Gazbia Sorour - Service Designer Portfolio

Portfolio

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Gazbia Sorour

About Me Bio My portfolio of work centers around making a positive social impact.

I take a user-centered approach to design. This means giving a voice to vulnerable and marginalised groups that matter and creating impact by including key stakeholders at every stage of the design.

Skills

PROJECT LEAD

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

DESIGN RESEARCH

RESOURCE MOBILIZATION

I design and lead social-impact projects and design end- end services

I build partnerships and bring different perspectives to the table

I use a wide range of user research techniques

I spot opportunities, and mobilise financial and inkind resources

FACILITATION

VISUAL COMMUNICATION

RAPID PROTOTYPING

DISK JOCKEY

I facilitate co-design sessions and design workshops

I simplify information using visual language and storytelling

I quickly prototype and put ideas out into the world

I love to play music and collaborate with other artists

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Introduction

Summary of Projects My protfolio showcases a sample of my projects.

Feel free to ask me about any of them!

METHODS

THEMES Improving livelihoods

Service Design Game Design

Prototyping

Co-design Behavioural Insights

User centred

Social Entrepreneurship

Data Homlessness

Speculative Design Process Mapping

Digital services

Reducing violence against women

VALUES

Health Unemployment

Agile Inclusive

Iterative

09.13 - 08.18

10.18 - 12.19

05.19 - 09.20

09.20 - 02.22

Innovation Lab Lead, UNDP Egypt

MA Service Design, UAL

Innovation Consultant, UNDP Somalia

Service Designer, Government Digital Service

03.22 - 08.23

Senior Service Designer, Snook

Social care

09.23 - Present

Design Lead (Freelance), Akvo and DK&A

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Gazbia Sorour

International Experience

NYC BOS

ECU

Speaker Facilitator Workshop Participant Projects Designed

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Introduction

LHR PAR BCN

BER MUC TBS

IST

ICN

LCA AMM EGY

FRU

DOH

MOG KGL

TAS

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Gazbia Sorour

Design Process This is an illustration of my toolbox.

As a service designer, I tailor my process and select the tools best suited for the project context and intended outcome.

It’s never a linear process in practice.

Discover

Scoping

Known Unknowns In-depth Interviews Risks & mitigations Desk Research

Stakeholder Mapping Assumptions Mapping

Define

Shadowing

Observations

Process Maps Journey Maps Personas

Prototype prompts Service Positive Safaris Co-design Deviance briefs

Card sorting

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Introduction

Develop

How Might We

What ifs

Deliver

User needs

Roadmapping Prioritisation matrix

Co-design Design Criteria

Artefacts

SWOT analysis

Story boards Prototype testing Unhappy paths

Service Blueprints

Service walk-throughs

Gazbia Sorour

Building a one login for government 6 months

How can we make it easier for everyone to access government services in a simple and inclusive way?

The aim of this project is to design the first single sign-on for the UK government.

My role is to design a service from discovery through to beta that will enable people across the UK to access all government services

Many government services require end-users to create different online accounts to login to a service. This leads to user journey’s being fragmented and creates barriers for users.

My role as a service designer is to work closely with government departments to understand their needs and design a seamless onboarding journey to GOV.UK Sign In. *Due to confidentiality some of the images in this section are unreadable.

Design Skills

DESIGN RESEARCH

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

FACILITATION

VISUAL COMMUNICATION

Building a One Login for Government

Stakeholders Design Team

Government departments

Interest groups

Subject Matter Experts

End-users (including marginalised groups)

Service teams

To design a one login for government we engage with government departments and end-users.

At the centre are the end-users which are the people who use the service In the second outer circle are the stakeholders who will consume the service In the outer most circle are the people who influence decisions in the project

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Government departments

700

End-users

Gazbia Sorour

Discover I used a value proposition formate to define our riskiest assumptions about the needs of government departments. We tested our assumptions with government departments in interviews.

Affinity sorting insights from interviews

Personas to communicate user needs

Building a One Login for Government

Together with the user researcher and content designer, we synthesized the data collected and re-iterated our value proposition.

