Identifying our Problem Space: Brainstorming and Research

The OVCC relayed to us that many businesses have reported struggling in the onset of the 2020 pandemic. Our team first relayed groundwork by conducting interviews with various business owners in the restaurant, grocery market and service industries to get direct feedback from our user group. We decided to conduct our interview styles in an upside-down pyramid method, where we ask general questions about the issues and, judging from the conversation, we are able to hone in and be more specific with specific comments our interviewees give us.

When going over feedback, we’ve noticed a lack of trust in economic systems like banks and lenders to give support like loans or grants. When inquiring about this sudden disregard, we noticed that there is a lack of knowledge of these processes to the businesses. Many in our user group speak English as a second language, so accessing information from banks becomes a difficult process for them. There was little interest in promoting themselves on digital spaces, such as social media or platforms like Yelp, even though there has been businesses posted by other people online of an immigrant businesses that has never been claimed or updated. Many have waved off the idea of dipping their feet into these spaces. Our interviewees also have reported an overall stigma that they have felt of Asian businesses at the time given the onset hysteria of Coronavirus in their community. They have tried to remedy this by assuring customers of high strict state of hygiene the businesses follow, but they have not seen much of a change in their situation. From our research, we were able to identify pain points of:

1) Economic divide through language barrier

2) Digital divide in online spaces and

3) Stigma due to Covid-19.

By identifying these three pain points, we then focused on furthering our understanding by brainstorming our approach.

 Our Approach: How can we support our business owners in a way that will help them in ways that work for them?

Brainstorming:

We realized many of the ways that we could provide more coverage or support for our user groups provide only short-term relief. Whether it is suggesting teaching them how to use Yelp or to be tech-savvy or providing workshops for them to have ESL support, none of these options seem self-sufficient for them in the long run. These options also involve helping them with ways they have no interest in. Why? When brainstorming, we realized that these businesses have their own praxis in running in their community that work for them. Instead of designing ways we can push these small businesses, who have their own ways of communication and support system, to be more like their retail counterparts, we must design unique ways in which these businesses can make survive on their own terms. This eureka moment caused us to shift our thinking to approach and further deliverables.

Personas:

Our team created different personas based on different industries and stakeholders in our problem space. Our primary personas are our immigrant business owners in Oakland while our secondary personas are customers frequenting their businesses. Our tertiary personas are stakeholders in relations to systems of banking or tech companies who affect how these businesses seek support/access to their resources. I’ve included one primary persona below, but can not display the secondary or tertiary ones.

I chose my persona based on my primary stakeholder interview. Cathy is an easy-going, social and hardworking individual who has had her restaurant for about 10+ years. She fits our primary stakeholder group by being an immigrant business owner that has seen and shaped the Oakland community for many years with her business and considers herself to be very involved with her family’s life. I included a bio that embodies her demographic and interests in order to showcase her background, her goals for her business and her frustrations given the current situation. I inputed a goals section to present some needs of the user we would design for, given her personality. My interviewee mentioned how she tended to not get involved with much world politics, that she wants to focus on her business & family, and work hard. I worked to shape her bio around that, along with other tidbits she mentioned in the stakeholder interview.

Interviews for Bank Lenders:

Our team conducted interviews with bank lenders to find out more information on the resources they could potentially offer our user group. We ended up creating surveys and creating sheets to record our results. We asked questions relating to the PPP, SBA and EIDL loans, which are all loans that they are specifically offering to small businesses. We wanted to know what resources they offered for those who speak different languages to access this information. Of all the 32 local banks and lenders we have called around the Oakland area, 0% offered languages other than English to their documents, forms and help guides.