Manshiyet Nassir-the Zabaleen's neighborhood.
Understanding and assessing the Zabaleen's culture required an ethnographic approach. However, since distance was a factor and I had limited time in the field, I used a rapid ethnography approach for this project. Rapid ethnographic methods include techniques such as reviewing earlier studies in similar settings/landscape anaylsis, contextual inquiry and conducting interviews with informants.
Interviews
The human-centered framework of Zibal-T entails an iterative cycle of investigation. Individuals from different sectors and social groups of the community knowledgeable about certain aspects of the network, or of the Zabaleen life, were interviewed.
The system thinking model
Based on the data collected from the first round of interviews, scenario analyses were used to represent the understanding of the system. These scenario analyses pinpointed gaps in the learning that needed additional input.
The system thinking model was created with members of the Zabaleen community during the inception phase.
Personas
Based on interviews, data-driven personas were created to consider goals and pain points. To accomplish the goals, I considered behaviors, motivations, and user challenges. Details in the personas express enough understanding and empathy to both users.
