The inter-agency endorsed Protection Analytical Framework, offers a commonly agreed structure to inform our approach to protection risk analysis.

It guides robust, context specific protection analysis and helps anyone undertaking such investigations to answer two important questions: 1) What information is needed to undertake a protection analysis and 2) How should that information be organised and structured to support in-depth and integrated protection analysis.

Project Summary

Case Study

IRC along with other humanitarian organizations developed a framework for Protection Analysis.

WHILE THE CONTENT WAS EXTREMELY USEFUL THE FORMAT WAS VERY UNFRIENDLY TO USERS. WE DOVE INTO THE POSSIBILITIES TO MAKE IT MORE
USER FRIENDLY AND APPLICABLE AT ALL STAGES OF THE PROCESS

Project synthesis

Project location: Online with a prototype with Iraq and Nigeria field teams

Main role: user research, synthesis and product design

Length of project: 4.5 months

Project and facilitation languages: English

Project Implementation Status: Unknown

IRC along with other humanitarian agencies developed a Protection Analysis Framework (PAF) to consolidate and inform best practices to implement in the Protection Analysis workspace. While the report was extremely comprehensive and thorough, it faced a few issues in regards to usability by all levels of stakeholders. Airbel, the innovation lab for IRC hired us to help them conduct research with different stakeholders and understand where the resistance and difficulty in the use of the PAF were.
Once these barriers to use were identified, the different user personas that would come in touch with the PAF, the different moments when they would interact with, along with some design challenges around technology and prior relationship to the concepts, a number of solutions were discovered to improve the availability and usability for this tool.
During 4.5 months we collaborated in-house with the Airbel team and various teams within IRC and other humanitarian agencies, to understand the challenges and identify the potential solutions.
The project was set up in a way where 3 main workshops would be the conducting thread for problem discovery, solution ideation, and validation of products and services. Each workshop was led with a large array of users and gathered relevant information at each stage. Once information was gathered, the team would internally start diving deeper through more in-depth tools, synthesize inputs and come up with initial guidance for solutions.
The final prototype presented included a series of tools to help users at different levels within the organization at the field at-large interact with the PAF and be able to benefit from the extensive research and documentation it held. Our participation ended after the prototypes were presented and we’re unaware if the prototypes have been implemented.
Workshop Facilitation for the alignment and discovery phase.
User persona development to identify the range of users interacting with the tools, their needs, pains, and gains.
In-depth interviews and focus groups for better understanding of the relationship of each user with the tool.
Synthesis and analysis of data gathered.
Design principles for the solution design and implementation.
Workshop facilitation to validate initial concepts.
Concept development and rough prototyping for several solutions from a card deck, a virtual one-stop shop for resources, framework design, and implementation toolkits.
Workshop facilitation for product testing and validation with a wide range of users.
Iteration of products and concepts based on user’s feedback.
Branding and visual concept for deliverables.
Requirement list for execution and implementation.
Executive Summary.
1. Synthesis and analysis from workshop facilitation
2. Design Principles
3. Framework development
4. Wireframes for landing page
5. Card Deck design and format
6. Low-tech alternative solutions
7. Interactive roadmap
8. Implementation Guide

The project flow

First phase of the project was alignment and research. While the tool had already been published, many people involved were not aware of it, its intended uses or the fact that they would have a different understanding than other colleagues. Alignment phase is crucial in any project to ensure its success. We facilitated some workshops for this purpose.

Phase: Discovery
We conducted some more in-depth interviews and group sessions to understand where our users were in relationship to the tool, the information we needed to gather, their need and potential use for the tool. We also discovered very unexpected insights such as a great gap between the comprehension of people working in an office (HQ) and in the field.

Phase: Discovery
Once we had gathered a general idea of where the different stakeholders stood in regards to the tool, we proceded to gather our different users into User Personas to be able to work with different assumptions and intentions. We generated 3 general Persona profiles for our user base. We would use this for the next steps.

Phase: Discovery
With a clear visualization of our 3 user personas we were able to start udentifying challenges related to each group and common generalities between the different groups. We identified some common denominators and we turned these into Design Principles intended to guide our design process.

Phase: Discovery + Analyze
Once we had a comprehensive list of pains, problems, intended gains, and general usability information, we proceeded to synthesize and identify cluserts for action.

Phase: Ideation
We identified some clear action points as well as some key tools that needed to be reevaluated and turned into something easier to use at various levels for our stakeholders.

Phase: Design
We gathered again to present results during a facilitated workshop session, we navigated our stakeholders impressions and noted any feedback related to the assumptions, goals, and expected outcomes.

Phase: Prototyping
With gathered input we made modifications and tested in more niche groups to acquire more in-depth information, with this in mind, we tested usability and accessibility as well as expected outcomes.

Phase: Design + Iteration
We presented our outcomes to a larger audience and gather more insights, we moved into a more refined production of the tools and products. We integrated visual design, communication strategy, and technical requirements

Phase: Feedback + Design
We finally packaged our products into well designed (yet not final) products and made more high fidelity prototypes.

Phase: Prototyping
Our designed products made it to their most refined version ready to be executed with final information by the client. We prepared manuals and toolkits for implementation and execution.

Phase: Solution Delivery

The inter-agency endorsed Protection Analytical Framework, offers a commonly agreed structure to inform our approach to protection risk analysis.

Case Study

IRC along with other humanitarian organizations developed a framework for Protection Analysis.

Project synthesis

Project scope

Our participation

Skills and methods used

Outputs

With a clear visualization of our 3 user personas we were able to start udentifying challenges related to each group and common generalities between the different groups. We identified some common denominators and we turned these into Design Principles intended to guide our design process.

Once we had a comprehensive list of pains, problems, intended gains, and general usability information, we proceeded to synthesize and identify cluserts for action.

We identified some clear action points as well as some key tools that needed to be reevaluated and turned into something easier to use at various levels for our stakeholders.

We gathered again to present results during a facilitated workshop session, we navigated our stakeholders impressions and noted any feedback related to the assumptions, goals, and expected outcomes.

With gathered input we made modifications and tested in more niche groups to acquire more in-depth information, with this in mind, we tested usability and accessibility as well as expected outcomes.

We presented our outcomes to a larger audience and gather more insights, we moved into a more refined production of the tools and products. We integrated visual design, communication strategy, and technical requirements

We finally packaged our products into well designed (yet not final) products and made more high fidelity prototypes.

Our designed products made it to their most refined version ready to be executed with final information by the client. We prepared manuals and toolkits for implementation and execution.

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