Educating Chicago’s system-impacted women
project scope
Client
Women Initiating New Directions (WIND)
Role
User Experience Researcher and Designer
Year
2024 - 2025
Team
Myself ( UX researcher & designer)
WIND’s Leadership Team (4-5 members)
Scope & Timeline
1 year
Methods
Qualitative interviews
Usability testing
In person and virtual workshops
Iterative design testing
Tools
Miro, Google Meet, Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Sites, Google Docs.
CONTEXT
Women Initiating New Directions (WIND) is a nonprofit organization that offers programs and services to women in Chicagoland who have been or are currently impacted by the criminal justice system.
These women reside in transition homes in the greater Chicago area, are held in Cook County Jail, or live in at-risk communities. Wind offers the following programs:
about WIND
At a transition home for women on Chicago’s west side and in communities throughout the city
In-person Learning
Remote Learning
about the BRIDGE program
WIND’s Bridge program helps system-impacted women in re-entry learn leadership skills to help them in employment and community service. Some of the graduates of Bridge become facilitators for WIND sessions and are called Lived Experience Leaders (LELs).
At The Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC) Women’s Jail.
For women in re-entry to learn leadership skills and teach the WIND program to other women
Bridge Program
the problem
The BRIDGE program consists of in-person workshops, but since they only occur once a year, many women find it challenging to complete all the required courses within that limited timeframe.
❌ Bridge Program courses happen only once a year
❌ Women have other life commitments
❌ They can’t become LELS without completing all courses
❌ They don’t get paid if they don’t attend all courses
what was missing?
A flexible, remote way for women to complete missed Bridge program courses.
An accessible platform to help women achieve LEL certification without depending solely on annual in-person workshops.
A solution to prevent motivated participants from dropping off due to logistical barriers.
A method to support continued engagement, ownership, and community-building among future LELs.
what decisions were needed?
Whether building an online version of the Bridge curriculum would solve course completion challenges.
How to design the online experience to be intuitive and supportive, given varying levels of tech access among participants.
Which free or low-cost tools could deliver the program effectively within nonprofit budget constraints.
How to define success: primarily through course completion rates and participant satisfaction.
RESEARCH QUESTION
How might we ensure more women complete the BRIDGE program and become Lived Experience Leaders (LELS)?
approach
Participants Recruited
5 women interviewed
6 participants in usability testing
20–30 women engaged in initial workshops (for contextual insights)
Tradeoffs & Challenges
Extremely tight budget meant we were limited to free or existing tools (Google Suite) rather than custom software.
Many participants had limited access to technology (spotty Wi-Fi, older devices), which we had to keep in mind while designing the solution.
PROCESS
1.
2.
Research
Workshop
Design
Build
5.
3.
Test
6.
Repeat
4.
PROCESS
1.
Research
Understanding the WIND and BRIDGE curriculum, learning tools like Google Sites and Google Classroom. Carrying out secondary research.
2.
Workshop
Attending and facilitating workshops in-person to learn and interact with women, hear their stories and life experiences.
3.
Design
Designing the BRIDGE website, making visuals and journey maps using Canva to make information easy to understand, editing and adding course content in an interactive manner.
4.
Build
Building the course evaluation on Google Classroom by designing Google Forms with worksheets and quizzes to evaluate women.
5.
Test
Conducting usability tests to learn women’s user experience and improve based on feedback. Testing was done at various stages of the project.
key insights & actions
Usability is Crucial to Engagement
Early usability tests revealed navigation issues and confusion with the platform layout.
Through six iterative usability test rounds, I simplified the course navigation and added visuals.
These changes dramatically improved ease of use and kept participants more engaged with the online material.
Preference for Self-Paced Learning
Participants preferred the flexibility of completing coursework online at their own pace rather than waiting for infrequent in-person sessions.
Remote Completion Became Feasible
The new platform enabled a pilot group of six women to complete coursework remotely that they had previously been unable to finish in the workshop.
The costs of running in-person workshops (arranging for venues, food and beverages) and time communication to meet up was removed from the process..
Co-Design Sparked New Features
Collaboration with LELs (the women who had completed the program) led to additional innovations.
LEL feedback inspired us to include a community bulletin board and newsletter feature on the platform.
We also added a Team page for LELS to find emails of other LELS and get in touch with them
impact
Built a fully functional online curriculum platform using Google suite.
Made the Bridge program sustainable and scalable.
Helped previously inactive participants graduate and earn LEL certification through the online platform.
Delivered a low-cost, scalable solution that met budget constraints and user needs.
Increased LEL certification completion rates in the pilot year.
Enabled women to complete all Bridge program courses remotely and at their own pace.
reflections
Different participants require a different way to be spoken to. Since women in the project were impacted by the system, while I was communicating with them, I had to be extra careful not to say anything hurtful. Being empathetic and cautious about language was crucial.
Everyone has different lived experiences, and as a UX researcher and designer, it was important to leave my lived experiences aside while designing.