Syrian Refugee Crisis by Google
The ask
The goal, to create a platform which enables users to understand and emotionally connect with the Syrian Refugee Crisis utilizing relevant Google APIs and products. Create empathy, awareness and enable a “Call to Action” that would reduce apathy and enhance the understanding of the Syrian war and it’s crisis.
A Google 20% project
Our strategy was to do the opposite of how most might tackle a humanitarian crisis. Let’s not focus on the negative but rather compare the lives the Syrians had and led before the war “much like ours in the United States” with the challenges of being pushed out of their homes and country and the stories behind each person. But our biggest driver was how can we take action that doesn’t require a large sum of money.
What is the real problem?
The strategy
We know that humans are innately empathetic and they want to help their fellow humans. How does that explain the ambivalence that resulted after the Syrian war, this was at the heart of our mission.
Apathy is the root
Knowing that we are empathetic, but yet ambivalent, we concluded that apathy was a driving force that diminished the response and the understanding of the crisis at hand. The masses were thinking “but what can I do?” and there were not a lot of options.
“What can I do, how can I make a difference, what can I, little ol me possibly do to help this global humanitarian issue? ”
Our position & why
We knew that we were able to have access to a lot of Google data, but we didn’t want to lead with data but rather lead with the heart and engagement, this would then be supported by Data and allow visitors to take action or “do something”. We wanted to encourage everyone not just Syrians but the rest of the world to be part of the story by taking action.
The conceptual model
With our strategy defined, we then wanted a UX concept that would support it through story blocks. The stories of individuals before and after would highlight their lives through the Google APIs or data, but lead with emotion and heart.
High fidelity wireframes
Our initial set of wireframes utilized story modules. Each module pulled from a Google API, each story would end with a “Call to Action” but those actions didn’t always need to be monetary, they could be bringing a welcome pie to your new neighbor, or educating your community, or donating to clean water. Some of the APIs used were (Google earth, photos, search data, data, maps and many more).
Supporting the concept with Interactions
Student & refugee toggle
A slider to compare at any moment between the persons life before and after the war was how one would empathize with the world they lived before and what their lives are like now. Emotion drove our data and both drove the actions to be taken.
Our idea hinged on search terms from before and after. Before the war, Yusra searched for colleges and swimming schools. After the war, she searched for escape routes, and swimming schools in other countries where they can take refuge.
Story led & action ending
We would feature a set of personas (real people) that would showcase and highlight their lives through, imagery, audio, and data. We wanted people to be able to experience through the senses to drive emotion.
With Keynote we exampled an interaction that would allow users to see with real data through google search and keyword terms to compare the lives of people before and after through their keyword search terms.
Search as a lead into the story
The transition would shift from Mother to Refugee, Symphony Musician to Refugee. We always wanted to lead off with the person they were before, well educated, living lives just like we do in Europe and America. We wanted to debunk myths and refute those myths with Google data.
An architecture that supports action
Each module was deliberately created to blend facts with storyline. Each story for each of our featured personas would include ways of connecting with humans, obtaining facts, which then compelled them to “find my act of kindness” as illustrated in the wireframe above, at every moment we offered many ways of taking action such as; donations, community outreach programs, volunteering at a refugee camp or simply sharing a story.
Desktop wireframe student/refugee toggle
We created a responsive system that would encourage engagement from the beginning. We used the toggle to start off with comparing the keyword search “escape from Syria” vs “swimming scholarships in Syria”. Yusra was a real person, she actually participated in the Olympics in 2016. She became our go to role model for this project.
The live product
In this finished live product, you see the concept was carried through with the before and after Google earth imagery and the toggle was horizontal instead of vertical. Google launched this initiative along with UNHCR and promoted it on the Google homepage.
Explore the Syrian refugee crisis was featured for 2 weeks on the Google Search Page. Providing a lot of traffic in the first few weeks, this idea was greatly received by many of the initiatives underway at the time.
The outcomes & what they’re saying
“An entirely fresh look at the biggest humanitarian tragedy of today.”
The product received a lot of press and publicity. The product was featured in both Tech Crunch, and The Verge. This project was one of my favorite in my career as it had such an impact on people and their lives, but was also driven by emotion and dedication within our team.