IDOly

My second, team-based project for the library of Rotterdam, concerning their helpdesk for digital questions and broadening it to a younger public.

Year
2023

Client
Rotterdams Library

The library of Rotterdam has a helpdesk called IDO, which is mainly used by elderly people who are struggling with their digital tasks, such as filling out taxes or healthcare benefits. The library came to us with a problem: the IDO wasn’t being visited by younger people. How could we solve this problem, and what was necessary to do so?

First, I had to do a lot of deskresearch. This was in order to understand the trends with digital issues in younger people. From there, I could understand why young people needed this IDO and what steps I could take further, such as fieldresearch.

My tasks during this project were as follows:

  • Deskresearch

  • Fieldresearch

  • Visual Design

  • Prototyping

  • Brainstorming

  • Delegating tasks

  • Videography

Research

Firstly, I found out that young people do not often struggle with digital issues, and that they are “Google-savvy”; they can easily troubleshoot their issues online. I also came to the conclusion that not many youngsters wanted to actually visit a physical place to ask something, which was either due to anxiety or simply laziness. Through interviews, directed storytelling and cultural probes my findings were confirmed.

From there, together with my team I made a research poster (on the right) which presented all of our findings and results. With all of this, we came to the conclusion that we should make a digital solution to this problem, but something that is easily accessible and combats laziness in young people. Also, it should help them, but not too much, as it would take the feeling of freedom away. So what kind of prototype did we make?

Prototype

With that, we designed IDOly. A Google Chrome-extension which helps young people and gives them a little push in the right direction. It scans a site or document, after which it presents a to-do list on what still needs to be done. It can also define words and has a built-in chatbot that can be used if further problems arise. We wanted to create a sense of independency, so that young people could more easily take care of digital government business.

We presented this concept at an exhibition, where we also included a video we made showcasing our prototype which is linked below.

For this we actually won an award: Best Video!

Product Showcase

My experience

So how did I experience this project? I was still quite young and did not have much experience regarding design programmes such as Figma. However, our great teamwork got me through that. Despite not being team captain, I was able to still take initiative and show my skills. I was able to explore different things such as videomaking and digital prototyping. This combined with my love for design made it a great project overall.