This was an optimistic sprint. We met with two shelters, Victoria Native Friendship Centre (VNFC) and Sandy Merriman House, and both were receptive to our idea and indicated an enthusiasm for implementing it. This exhilarated us beyond measure. Shelter managers praised features they believed to be useful—for example, VNFC celebrated the ability to see shelters’ live vacancies, an improvement on their current situation, where there are nights they’ll have to call 20 shelters before finding an available bed. They also suggested features that we had overlooked, such as printable waitlists and having forms to collect anonymized demographic data. They made clear why these features were valuable to them, and in our post-meeting delight, we feverishly worked to implement them.
The meetings were validating, in terms of confirming which features were useful to our users, but also in terms of emotional validation: we left feeling like we were on the right track, that our research had been conducted well, and that our project was taking on a more solid shape. It also emboldened us to witness the growth in our ability to present our project with each successive meeting. We’re equipped now with greater confidence in how to narrate our project’s story and appeal to the specific needs of a shelter. We are beyond grateful to our Community Partner, Dr. Michelle Vanchu-Orosco, for arranging and accompanying us to these meetings; her support of the project and of us has been incredibly heartening and encouraging.
The next step is to meet with front-desk staff to hear their thoughts on the prototype. We’ll have to keep in mind that we should push for negative feedback—we’re aware that people can be reserved or afraid to be nitpicky, but constructive feedback is crucial for ensuring that the system works for our users as well as possible. At the same time that we’re reaching out to more shelters, we also are scheduling meetings with shelters in Vancouver to explore alternatives as part of our risk management strategy; in other words, if we can’t get shelters in Victoria to adopt the website, maybe it, or a modified version of it, could find a home in Vancouver.
We accomplished more than we expected. We established a connection with two different shelters, who both now have Herluma accounts. Once they use it, we’ll be able to gauge to what degree our product is useful, and the specific things we can improve. Things are picking up, and we’re excited to receive feedback in the next sprint!