Miracle
Foundation
A FAMILY FOR EVERY CHILD IN OUR LIFETIME
PRODUCT DESIGN INTERNSHIP
AT A GLANCE
My time interning at Miracle Foundation was of profound personal and social impact. As I gained valuable knowledge on and compassion for the foster space, I also cultivated genuine connections with stakeholders I was designing for. Here are 2 processes I made active contributions for:
User Research
The precursor to developing FosterVillage. I had the opportunity to conduct in-depth user interviews with 7 foster parents who are familiar with Miracle Foundation’s existing tech products.
FosterVillage
An offshoot of Miracle Foundation’s main app, FosterShare (bridging communication between case managers and foster parents). FosterVillage opens up safe and secure lines of communication between foster and biological families.
ABOUT ℹ️
Miracle Foundation is an international nonprofit that helps orphans and foster children find a safe, stable, and permanent family. Their goal is to end the need for orphanages by actively uniting children with families, educating the social work force, and creating technology to scale their work.
TYPE 💻
Product Design, User Research
TIMELINE 🕒
June - August 2022
TOOLS 🛠️
Figma
the foster care system is complicated & messy.
Here are facts & statistics about it that may surprise you
The annual turnover rate for fostercare case managers is anywhere from 20-30%. Many case managers will leave their jobs after 1-2 years due to the emotional, relational, and logistical demand their work requires of them.
Many foster families discontinue fostering after their first year.
Up to 50% of children in foster care can disrupt their original placements and have to be placed with a new foster family; or, in more extreme cases, moved to more restrictive settings.
Factors that influence whether a family decides to foster include general parenting competence, experience with foster agencies, preservice training, cultural dissonance between them and the foster child(ren), relationship and interactions with the biological family, concerns about the foster child’s behavior, financial resources and reimbursement, and more.
Not to mention all the heavy emotions and thoughts that typically arise in foster care environments. Foster and birth parents alike report feeling cautious, frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed, and isolated.
Check out these empathy maps my design supervisor created and showed me for reference, to help me gain awareness for the problem space.
UPPER LEFT: what they say
UPPER RIGHT: what they think
LOWER LEFT: what they do
LOWER RIGHT: what they feel
Foster Parent
Birth Parent
Tension and miscommunication—or lack thereof—can easily develop between these two groups, considering the complex and fragmented nature of foster relationships. The biological parent desires some level of presence in their child’s life, but the foster parent feels protective and wants to set boundaries. Sometimes it can feel like a game of monkey in the middle, where the case manager is left mediating opposing interests and needs, bracing themselves for conflict to break out. But…
what if there was a noninvasive method to foster safe communication between foster and biological parents?
introducing
FosterVillage
FEATURES
Easy access to 3 different profiles—the child, foster parent, and birth parent
Share and view upcoming events safely with privacy settings
Receive journal prompts throughout the week to document your child’s progress
research & wireframing
making sense of the authentic, messy parts of fostering
Miracle Foundation was interested in developing a third-party extension of their existing app called FosterShare. This new interface (in partnership with another foster care NPO based in Austin, Texas) would hopefully alleviate the frustration and ambiguity of communication between foster and birth parents. With this conceptual parameter in mind, my design supervisor assigned me 2 initial tasks, in this order: building wireframes to establish preliminary content for interview participants to provide feedback on and conversing with current FosterShare users/foster parents to inform my design process and rationale (note: for legal purposes, I only conducted interviews with individuals who were fostering, rather than the birth parent).
HOMEPAGE
Profile card, calendar view, shortcut icons to Messages, Lifebook*, and Resources
PROFILE
Information about foster child, including medical and legal documents, personal preferences, and milestones
LIFEBOOK
Add journal entries, upload photos/videos, create albums
JOURNAL
Choose from different prompts and upload content from your camera roll to save to your log
ARCHIVE
View old posts and entries. Interact with birth parent through comments and simple emojis
*mid-fidelity screens shown to interviewees
common interview
THEMES
In summary, I talked to 7 foster parents through moderated, remote user interviews. Jesse (my supervisor) and I took turns inquiring and documenting key insights throughout each session, as well as teasing the app concept to our interviewees to gain a more holistic perspective of fundamental features vs. nice-to-haves down the road.
