Overview & The Challenge
Pathfinder is a mobile app concept that won the Best Research Award out of 11 teams at the 6-hour Google Designathon.
The challenge was twofold:
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Design Task: Design a comprehensive, accessible, and user-friendly mobile portal connecting unhoused individuals with essential social services.
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Process Task: Leverage AI during the research and design process to identify where it accelerates workflows and where its limitations remain.
Our team of four designers developed Pathfinder, a research-backed concept focused on the specific, critical needs of unhoused individuals fleeing domestic violence.
The Process & Constraints
With only six hours, our process had to be rapid and flexible. We had initially time-blocked our day, but our research phase extended as we uncovered the complexity of the problem. This required constant communication and adapting our plan.
Our team's fluid dynamic was a key to success. We had discussed our individual strengths the night before but did not assign rigid roles. This allowed us to pivot naturally. We ideated and researched together, then split the work of research synthesis, user flow creation, wireframing, and building the presentation deck, all while in constant communication.
Discovery & Research
Our first step was to understand the problem's vast scope. The prompt was "unhoused individuals," a diverse group including students, youth, drug addicts, and victims of natural disasters.
Problem Statement: We quickly identified a critical-need subgroup: victims of domestic violence (DV).
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In California, 20% of unhoused women were victims of violence or abuse by their partners.
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The process of finding relevant, safe resources is tedious, time-consuming , and requires a high degree of safety and privacy.
Research Methods: Given the 6-hour time crunch, we could not conduct user interviews. Instead, we used a hybrid of traditional and AI-powered research methods:
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Literature Review: To gather foundational statistics and context.
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Reddit Forums: To understand personal anecdotes, needs, and frustrations from real individuals.
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User Personas: Formed by synthesizing anecdotes from Reddit and other sources.
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Competitive Analysis: To evaluate existing platforms and identify market gaps
Key Research Insights:
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Privacy is Paramount: We found Reddit posts from users seeking "under the table" income or ways to "keep a secret" from an abuser, highlighting the need for absolute discretion.
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Services are Fragmented: Most resources are scattered across different department websites, blogs, and hard-to-navigate portals. This is overwhelming for a user in crisis.
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Market Gap: We found only one true mobile app alternative, "Shelter App". Its focus was general, confirming our opportunity to serve the specialized needs of DV survivors.
Defining the Focus: User Personas
Our research led us to narrow our focus to DV survivors. We synthesized our findings into three key user personas:
These personas crystallized our design goals: the solution must prioritize safety, specialized resource filtering (e.g., LGBTQ, women-only), and mental health support.
The Solution: Pathfinder
Pathfinder is a discreet, secure mobile application designed to be a single, reliable portal for DV survivors.
Tagline: "Your plan. Your pace. Your safety."
Key Feature 1: Safety, Privacy & Disguise
To protect our users, we designed a multi-layered safety system.
Secure Onboarding: A "Your Safety Comes First" pop-up on first use explicitly states the app will never use the camera/mic, ask for personal info, or track activity.
Dual-Password System: The user sets two passwords.
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Real Password: Unlocks the full Pathfinder app.
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Fake Password: Opens an "app disguise" - a simple, fully functional "Safari Hop" elephant game - to protect the user if forced to open the app.
Quick Exit: A physical button command (e.g., "Double click volume down") would immediately close the app.
Onboarding screens to help set up real & fake passwords
Fake password leads to a game
Real password leads to actual app resources
Key Feature 2: Anonymous Community Forum
Survivors often feel isolated. We designed an anonymous forum for users to ask questions and share experiences safely.
Users can ask for advice on specific resources (e.g., "Has anyone used the courthouse on Main Street?").
Users can share tips and resource availability (e.g., "The food pantry on Elm St... don't require any ID").
Inspired from menstruation tracking app "Flo"
Key Feature 3: Centralized & Accessible Resources
Instead of fragmented websites, Pathfinder centralizes all essential services into one place.
Main Screen: A map-based view with clear categories: Hygiene, Shelter, Food, Healthcare, Legal, and Mental Health.
Detailed Listings: Users can tap a category to see a list of verified resources with addresses, contact info, and services offered.
Offline Access: A "Download" feature allows users to save resource information for offline access, conserving battery and ensuring access without Wi-Fi.
Mindfulness: A dedicated section provides quick access to mindfulness activities like journaling and breathing exercises.
The "Best Research": Integrating AI
Winning the Best Research award was a direct result of our methodology. We treated AI as a specialist team member, strategically deploying different tools for specific tasks.
Strengths: AI as an Accelerator
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Perplexity for Literature Review: This was brilliant for synthesizing citable, academic research. It provided accurate links and statistics (like the UCSF study) that grounded our problem statement in credible data.
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Reddit Answers (Beta) for User Insights: In the absence of real users, this tool was our MVP. It scraped public Reddit forums for relevant conversations, providing the raw, authentic user sentiment and anecdotes we used to build our personas.
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Gemini & Lovable for Ideation: We used Lovable for quick UI mock-ups and design inspiration. We also used Gemini to rapidly prototype the "Safari Hop" game interface for our app disguise, a non-priority feature we couldn't have built otherwise. Gemini also helped generate realistic-sounding text for our anonymous forum prototypes.
AI tools used
Limitations: The Need for a Human Lens
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Lack of Rigor: We found that generalized models like ChatGPT provided insight but couldn't back it up with credible, citable sources, making it unsuitable for research.
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No Empathetic Judgment: No AI tool could make the critical, empathetic judgments required for our sensitive user group. It provided the data, but the human designers provided the strategic direction and ethical lens.
Our key finding was that not all LLMs are built equally. The power of AI in a time crunch is not a single magic button, but in knowing which specialized tool to use for the right task.
Outcomes & Reflections
Our team was awarded Best Research for our focused methodology and the creation of the Pathfinder concept.
Reflections:
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The Power of Focus: Our best decision was narrowing our scope from "all unhoused individuals" to "DV survivors." This allowed us to design with depth and empathy rather than breadth and generalities.
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Flexibility is Key: Our initial time-block plan broke, but our team's "fluid dynamic" and constant communication allowed us to adapt and successfully divide the work.
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Research-Driven Presentation: Our final 4-minute presentation was extremely rushed. However, we made the strategic choice to focus our limited time on clearly presenting our research, which ultimately made up for speeding past our final design slides and led to our win.