BCNA Marginalised Communities

BCNA received project funding earmarked for the improvement of representation for communities identified as socially marginalised. These included First Nations peoples and LGBTIQ+ communities, as well as men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer or DCIS. Our brief focused on improving representation across the MyJourney app, so it was important that we speak directly to people from each identified community to determine what changes might offer the greatest value. By working with these groups, we identified a number of key areas for improvement across the app, where we could help people feel better seen and understood.

Insights gathered from our research and interviews pointed us to several key areas that could provide an improved experience for our marginalised community users, and ideally all users of the app. Improvements included: - An overhauled registration process, which explicitly communicates that My Journey content is curated based on a user’s self-identification with one or more communities - A new onboarding area, featuring welcome videos, uniquely written to speak directly to each community group - An updated home screen where users can customise their interface imagery, see content curated to their preferences, and update these preferences based on their diagnosis and community identity.

Although these improvements have only been made recently, early feedback from the BCNA team indicates that the response is already positive. For people diagnosed with breast cancer or DCIS, the world can feel as though it’s been turned upside down. To see support that speaks directly to individuals, not only based on their diagnosis, but also on the unique needs they may have within a particular community is something that is no longer negotiable. We look forward to working with BCNA to continue the effort to ensure My Journey supports the needs of as many unique communities as possible.

Landing page and registration The My Journey landing page and registration needed to evolve to tell the important story of diversity and inclusiveness. No one’s breast cancer experience is the same, so we endeavoured to create an experience that would educate people about the way My Journey is personalised. This included the inclusion of conversational language and images representing people from our target audiences. Welcome experience Our research made it clear that each of the communities we spoke to were eager to see people who looked and sounded like them. Based on this insight, a series of unique welcome videos were written, art directed and produced for each of our identified communities to feature on a new Welcome page that users would land on when first logging into the app. Homescreen Whether it was ‘anything but pink’ for our male audience, or appropriate cultural imagery for our First Nations users, the people we spoke to indicated they would like greater control over the way My Journey looked. To provide more control over the personalisation of the app, we redesigned the home screen to feature customisable avatar and background imagery, as well as a content toolbox featuring recent preference-based content.