Vare

Student end-to-end project for BrainStation

Reducing overdose risk in dance festival attendees by helping them identify contaminated recreational drugs
View Prototype

Timeline

3 months

Jul 2022 – Sept 2022

Collaborators

Solo Project

Role

Research

Product Design

Branding

Overview
Highlights
Context
Insights
Persona
Ideate
Refine
Brand
Prototype
Reflect

Disclaimer

My intentions are not to promote recreational drug use, but to minimize its risks. I followed a harm-reduction approach, assuming that my target users would use recreational drugs regardless of interventions. 

Problem

Drug use at dance festivals puts people at high risk of medical emergencies and death. 

"At least 137 drug-related deaths at dance festivals have occurred (worldwide) since 1999"

(Turris, Jones, & Lund, 2018; Turris & Lund, 2017)

Challenge

Create a digital solution that considers possible legal and business constraints surrounding recreational drug use in Canada

Solution

Help dance festival attendees make safer decisions by alerting them of potentially contaminated drugs, teaching them to recognize overdose symptoms in their friends, and encouraging them to use drug-checking services.

View toxic drug alerts across Canada

Drug-checking alerts provided by organizations across Canada are all centralized in one app, displayed in the same comprehensive format, and rephrased to use everyday language. These alerts warn users of toxic drugs that may be circulating in their area. For our target audience–who may not be inclined to expend much effort to increase their physical safety–this is an effective, convenient alternative that increases the chances of users avoiding substances that have a high risk of overdose.

Compare your drug to existing alerts

By taking a photo of one’s drug, Vare identifies its characteristics and only shows users alerts for drugs that may be a match with theirs, so that they can quickly find what they’re looking for. 

Recognize signs of an overdose

In the event that the toxic drug is ingested, Vare teaches users to recognize symptoms in their friends earlier, so that they can seek help proactively. The app also provides emergency advice and tips for users to act upon while they await medical attention. Icons and summarized points are used so that the information presented is easily digestible.

Better to be safe than sorry

To be 100% sure of the safety of their drug, Vare provides a call-to-action for users to seek out drug-checking services near them, a resource they may not have been aware of. It also reduces the obscurity and stigma against these services by providing information on how they work, and using non-judgemental language throughout. By encouraging users to take advantage of this service, the risk they take using substances at EDM events decreases greatly. 

Context

Dance festivals pose a unique risk because they… 

Attract a young audience, who are prone to riskier behaviour

Have a popular culture of drug use

Involve large crowds, loud music, and other stimuli that delay emergency response times

Canada's unique factors include...

An increasingly toxic (contaminated) drug supply

Relatively new harm-reduction policies = Opportunities for solutions

Initial direction

How can I reduce the rate of high-risk drug-related health cases at dance festivals in Canada?

Research Methods

Secondary research

Understand the problem

Evaluate current solutions

Identify constraints and limitations

Interviews

5 participants who have taken recreational drugs at dance festivals

2 experts with experience providing medical care at dance festivals

Conducted on Zoom

Key Themes

We take care of each other

Dance festival attendees have a strong sense of community. However, this can vary depending on the event. Some events nurture supportive communities by promoting pro-social behaviour, while others may develop a reputation for a rowdier, disrespectful audience.

“I think there's a very strong sense of community within the EDM space. Taking care of each other, even though you're all just complete strangers.”

Image Courtesy of SMF Ltd from Shambhala Music Festival

Medical aid is not a one man job

People with drug-related medical emergencies are too incapacitated to seek help themselves. They rely on friends or bystanders to alert medical staff. Paired with the loud, chaotic environment of a dance festival, attendees may be late to recognize an emergency and access medical aid.

Therefore, the target user may not be the person in need of medical attention, but their friend/partner, who is more capable of taking action.

“You rely on bystanders or you rely on an individual being seen to be signalling or in need of distress.”

Image Courtesy of Yvette de Wit on Unsplash

I don't want to get in trouble

Interviewees shared that they did not use on-site medical services because they either did not know they existed, were scared of judgement or getting in trouble, or thought it was too much effort to access the resources.

“We were definitely very scared about approaching anyone and letting them know that (our friend) had taken MDMA. We were pretty young, and we didn't know much about anything back then.”

Image Courtesy of Ankors

I'm sure it's safe!

3 Interviewees shared that they assume their drugs are safe if they get it from someone they know, or if they were previously taken without issues. There may be a false sense of security where if a drug was safe to take before, it will be safe to take in the future.

"I only get it from people who I would say are friends and then because they're friends, I can trust them when they say that, they've had it. I guess it's not a direct like I don't know for sure that they've tested it, but I know that they've personally ingested it."