Gazbia Sorour

Alpha To design and test the onboarding journey for government departments onto GOV.UK Sign In, the team and I mapped what the journey could look based on existing processes.

Using the blueprint to spot gaps and plan work with the team

Mapping the typical business process

Building a One Login for Government

I facilitated a hypothesis building session for each of the steps in the onboarding journey. We tested those hypothesis with government departments using a servicewalk through.

Service walk-through

Hypothesis building

Gazbia Sorour

Beta To prepare for Beta, I re-designed the onboarding journey and facilitated an unhappy paths workshop to think about where things could go wrong in the journey and how to make the it seamless for our users.

Journey mapping

Mapping unhappy paths

Building a One Login for Government

I developed a blueprint to communicate how onboarding will work, the touchpoints and channels we will use, artefacts to be created, people responsible at each step of the process and KPIs.

Gazbia Sorour

I created process maps to communicate how user support works as a way of making sure feedback loops are designed into the user journey.

Building a One Login for Government

Key Takeaways

What Worked Well

What Could Be Improved

Blueprinting early on

Putting ideas into practice

I used the blueprint as a means not an end. It was a great tool for team planning, building a shared understanding inside and outside the organisation

Engagement

We worked closely with government departments to make sure what we are designing is in line with their needs.

Team workshops

Co-designing with developers, business analysts, content designers, user researchers and delivery managers was critical to spotting the gaps and opportunities.

We spent a lot of time discussing rather than doing. We needed the visuals to be able to plan our work effectively.

Business vs. user needs

When designing a process there is a tendency for an organisation to want to do it they way they have always been doing it. It was important to challenge those assumptions and to advocate for user needs.

Gazbia Sorour

Designing a youth management product 3 months

How can we improve the experience of volunteers, parents and young people?

The aim of this project is to help one of the largest youth organisations in the UK understand how to improve its user’s experience using a digital product.

My role is to validate the organisation’s riskiest assumptions about digisting the user’s experience

My role as a Senior Service Designer was to validate the organisation’s assumptions about the value of digital product could bring by engaging with users through focus groups, co-design workshops and using prototypes to learn about their needs. *Due to confidentiality some of the images in this section are unreadable.

Design Skills

PROJECT LEAD

This particular organisation came with a solution in mind.That digitising parents, young people and volunteers experience will lead to greater impact.

DESIGN RESEARCH

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

FACILITATION

Designing a youth management product

To validate the organisation’s assumptions I engaged with internal teams, service users and other organisations.

Internal teams

Young people Volunteers Parents

Other youth organisations

At the centre are the end-users which are the people who use the service In the second outer circle are the stakeholders who will directly benefit from the service In the outer most circle are the people we could learn from best practice

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40

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Young people

Volunteers

Youth organisations

Parents

Gazbia Sorour

Scoping I ran a kick-off session with the team and the client to build a shared understanding about the project plan and ways of working.

Running a kick-off with the client

Project plan

Designing a youth management product

I facilitated brainstorming sessions with the client to define their riskiest assumptions about product features to be validated with parents, young people and volunteers in research.

Prioritising assumptions

Defining co-design briefs

Gazbia Sorour

Discover I ran 3 workshops with all internal teams across the organisation to understand their data requirements. This helped the organisation to prioritise its most important data needs.

Data requirements workshop

Designing a youth management product

Together with the interaction designer, we ran focus groups using prototypes as research prompts to learn about the needs of volunteers and parents. I learned that there is potential to digitise parts of the experience.

Using prototypes to validate assumptions

Gazbia Sorour

I designed and facilitated co-design workshops with young people (ages 10 - 14) to brainstorm ways that they would like to engage with digital (if at all). I learned that young people valued their inperson experience.

Storyboarding ideas with young people

Designing a youth management product

I ran interviews with other youth organisations to learn about their lessons learned and best practice from digitising their user experience. I learned that defining data ownership and access is critical when collecting sensitive data.

