Walk In My Shoes

“You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

-Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1960

This is a simple game used to teach empathy. It was created at the Abortion Access Hackathon in SF March 4-5th, 2017.

What is empathy all about?

Being able to empathize means to be capable of identifying and understanding another person’s feelings, without experiencing them for yourself at that particular moment. It is the ability to literally experience the world from another person’s perspective; to walk in their shoes, to view life from their living conditions and to feel what it feels like to be that person.

Development

yarn
npm start

Setup web deployment on heroku

heroku create walk-in-my-shoes --buildpack https://github.com/mars/create-react-app-buildpack.git

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App.

Inspiration

• http://www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/2011/developing-empathy-walk-a-mile-in-someone%E2%80%99s-shoes/

Other

• Data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uEyYqIlQjDJIuxJrZcVyuY1N2DWCaY3ovyR8uc394ak/edit#gid=0

Server logic

See server repo: https://github.com/gitsteph/walk_in_my_shoes

Presentation (written by Steven, edited by Grant)

Hello, our project is called: Walk in My Shoes. It is based on a card game created by Women's Health Specialists.

Why?

It turns abstract ideas or soundbites from the news, media & politicians into the real world impact on individuals. We as a team want to make that more easily accessible.

The game's intention is to build empathy about the different barriors people face when trying to access abortion services.

Access is not binary it is a variety of factors which can combine to make accessing services more difficult.

The mechanic of the game is to lead the player through a series of these factors, examining the challenge it presents and possible delay it can cause to accessing services. Those factors include language, access to transportation & payment funds. The game emphasizes the time pressure involved and the additional impact delays can cause if an abortion cannot be accessed before 12 weeks.

The game starts with a random profile of a person seeking an abortion. Each person is at a different stage of pregnancy.

Gameplay

The user starts with a short biography and description of their situation.

Then presented with their first choice - the language they speak. Not really a choice but more of a hint which may or may not lead to the expected outcome.

• Language (English may not be your primary language. You maybe able to speak but not read English.)
• Provider (finding who can provide you with abortion services)
• Payment (do you have insurance cover, can you get support from a fund)
• Transportation (travel to clinic)
• Child care
• Confidentiality (there maybe people you don't wish to know you're having an abortion)
• Time-off (from work)
• Health (factors which may impact having an abortion)
• Final (your visit)

Aims

Digital makes it easier to get in the hands of users. More agency for user (originally game had no choices - it was purely random)

Future steps

Some more polish, ideally more content (giving more insight into circumstances accross the country), get it out there in the world.

Our Team

• Andrea: UX & illustrations
• Grant: Front end
• Stephanie: Team leader & back end
• Steven: Content and presentation

Special Thanks

Somer: For suggestion the project Women's Health Specialists: For content and support