Poor access to quality information, sex education and health services– all accompanied by socio-cultural stigma– are what’s behind the high rate of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents in the Dominican Republic.

It is UNFPA's mission to invest in the long-term sexual and reproductive health of Dominican youth to build the country’s human capital. One of the routes to this mission is empowering them with the information they need to make healthy choices as they enter adulthood. In 2016, UNFPA partnered with Iconmobile to design a tool to achieve this.

Together with my colleagues at Iconmobile, I led a research study to understand the hopes, aspirations, fears of these adolescents through the UNFPA. We uncovered insights and opportunities that would then inform the next phases of this project and ultimately lead to the creation of the Android app, PlaneApp.

“If I was queen of an island, I would install a big antenna and facilitate WiFi for everyone” Alanna, 16

The allure of the internet and the smartphone among Dominican youth cannot be overstated. A majority of their time online is spent on their considerably large social networks– so much so that most would even walk long distances in order to stay connected. When considering the socio-cultural contexts of these adolescents and the barriers and stigma experienced within their own communities and society, the mobile phone offers a safe and private space to seek information they want and need. With this as a strong hypothesis, we designed our study to further delve into the various aspects of their daily life and how the medium lent itself into supporting the adolescents in these aspects.

Approach

From the constraints emerged our challenge. Picking from a variety of design methods, we put together a workshop that incorporated exercises and elements that would help us gather as much qualitative information as possible, while minimizing the pressure on translation. Here are a few elements:

• A mini-scrapbook to be completed and shared ahead of their visit: to help us get some of the foundational elements of the research translated and formulate deeper enquiries for their in-person visit.

• Shared rituals and custom-designed stationery for the week of workshops: making them feel like a part of a mini-community.

• Fun, easy warm-up exercises to begin each day.

• Predominantly visual exercises incorporating fun-to-do drawing and pictures: to circumvent the language barrier.

• Role-playing scenarios: as a means to get the attendees to be as real and candid about situations as they could.

• Plenty of time and space for translation to take place.

• Also– packing in fun, personal lunches and dinners in interesting places around Berlin.

Outcomes

The week with the UNFPA youth enabled us to build the larger picture about life, social environments, and adolescent online behaviors in the Dominican Republic. The role-playing exercises, the creation of representative user stories and voting on the most pressing questions revealed further insights into the various scenarios of teenage pregnancy and its affects on the youth and their society at large.

Closely observing their content consumption patterns and hearing how they related stories about friends and families gave us further validation that a mobile solution would be the most optimal in terms of reach and amplification.

Design & Launch

The insights from this research study set the foundation for further research on the ground in the Dominican Republic by a smaller team, followed by design and development of the Android app, planeapp that provides sex education content in a private, age-friendly format, and one-stop access to all health services that can be used both on and offline.

Team Credits