Homeless young people, like most adolescents in American society, frequently use digital media, for life and work. Even if gaining access to computers is difficult, homeless youth, aged 13-25, go online for many purposes: to communicate with family and friends; to find and apply for jobs; to participate in popular culture; and in general to seek and use information in all its forms. Yet, this adoption of digital media presents a significant challenge to community-based service agencies. These organizations, focused on supporting youth's basic needs, are largely unprepared for bringing digital media into their programs. To tackle this challenge, this three-year project will first investigate how homeless young people conduct themselves in relation to digital media, especially at social networking sites such as MySpace. Then, seeking to accommodate their abilities and interests, this project will develop a web application that positions youth to successfully communicate with employers. Specifically, the system will enable youth to create appropriate online identities, to build dignified resumes, to find and apply for suitable work-related openings, and to share experiences. Finally, the system will be deployed at a service agency located in Seattle, WA and evaluated for its overall effectiveness in brokering relationships between youth and employers. In summary, this project will discover social and technology approaches for developing usable information systems that enable homeless young people to better communicate with institutions. Research findings, including theory, design methods, and guidelines, will contribute to a national dialog about the use of digital media for escaping homelessness.
Brief Project Introduction By one estimate upwards of three million young people, aged 13-30, experience homelessness annually in the United States. Simply put, homelessness among young people is a problem with lasting social and economic consequences. Like most young people in American society, homeless youth use digital media and technology intensely for entertainment and socialization. At the same time, digital systems are vital for learning, for obtaining healthcare, for finding jobs, and so forth. Yet, little is known about how homeless youth adopt digital media and how it can be designed and used to improve their welfare. Our project goal was to develop new knowledge for the design of socio-technical systems that support homeless youth. With the participation of varied community stakeholders, we focused specifically on how peer-to-peer sharing systems might be used to create employment opportunities for homeless youth. Project work has been reported in national conferences, technical reports, and public settings. Four Main Project Outcomes 1. Social network sites and homeless youth. How do homeless youth use social network sites? In a study of 23 homeless young people, we found that participants used social networking sites for many purposes and were keenly aware of both the potential for benefit and harm of online activities and representations of self. We identified implications for social intervention (e.g., consider how different audiences can be separated and engaged independently) and challenges for technical design (e.g., the design of social network sites for people who create separate, and somewhat incompatible, identities). 2. Barriers and opportunities to employment. In three community workshops involving a total of 32 homeless youth, case managers, and other citizens we asked: What barriers do homeless youth encounter when seeking, applying for, and keeping jobs? Rigorous analysis of the workshop discussions led to the following design objectives: (a) Provide work opportunities that are consistent with the life circumstances of homeless youth; (b) Provide coaching, mentoring, and emotional support; and (c) Increase community awareness and mobilize support. 3. Toward a socio-technical solution: Mini-jobs and the U-District Job Co-op. Informed by the above studies, we developed a design vision, rooted in the idea of peer-to-peer sharing systems in which day labor "mini jobs" are offered by neighborhood stakeholders. Centered in a local service agency, the design vision, the U-District Job Co-op, seeks to address such key stakeholder values of identity, reputation, safety and trust. We developed socio-technical approaches to do so. In a community outreach activity where we met with about 200 citizens and collected new data from 71 participants we assessed the merits and feasibility of the design vision, finding generally strong support. 4. Methods for engaging homeless youth and community members in research and design. To effectively involve homeless youth in research and design, we developed a new method that enabled participants to demonstrate aspects of their daily experience in the urban context. With this design method, participants created street-level models with clay, cardboard, and other craft materials and talked out the simulated use of a mobile application for finding jobs (see Image #1). In addition, using approaches to museum exhibit design, we developed an approach for disseminating research findings and collecting new data at community events, specifically a community street fair (see Image #2). These methodological innovations show how methods in user-centered design and value sensitive design can be adapted to socio-technical contexts found in urban and community settings. Training and Development Broadening participation in STEM-related fields, four graduate students (all women) and six undergraduate students (two women, four men) developed skills in social science and design. For example, this grant supported in part graduate student Jill Palzkill Woelfer (now a User Experience Researcher at Google) in award-winning doctoral research on homeless young people and digital technologies and undergraduate student Thuy Duong (now a Software Product Designer at IBM) in developing skills in user-centered design. In addition, in part because of the opportunities provided by this grant, Principal Investigator David G. Hendry received the University of Washington Research Mentor Award in 2013. The PI has also brought theory and method developed with this grant into graduate and undergraduate courses on user-centered design and value sensitive design at the University of Washington. Broader Societal Impacts Involving a marginalized group of stakeholders and neighborhood organizations, this research has promoted such important societal values as community, inclusion, and human welfare. Most broadly, this research seeks to contribute to a national dialog for how digital media and personal digital devices might help homeless youth improve their welfare and escape homelessness.
