Synthesis example 1
Jo Doe, Exiled journalist
Date conducted: 12 November
Date sent to Design: 12 November
Who is the user?
Name: Jo Doe
Forced to flee out of ethiopia 6 months ago — journalist
social activist, journalist, blogger
in sweden now in a refugee camp seeking asylum
walked to library for this call
Organization/Project name: Betu
Organization industry: Citizen journalism
Organization location: Ethiopia via Sweden (refugee)
Role/responsibilities in the organization: Independent project
Size of organization (number of employees): 1, with 3 potential volunteers
Est. budget of org: $0
What problem are they trying to solve?
Overall mission of the organization
bring to light abuses about human rights in ethiopia
Specific problems they are trying to solve
using social media to teach the people in ethiopia about the oppressive gov’t.
2nd next to syria in terms of number of journalists who have fled from the country
hoping to contribute something on the platform to bring awareness to issues
Who from the org uses (or would use) the Ushahidi platform?
Which roles within the organization would be interacting with the platform and in what capacity?
This is an independent project being started by 1 person. There are 3 potential volunteers to help, but he will be managing everything.
What are those roles’ responsibilities?
Find data sources, manage incoming data and bring awareness to project
What is the current process for solving this problem?
at the moment, just using an online news website (blog) where he aggregates the news from all over the country and all over the world about this
never been exposed to a platform like this
What do they expect this platform to do for them?
trying to link in Facebook and twitter, mostly twitter — has found the “youngsters” use this because the idea of citizen journalism is still in infancy
What is the value of this tool to their organization?
He really doesn’t have any money to pay, but this would be invaluable to him.
If no numerical value is placed on it, have them describe the value
Key positive comments from user:
generally extremely excited to use this platform. Thinks it can make a huge difference in bringing awareness to the oppressive ethiopian government.
Key negative comments from user:
Needed a full walk through
we hadn’t approved him for a grassroots application. *note* -- this is because we asked him for more budget, not understanding the full story. We thought they were 4 swedish bloggers. not the case.