Grief Connections

The Christi Center

ROLE: UX, Web, Branding + Illustration

TIMEFRAME: 6 Months

RECOGNITION: AIGA Flux 2020: Social Impact Design

Human-centered design was used to help local organization the Christi Center promote a new program aimed at providing access to grief support called Grief Connections.

My Role

This was a solo project. I worked with leaders and key stakeholders at the Christi Center to identify a way I could help them in their mission of providing free ongoing peer-based grief support to the Central Texas area.

Objective

The initial objective of the project was to use human-centered design to help a local nonprofit. After aligning with the Christi Center and completing field research, the objective shifted to supporting a new program the organization was launching, called Grief Connections.

Results

A customized WordPress responsive website was created as a marketing tool for Grief Connections. Branding and custom illustrations were also created in a design system for the program.

PROCESS

About the Christi Center

For over 30 years The Christi Center has been serving the Travis and Williamson County areas providing free, ongoing, peer-based grief support services to the bereaved.

Research & Discovery

I made observations by attending grief support groups myself and talking with the staff and volunteers of the Christi Center. I completed photo ethnography and structured interviews with key stakeholders to discover key problem areas.

Addressing access to support and representation for marginalized groups became a key area of focus.

I discovered that even though the services offered by the Christi Center were free, they weren’t accessible to everyone who needs them. I learned about a program that was very much in its infancy, named Grief Connections. The purpose of the program was to train members of the community in peer-based grief support facilitation so that they could hold their own groups in their own community.

The Problem

Grief Connections was a a 12-hour training program where trainees come to the center to learn how to facilitate peer-grief support groups. At the end, the trainee receives a 3-ring binder with the training handbook that they could review and reference in the future if they had any questions that arise in their groups. The group was managed by one person and new trainees were brought in through word of mouth.

Interviews revealed these pain points:

The program lacked a professional face to attract new trainees
the 3-ring binder was impossible to update once the handoff happened at the end of the training
If trainees had more specific questions, they’d have to call the Christi Center, taking away precious cognitive resources that the Christi Center staff needed to save for the bereaved

Learning About the Trainees
& Framing the Problem

I held a workshop with the main stakeholders of the Christi Center. They already knew these people and had heard their needs. From this workshop, I created some main users to design for.

Grief Connections' Value Proposition

I ran some exercises to find out what the Christi Center staff saw as Grief Connections’ value proposition.

The brand voice is warm, competent,

personal, secular, and shows expertise.

Designing the Logo

Most importantly, the logo needed to live in the brand system of the Christi Center as it was a program offered under their services. The logo is designed to feel welcoming and comforting. Subtle gradients using purples from the Christi Center are used and a transitional serif typeface paired with a grotesque sans serif keeps the look contemporary.

Wireframing the Landing Page + Training Guide

I began wireframing the landing page. I took the lo-fi prototype to past trainees for user testing and documented the results. Feedback often centered on the clarity of the message, and the subject’s understanding of how the Grief Connections program actually worked.

UI: The Landing Page

At this point in the project, we decided to focus our efforts on the landing page as it was the primary need for officially launching the program.

The goal was to represent Grief Connections as a customized program that utilized the over 30 years of expertise of the Christi Center staff to train folks on facilitating grief support groups in their own communities.

Using a soft palette of purples and yellows, the connection to the Christi Center brand was honored while also giving Grief Connections its own look and feel.

Illustrations

Illustrations were created to show visitors how the grief connections program worked. The aim was to represent a diverse group of people since grief is a universal experience.

OUTCOME

Grief Connections' new landing page

I created the website using a customized WordPress template where visitors could learn about Grief Connections, contact the Christi Center, and sign up for the organization's newsletter.

Lessons Learned

This project taught me a lot about working with sensitive topics such as death and loss. I also learned that while I have lived experience with grief, everyone’s experience is different and needs to be considered.

Cultural, racial, and economic differences affect how we experience death and process loss. These differences also affect how we view grief support services as well as our ability to access them. I’m looking to continue work on the digital training manual for the trainees. The project is currently on pause due to COVID19 and will be resumed in the future.