Pallet Shelter addresses unsheltered homelessness by constructing transitional shelter villages. Due to their challenge of receiving consistent data on the impact of villages have on individuals experiencing homelessness we conducted user interviews, research, and gathered data to help solve Pallet’s problem on data collection. We developed a solution that allows residents of transitional shelter villages to self-report on their experience in the Pallet village throughout their time by implementing Google Forms surveys, which would collect anonymized information. This measures the effectiveness of non-congregate village models in addressing residents' health, well-being, and homelessness journey. The series of hand picked questions on our surveys would capture resident and service partner feedback on their village experiences. Furthermore, integrating a staff data dashboard visualization enables ability to quickly evaluate and analysis response data. Our solution eases the challenges of receiving consistent data as we developed a solution that provides insights into non-congregate villages' effectiveness by gathering data from residents and staff, enhancing Pallet’s understanding. And, a project proposal was created to ensure Pallet is on the right track to obtaining constant data they want to enhance our solution.
During the capstone program, our team collaborated with Pallet Shelter to enhance our project research, project planning, concept validation, user research and testing. This comprehensive approach enabled us to gain valuable insights and create a robust minimum viable product. Our MVP has proven to be highly effective in analyzing and recording residents' data through the surveys we designed, operating at a high cadence. Furthermore, we have created a data spreadsheet that is organized and optimized to display numerous dashboards that show the recorded data for each village community.
