Debra Nygren

Portfolio ⮞ Online Resource for Formerly Incarcerated Women

Online Resource for Formerly Incarcerated Women

Project Goal

Our goal was to create an online resource to connect formerly incarcerated mothers with reentry resources in Travis County, TX with the ability to expand to other Texas counties in the future. We were tasked with planning the entire project, conducting primary and secondary research, designing wireframes, building a website, and presenting our work to the client.

Personal Contributions

My contributions to the success of this project as the project manager include:

• Lead project planning: I gathered general ideas from my team on how to go about the project, then created a Gantt chart with project phases and milestones to help keep the project on track.
• Coordinated literature review: Each team member found several sources relating to the struggles of reentry or similar online resource hubs to guide our project. I synthesized these sources into a literature review and ensured proper citations.
• Attempted to obtain more primary research: Our client was able to distribute our research survey to a small number of target users, but we received one response. I reached out to a local reentry organization as well as a professor’s former colleague who currently focuses on the psychology of incarcerated individuals but was unable to get responses.
• Wrote copy on the Five Pillars of Stability: After meeting with a subject matter expert, I wrote some basic text explaining key components of each of the Five Pillars of Stability as well as some that explained the importance of the Five Pillars
• Created and designed WordPress.com site: I lead the creation of a WordPress.com site (as it would integrate into WSP’s current site), ensuring that the site matched as closely as possibly to the wireframes created in design, as well as using WSP’s branded colors and fonts. I created each page and chose the images to accompany the text and made sure that all links and sorting functions worked properly.
• Identified FindHelp.org: When looking for reentry resources, the FindHelp site was identified as a pre-existing search engine for reentry-type resources that is mobile-friendly and updated frequently. This site met the wish list criteria that the client was looking for.
• Communicated with client on behalf of team: I met with the client biweekly to give project updates and answer any questions they had. I was asked by the client during one of these meetings to write instructions for how to implement our final product, so I made sure to include these in our final presentation.
• Created poster, presentation, and report: I ensured that my team had a visually appealing poster that provided an overview of our project, a visually appealing presentation that communicated key project processes and final result to our client, and a final report that me the criteria that the faculty advisor was looking for.

Project Results

My team delivered a final product that could be implemented immediately with no cost that would require no additional maintenance from the client. Our final product directs users to a site that fulfilled all the desired of the client. Our professor noted that our presentation slides and poster were visually appealing and competently communicated project information to the respective audiences. I learned how projects don’t often follow their plan, as I had some struggles in the middle of this project, and because of my project manager status I felt as if nothing got done while I was gone. I gave my team members several opportunities to complete tasks assigned to them in a reasonable amount of time, however often I had to complete the task to ensure it got done and the project could continue.

Poster

The goal of the Final Poster in an MSOE Senior Design course is to provide an overview and highlights of the project to an audience outside the stakeholder group, including friends, families, faculty, and other students.

View the poster as a PDF here here or click the image below.

Final Presentation Slide Deck

This is the slide deck used during the final in-person presentation with the client and our faculty advisor. This presentation covers our project process, our final delierable, and our rationale.

View the slide deck as a PDF here here or click the image below.

Final Report

The design report is meant to contain information related to our processes and all relevant details of the project so that it could be continued by another designer in the future. This report contains our project proposal, literature review, our design process, our final deliverable, as well as implementation instructions.

View the report as a PDF here here or click the image below.

Final Deliverable

This is a copy of the page that we would reccomend that WSP implent on their site. The version of this page originally created by the team was created on a WordPress.com site is no longer active as it requires a paid account. Custom colors and fonts are locked behind a paid tier.

View the screenshot as a PDF here here or click the image below.

Project Proposal Slides

These are the slides used in the project proposal presentation we gave to our client in our fourth week of class. This presentation communicated to the client our predicted plan for the project.

View the slides as a PDF here here or click the image below.