Synthesising interview findings

Gazbia Sorour

Define I synthesised findings for each user group and ran co-synthesis sessions with the client team to socialise the findings and co-create a narrative for senior stakeholders.

Capturing focus group findings

Co-synthesis with the client team

Designing a youth management product

Develop I developed value propositions and user stories to communicate the needs of each user group and how that might translate into (digital and non-digital) features of a service.

Value proposition by user group

User stories to communication insights

Gazbia Sorour

Deliver I used the POPIT model to structure opportunities, constraints and gaps as way to communicate that the integration of youth data into the organisation’s digital ecosystem will have a significant impact across the organisation.

Designing a youth management product

Key Takeaways

What Worked Well

What Could Be Improved

Validating Assumptions

Eliminating bias

Working with the client to define their riskiest assumptions about the product helped to structure the research and minimise risks of building the wrong thing.

Using prototypes to learn

Using wireframes as prompts in the research phase brought richness to the insights and helped us understand what users really needed.

Involving the client in delivery

Bringing the client along the research journey by involving them in co-design workshops and running co-synthesis sessions helped to socialise the findings and get their buy-in on what users really needed

Defining the co-design briefs for young people meant that they worked on predefined challenges. Next time, I would let participants define the challenges they want to work on ahead of ideation.

Thinking about the system

Products aren’t designed in isolation of the organisation they are a part of. It is critical to think about the implications of the product on the wider system early on.

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Gazbia Sorour

Organizational Change in UNDP Somalia How can we make 3 months

UNDP Somalia’s Internal processes more efficient?

The aim of this project was to identify which processes could be better facilitated, managed and improved within the UNDP Somalia Country Office.

My role is to lead a team of designers and help a UN organisation re-design its internal processes.

I led a team of 3 designers, set the project direction and managed the client.

Through the research, I was surprised to learn that the challenges were not necessarily in the inefficiency of the processes, but rather the staff’s behaviours and organisational culture.

Design Skills

PROJECT LEAD

DESIGN RESEARCH

VISUAL COMMUNICATION

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Redesigning UNDP Somalia’s Internal Processes

Stakeholders UNDP Senior Management

Operations units

Service Design Team

Local Communities

Programme units

In this project, a variety of stakeholders were involved

At the centre are the local communities that UNDP support In the second outer circle are the organisation units that we engaged in the research process In the third outer circle are the main drivers behind the project

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Staff members

UNDP Operations Manager

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Discover To being building a picture of the challenges faced by UNDP staff, we created an online survey. In the survey staff prioritized their most painful process, the challenges and possible solutions.

Gazbia Sorour

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Redesigning UNDP Somalia’s Internal Processes

Key Insights I analysed the data and found that the challenges fell under two main categories, efficiency and culture. I filtered the data by process and pain points. The larger the circles, the more times the pain points were mentioned.

Visualization of analysed survey data

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Gazbia Sorour

Define To dig deeper into the processes, I conducted online interviews with staff. Based on the findings, we were able to map out the process and build user stories, highlighting where the bottlenecks were and why.

User journey map to visualize the bottlenecks

Process map

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Redesigning UNDP Somalia’s Internal Processes

Key Takeaways

What Worked Well

What Could Be Improved

In-depth Interviews

Working Remotely

Feedback Loops

Language

Given the complexity of the brief, being able to have detailed conversations with staff fom different departments gave us insight into the challenges.

Regularly sharing information with the project facilitators and staff helped us to validate our assumptions and understanding of the processes.

Process Mapping

Visualizing our data helped us to communicate better with the staff and to build a shared understanding.

The most challenging part of this project was working on a brief remotely. We navigated this challenge by using virtual communication channels.

Service design methodology and terms were new to staff. Therefore, we had to iterate how we communicated our findings to build a shared understanding.

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Gazbia Sorour

Supporting Social Entrepreneurs 6 months

How can we better support social entrepreneurs in Egypt?

My role is to lead research and design a service offering to better support social entrepreneurs in Egypt

The aim of this project was to help an organisation gain an in-depth understanding of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt and the needs, gaps and barriers to social entrepreneur’s success.

