Case Study: Communicating Water Quality

Communicating Water Quality

Empowering rural Ghanaian communities through water quality signage and education

Project at a Glance

As part of the 2024 HCDE Senior Capstone, our team collaborated with PATH and Cova to address water quality communication in rural Ghana. With the majority of communities relying on shared water sources with no standardized method to communicate water safety, 76% of households are at risk for drinking contaminated water. Our team developed a signage building kit to help communities effectively convey water quality and educate residents on interpreting these signs. This solution was presented at the HCDE Capstone Showcase and shared with PATH’s Global WASH Community of Practice.

Jump to final designs

My Role

Visual & Design Lead

Timeline

January - June 2024

Teammates

Stacie Bood, Rebecca Chan, Anagha Yodtare

Initial Research & Problem Definition

76% of households in Ghana are at risk for drinking contaminated water¹. Access to water is extremely varied and direct piped water is rare, with most rural communities having 1-3 communal sources. At these sources, there is no standardized method of communicating water quality, increasing contamination risks.

PATH, and their partner organization Cova, run Water, Sanitation and Hydration (WASH) projects in Africa and Central America. For our senior capstone, our team was tasked to design and develop universal communication standards.

We began our project by conducting secondary research to better understand our problem. Through this, we found that water quality is extremely contextual. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines 4 categories of contaminants- bacterial, chemical, radiological and acceptable, each with a framework for defining acceptable values in specific areas.

Through our research, we were able to define our initial design question:

DESIGN QUESTION

“How might we design communication strategies to help water treatment facilitators convey information about water quality?”

User Research & Findings

Through PATH and Cova, we were able to get in touch with water technicians and facilitators in various countries throughout Africa and Central America. Our goals were to understand how water quality was currently being communicated and what difficulties were technicians and facilitators being faced with.

We conducted two 45-minute interview sessions with 2-3 participants from Ghana and Honduras. These interviews allowed us to identify 3 main themes, which drastically affected our project:

Generational Behavior

Community members are accustomed to generational habits and behaviors. This made it difficult to elicit widespread change for safer water practices.

Distrust of NGOs

There was a general lack of trust for non-government organizations (NGOs). For their current processes, PATH made sure to make testing as transparent as possible.

Lack of Educational Programs

There are currently no education programs run by PATH. In comparison, Cova runs educational programs in Honduras which greatly helped issues of generational behavior change.

(Re) Problem Definition

Our findings taught us that our problem was much larger than water quality communication. As reiterated in our interviews, simply informing communities about water quality had little to no impact due to generational behaviors and NGO mistrust.

Rather than focusing on the strategies technicians were using, we shifted our focus to design for the people in the communities themselves.

In addition to the WHO in our design question, we also decided to narrow our scope to focus only on Ghana communities. While initially we were looking at universal standards for communication, we decided a more specific geographic area would allow us to design more effectively, with more opportunities for design as Ghana system was less established than Honduras'.

UPDATED DESIGN QUESTION

“How might we design tools to inform people in Ghana about water contamination risks at community water sources?”

Ideation

Based on our research and updated problem space, our team explored diverse possibilities for how we could communicate water quality and elicit change. With Cova's success in Honduras with educational programs, we looked at how we could incorporate education into our communication.

We produced four early prototypes:

Water Source Signage
Infographics
Signage Building Kit
Board Game Concept

Ultimately, we decided to move forward with the signage building kit as our main deliverable. We felt that the kit would not only allow us to design signage at water sources, but to also build it around an educational kit that could be used in school settings.

We planned to take aspects of both our source signage and infographic prototypes to create supplementary community materials, but our main focus was to be the signage building kit. While we were also very excited about our board game concepts, we ultimately decided that we would not be able to fully develop the concept due to time constraints and limited access to target audiences.

Prototyping

Our initial prototype created in the ideation phase featured a dial design inspired by Pacific Northwest fire risk signage. We included 4 contamination stickers with options for none and unknown, basing these metrics on the World Health Organization guidelines² for contaminated water.

After an initial feedback session with PATH and Cova, we updated our signage to include more details and information about water quality. This included descriptions, testing dates, and headings. We also wanted redesigned the main graphic to focus more on the current status of the water, with secondary uses listed underneath.

We also updated our iconography from our initial prototype to be more consistent, representing the various contaminants and qualities found in water sources. Combined with educational scenarios that walked users through building a signs, we brought this iteration to PATH employees for our user testing.

User Testing & Findings

We conducted 3 user testing sessions with PATH employees from their Seattle and Uganda locations. Each sessions was conducted in a focus group style with 2-3 participants each. Our team went through different water quality scenarios and had participants create signage using paper, pens, and stickers. We recorded observations throughout the process, as well as conducting a brief exit interview to learn more of the user experience.

Compiling our notes from user testing, we were able to identify 3 main themes:

Visuals > Text

Participants expressed positive feedback towards the illustrations and iconography, which they found were much better than text at conveying messages to larger audiences.

Form Confusion

Across all user testing sessions, fill-in forms were found to be confusing and nondescript, leading to difficulty completing the signage or incorrectly filled information.

Lack of Action Items

An aspect that our prototypes lacked were action items, which participants wanted to see more of, particularly in the event of water contamination.

Final Designs

Using feedback from user testing, we updated our prototypes for our final design.

Prioritizing Usability

In addition to updating icons, we adjusted the main graphic to represent usability. This allowed the messaging to be more straightforward and be understood at a glance while still containing relevant information below.

Action Items

In the event of water contamination, we included necessary treatments to assist community members with water usage. This allowed for further action rather than simply providing information about current contaminants.

Tips for Handling

Lastly, we added general transportation and storage tips to promote improve handling. Such actions would reduce risk of contamination after water collection.

Key Features

My capstone team (From left: Stacie, Anagha, Me, Rebecca)

Results & Next Steps

We presented our project to 700+ attendees at the annual HCDE senior capstone showcase and 30+ members of PATH’s Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Community of Practice.

While we worked directly with PATH, future steps would require close involvement with Ghanaian officials for implementation. This would also allow for further primary research, iconography iteration, and content localization- key steps that we were unable to complete due to logistical and time limitations. Ultimately, we hope that our research findings and designs continue to be iterated and updated to be implemented by not only Ghana but other low and middle income countries.

Reflection

Working with PATH and Cova was truly a unique experience. Our team came into our capstone with one goal- we wanted to work on a project that was unlike anything we had done before. This project allowed us to accomplish that and much more. Navigating interviews and user testing with participants 7,000+ miles away with a 10-hour time difference taught us a lot about planning ahead and adding extra time for communication. With our slight project scope shift in the middle of our timeline, we had to be flexible and ensure every team member was on the same page. Overall, we were proud of our project and happy to work in a problem space that was out of our comfort zone. Though we know as students outside our problem space we faced many logistical limitations, we hope our progress can be used as a starting point for PATH and Cova as they continue their missions in global water and health equity.