MEGANNE JIMENEZ

DESCRIPTION

Soapbox is an  app for field researchers to collect stories via video and audio and a web database for their administrators to rigorously organize the collected stories. Together, these create a digital platform for organized qualitative data in an equitable way to be used by nonprofits and social scientists.

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OBJECTIVE

To create an application that supports audio/visual content for the audience to use to document first-person data for their respective organizations. This application will allow the audience to collect consent, record audio/video/supplementary text, then upload that data to the server where the administrator can view everything. Admins have the ability to create projects and corresponding links/codes for the mobile app user to utilize in order to add to the project.

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PURPOSE

Help create a streamlined application for the audience to utilize while out on the field collecting qualitative data. Then those researchers are able to connect with their administrators and share the data in order to tell stories and drive impact. This real-time pipeline of data ensures that stories are being told in a timely manner.

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SCOPE/BOUNDARIES

The main idea of Soapbox consists of both a mobile application and a desktop platform. For a team of two people that have little knowledge about writing code for an app and data storage, we had to shrink the scope of our project. We decided that creating the app all the way and working on front end design of the website. This narrower scope will help us to execute at least one of the two platforms fully. The app will consist of an ethical consent form page and ways to record data such as audio and video. There will also be a way to join a project before recording/adding any data. Working on the front end design/prototype of the website will help the Soapbox team in future endeavors such as user testing with both the app and the desktop platforms.

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TARGET USERS

Social scientists and non-profit organizations/field researchers seeking a collective way to store and share data. The target user is not just an average person looking to collect qualitative data, but one of the aforementioned groups. A platform such as Soapbox is needed for social scientists and non-profit organizations/field researchers specifically because current processes scatter the data across too many platforms and makes their collection more difficult.

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KEY BENEFITS

• Ethical consent forms for first-person data

  • These consent forms are an important feature that Soapbox is offering. They allow the field researcher to collect consent from the individual they are interviewing by filling out a simple form. The form also makes it clear who owns the story.​

• Offline compatibility (can upload once connected to cellular/WiFi)

  • This feature is important for field researchers in remote places, specifically. So if the researcher doesn't have access to WiFi or cellular data, they are still able to save the collected data, and the data will export once they are connected.​

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COMPETITION

Ona (ona.io) is the closest thing to Soapbox because it focuses on similar topics that non-profits are targeting. They have data forms for both desktop and mobile devices, as well as offline support. They also have sharing options (edit, view, download) as well as administrators for different projects, which is a feature that Soapbox hopes to implement on the desktop version (not the mobile app version). There aren't other competitors that compare to Soapbox, because Soapbox is the most specific and streamlined version of this idea. It's taking a bunch of ideas (qualitative data collection/storage, offline mobile usage for field researchers, and a data platform for the desktop that shows all contents of projects) and combines them together to create one singular platform for the audience to use.

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DIFFERENTIATION

The main thing that sets Soapbox apart from Ona is that qualitative data such as audio and video is being collected, versus the qualitative data that Ona collects. Soapbox is much more specific, but is certainly needed by the audience due to the current ways to collecting this type of data. Since Soapbox is focusing on first-person accounts/qualitative data, their ethical consent forms for the person being interviewed is a feature that is unique to Soapbox. This ensures that there's documentation about who gave consent about which story, as well as clarifies ownership of the story/recount.