Adulting Made Simple: Framing Our Design Challenge
Camryn Garza, Jennifer Castillo, Lisette Lopez and Kayla Johnson
“No, I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about, but let’s break it down.”
That’s what we all were thinking when we sat down to share our takes on adulting and begin framing our design project. As young adults, we are faced with numerous important decisions– from choosing a career to living alone for the first time and deciding where to plant our roots. There’s no clear-cut guide for navigating the numerous confusing terms and conditions that come with making these decisions, and usually, they’re made blindly.
Hello! We’re Camryn, Jennifer, Lisette, and Kayla. We’re about to graduate college, and like many of our peers, we’ve realized we have a lot to learn about making wise and trustworthy decisions. The time to truly start “Adulting” doesn’t seem so far away. After exchanging our own amusing stories and ill-advised decisions, we wanted to create a space where easy-to-understand financial information could live. We hoped that our project would provide a comprehensive hub to address different legal challenges, such as filing taxes, applying for an apartment, or registering to vote, so that young adults could feel empowered and independent.
We then realized, there’s a bigger demographic of young people beyond just college students who might be going through the same situations. It’s people who might be starting out their lives again, international students, individuals stepping back into society, and many others. We also wanted to make sure our solution would be free, communicated in layman’s terms, and intuitive to navigate. That’s how we created our first design challenge: How might we provide a reliable and accessible path to adulthood regarding the legalities?
After presenting our design challenge to our peers, we realized this question might be too wordy or awkward. Our peers loved the idea of a resource, or a one-stop shop, though, and they suggested some stakeholders we could contact. Among these are the UT Law School, case workers, counselors and teachers. At our side, Lisette was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper with all the suggestions and later shared with us the insights. She then came up with the following question: How might we provide an advantage to young adults in need of sustainable knowledge that is vital to navigating through adulthood?
Going forward, we plan to hone our design question even further as we speak to our stakeholders and peers. We want to gain a better understanding of the financial and legal resources that would benefit them the most.