HasAnswers: Development of a mobile service to support young people to find and keep a home

Abstract

Many young people experience difficulty finding and keeping an independent home, which can lead to homelessness or risk of homelessness. To help address this challenge, a young people's service in Scotland (Calman Trust) is developing a mobile service called HasAnswers. This paper provides: a description of HasAnswers; the results of iterative testing with 59 young people (36 male, 23 female) using paper and digital prototypes; and feedback from other services with a responsibility for supporting young people to achieve an independent adulthood, as a potential target market for the future scaling up of HasAnswers. While preliminary, the findings indicate the usefulness and acceptability of HasAnswers. The research contributes to HCI work on design for independent living and homelessness. In particular, the paper contributes new insight into the challenge that some users may experience navigating to the information they need, and an approach to address the problem that has been embedded in HasAnswers and preliminary tested with positive results.