school Design Thinking method during our research.
Techniques such as Brainstorming, Stakeholder Mapping, Personas
Creation, Rapid Ethnography, and Interviews were used to obtain relevant
data. Furthermore, during the development process, several prototypes
were created. Contribution: The use of these techniques generated
important contributions for the development of an uncommon application
that aims to help the reintegration process of former inmates into
society. The results obtained validate the initial hypothesis that such
techniques, even when applied to a sensitive context such as this one,
assist in the development of a product that meets the needs of the
end-users by creating a higher quality product. Limitations of
results: The main limitation of the research was the lack of access to
low literacy end-users and/or former inmates without previous experience
using mobile devices.