How do you find and receive support while fostering?
“Resources are the cornerstone…on-call support, other foster families, group chats…they provide big relief in each stage of foster care”
All of the interviewees agreed that the foster agencies they’re connected with offer valuable resources, such as training materials
Staying connected to other parents who also foster is essential for feeling validated and asking questions in a safe community
Describe your interactions with the birth family.
“Frequent and respectful communication with the biological family isn’t always guaranteed—anything could change in a split second”
“Most communication with biological families is logistical and voluntary”
Because communication can be inconsistent and unpredictable between the 2 parties, there aren’t any standardized procedures when it comes to file and information sharing
Sentiments can be a touchy subject, since sharing life updates about the foster child can evoke mixed feelings from either side
Topics of conversation, like reunification with the child, can be carefully explored if there is positive expressed interest from the biological family. Indicators that they could handle such matters include appropriate curiosity of their child’s life happenings
What’s most difficult and/or frustrating about communicating with the birth family?
“There’s so many different channels of communication. Getting in touch with the biological family often involves the case worker, a bunch of back and forth emails, Google voice number—privacy and safety are at stake”
Setting and maintaining boundaries is essential for healthy communication. Are there any emotional or situational triggers that may negatively affect interactions?
Navigating ownership can be tricky. If feasible and desired by both parties, what does it look like to balance time and space for each to maintain a relationship with the child?
What do you value in a communication tool? What would you add or want to clarify after viewing this prototype?
*We went over mid-fidelity app screens with the interview participants in order to gauge potential interest and garner feedback.
“The features in the app seem to be catered towards a more sentimental audience—i.e. sharing photo updates, reflecting with journal prompts”
The majority of the onus is on the foster parent, since they are “the biggest advocate for their children”
Core values in communication with the biological family include transparency, connection, education, and interactivity
App Suggestions
Privacy settings are key with the calendar feature—can users mark select appointments as Personal vs. Public?
Topics of conversation aren’t always clear or vetted. What if we built a bank of generally safe and appropriate prompts for the foster parent to answer and (optionally) enable access for the birth parent?
After deliberate consideration of the interviewees’ thoughts, frustrating experiences with communication channels, and suggestions for improving what I had designed so far with FosterVillage, I consolidated these data points into 2 main areas of focus for my next iteration of screens:
Design user flows that enable SOFT COMMUNICATION
Soft communication refers to low-risk interactions that are capable of opening up lines of positive expression. For example, app notifications tend to peak interest, which in turn increases app usage. This can be to the benefit of both the foster and the biological parent if there is shared interest. Another instance would be the usage of emoji reacts, rather than direct commenting. Exchanges using emojis communicate simple, universal expressions without compromising the interaction.
Create more GUIDED OPPORTUNITIES
The infrastructure of the app should guide users to engage with tasks that ultimately place focus on the child, rather than the foster or birth parent. Examples of guided opportunities include daily reminders and push notifications. Capabilities for commenting on photos and other uploads are great ways to encourage safe interactions with the child as the center of attention.
THANK YOU FOR READING UNTIL THE END ◡̈
prototyping
stitching together the design components that matter
Here are some of the visual assets I experimented with as I iterated upon the initial frames. Each asset was used in the final prototype except for the Profile cards shown at the bottom, as I decided to simplify the formatting and break it apart into 3 simpler profile cards.
The revised UI shown below affords more customization and addresses the points summarized in the research phase. In the Journal page, I populated more journal prompts that are child-specific and focus on the child’s milestones, rather than what the foster parent’s experience raising them is (which is more likely a sensitive topic). I also designed simple a pop-up notification on the Homepage that contributes to guided opportunities and a dropdown menu in the Calendar/Events page, allowing foster parents flexibility with privacy of shared information.
USER FLOW
The final prototyped interactions are showcased below, with 3 main highlights: Sharing an event calendar, uploading a journal entry, and viewing archived posts and reactions.