Image Courtesy of Stephen Arnold on Pexels

What's currently being done?

On-site medical care

Most dance festivals offer on-site medical care. Some rely on off-site emergency health resources (with ambulances on standby).

Positives

The quickest touchpoint for attendees in need of medical attention

Will not kick attendees out of the event for using illegal substances

Negatives

First-time attendees may not be aware of this resource

Services vary, there is no legal standard

It's difficult for emergency responders to locate attendees in need

Drug-checking services

Notably in British Columbia and Ontario, people can get their drugs checked for toxic contaminants. They publish their findings online as well.

Positives

Free and anonymous

May lead to attendees tossing their drugs if the results show contamination

Offers take-home and mail-in testing

Negatives

Inaccessible to people who don't live nearby

Online data and alerts are hard to read

Attendees may be unaware of, or hesitant to use services due to fear of judgement or inconvenience

On-site harm reduction

A rare few festivals (with pardon from the government) offer harm-reduction services like drug-checking, and information on safer drug use.

Positives

Reduced high-risk health cases at one documented event (Munn et al., 2016)

Negatives

Many festivals cannot offer harm reduction services due to legal and business constraints

Further research is required to understand how this may impact attendees' likelihood to use drugs

Refined Direction

How might we make harm reduction more accessible for dance festival attendees to reduce the rate of high-risk health cases at these events? 

Define

A closer look at the target user

Kevin represents the friend who would be taking action when they see a friend in need of medical services

When to intervene?

I chose to take a proactive approach and focus on the phase before Kevin attends the event. This is when Kevin is actively seeking information on how to take drugs and is in a clear-headed state of thinking. Though it would've been a fun challenge to design for an inebriated user, reducing the chances of a medical emergency from occuring in the first place would be a more effective solution.

Ideate

Exploring both proactive and reactionary measures that could aid Kevin's user journey

Chosen Idea

Enable users to compare their drugs with drug-checking results to see if their drugs may be contaminated with harmful substances

Positives

Takes advantage of existing databases regularly updated by reliable drug-checking organizations across Canada, and consolidates them into one resource

Offers a low-effort alternative for users who cannot access drug-checking services

An opportunity to educate and shift user perception of the harm reduction services available to them

Negatives

Drug checking data is inconsistently documented across different organizations

Potential to give users false confidence regarding the safety of their drug (See revisions)

Audit—Analyzing existing drug-checking data to see how I can distill them into actionable insights for the user

Initial Task Flow—Steps my user would go through to view relevant drug-checking results

Initial Low-Fidelity Screens—Conceptualizing the task flow

Initial Medium-Fidelity Screens

Applying User Feedback

Usability Testing

3 rounds

5 user testers per round

Conducted in person

Round 1 Testing

Users had a false sense of security of the safety of their drug after seeing what they perceived to be a low amount of toxicity found in drugs that shared the same characteristics as theirsking" may still need to be explained or renamed for better understanding

Due to difficulty understanding technical terms and jargon, users were not able to understand parts of the process, as well as some of the data displayed in the results

Round 3 Testing

Though tasks were accomplished, further research is required to understand how seeing toxic drug alerts impact users' perceptions and behaviour. If they don't see an alert, would they assume their drugs are safe? If they do, would they get their drug checked?

Terms like "drug-checking" may still need to be explained or renamed for better understanding

Major Revisions

Including a disclaimer

Before users can proceed, the app makes it clear that drug-checking results are meant to viewed as a general reference guide only, and are not an accurate indicator of the safety of their drug.

Increasing understanding

To aid users in knowing what options to select when choosing their drug characteristics, they have the added option of viewing characteristic descriptions

Toxic drug alerts in lieu of drug-checking statistics

To prevent users from making their own conclusions on how safe their drug is, they now can only view toxic drug warnings that have been officially issues by drug checking and overdose prevention sites across Canada. The information presented is also much more decisive and easier to absorb.

Stronger call-to-action

Data is further simplified into everyday language. Alerts include information on identifying signs of an overdose, and what to do when they recognize those signs in others.

Introducing Vare

A harm reduction app that helps dance festival attendees make safer decisions by alerting them of potentially contaminated drugs, teaching them to recognize overdose symptoms in their friends, and encouraging them to use drug-checking services.

Prototype

Reflection

More than just dance festivals

With the overdose crisis in Canada affecting much more than EDM event attendees, I would explore expanding my target audience. I hope to reach out to drug-checking organizations in Canada to gather their feedback on my proposed product, and better gauge its feasibility.

The value of iteration

Having followed the “double diamond” design process, I saw how much progress I could make with continuous iteration and falling back on step-by-step processes, instead of trying to perfect everything on the first go.

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