I designed an offline and online peerto-peer (p2p) learning network that will help social entrepreneurs to connect, collaborate and support each other.

This service is currently being adopted and implemented by a support organisation in Egypt.

Design Skills

FACILITATION

DESIGN RESEARCH

STAKEHOLDER RAPID VISUAL MANAGEMENT PROTOTYPING COMMUNICATION

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Supporting Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt

Stakeholders Ministries

Banks

Fabrication Labs

Investors

Competitions Academia

Training organizations

Social Entrepreneurs

Coworking spaces

Communities

Fellowship Programs Incubators Freelance Mentors Mentoring Organisations

Media Networks

Accelerators Innovation Platform

International Organizations

In this project, I engaged with a wide range of stakeholders.

At the centre are the communities that would ultimately benefit from more social enterprises succeeding.

In the second outer circle are the social entrepreneurs which are the main users.

In the third outer circle are types of organizations that directly work with entrepreneurs.

In the outermost circle are the entities that indirectly support entrepreneurs.

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Entrepreneurs

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Support Orgs.

Private Sector

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Gazbia Sorour

Discover I used ethnographic research tools such as in-depth interviews and codesign sessions to get a sense of the experiences, motivations, barriers, and needs of both the social entrepreneurs and stakeholders. Together with the entrepreneurs, we mapped out their journey and prioritized the challenges.

A journey map tool I created to guide the interviews

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Supporting Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt

Key Insights

Challenge

Early stage entrepreneurs that can’t access services are stuck

Support organizations are unable to assist or reach a large number of entrepreneurs

Experienced social entrepreneurs are willing to share lessons but lack an honest platform

Social Entrepreneurs that had access to a professional and personal network were able to progress faster than others

Opportunities

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Gazbia Sorour

Define I organised a co-design session with stakeholders to narrow down the focus of the project and ideate.

I developed three personas to make my insights clear and tangible. To begin exploring service possibilities that would address the HMW questions, I developed what if scenarios. Each what if statement represented a basic service concept.

Participants prompted by the personas and user stories

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Supporting Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt

Personas

Early Stage Social Entrepreneur

Experienced Social Entrepreneur

Support Organization

How might we help Ahmed find quick and tailored guidance?

How might we motivate sara to share her story with the wider community?

How might we motivate Shahinda collaborate with other oganisations?

How might we build a peerpeer learning network for social entrepreneurs in Egypt?

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Gazbia Sorour

Develop I developed three storyboards to visualize and test my initial service concept from the perspective of each persona. I iterated the service concept after organising focus groups with 12 users, using Stanford’s feedback grid.

Entrepreneurs testing the service using a storyboard

Entrepreneurs giving their feedback on the idea

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Supporting Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt

Community Partner

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Deliver I created a service blueprint which explains the detailed journey of the users, how the community partner and leading organization directly interact with the users and how they manage the service in the backend.

Gazbia Sorour

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Supporting Social Entrepreneurs in Egypt

Key Takeaways

What Worked Well

What Could Be Improved

Co-design Sessions

Launching an MVP

Honesty and Openness

Working with a Team

Working directly with users and stakeholders in a workshop environment was very efficient in collecting mass data, given that it was an individual project.

I found that being honest and open about the project goals, findings and research gaps strengthened my relationships with both the users and stakeholders.

Diverse Perspectives

Getting a wide-range of perspectives on the problem space enriched the project.

By bringing together stakeholders I could demonstate the value of human-centred design.

To really validate whether the service structure would really work on the ground, I would have taken the time to launch a minimum viable product (MVP).

It was very challenging to develop a project alone for 6 months. Therefore, continuously engaging with stakeholders was extremely valuable.

Communicating the Project

Given the complexity of the project it was difficult to communicate it in a simple manner. I used different methods such as storyboards and the “Who, What, Why, When and How”. Each time I presented it, I used the feedback received to try and communicate it better the following time.

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Gazbia Sorour

THANK YOU gazbia.sorour@gmail.com Linkedin/Gazbia Sorour London, UK