Since vaccination is a local, national, and global subject, the research for this particular project spanned byond just the user research interviews performed by me. For user research on this project, I also pored over data, reports, statistics, and interviews collected by other entities such as the WHO, CDC, and various hospitals in regard to vaccination, and why people do or don't get vaccinated.
Through the collection of interviews and data gathered by these other entities and by me, a clear picture of certain pain points became apparent in regard to users and vaccinations.
I took the information collected from the interviews, studies, and databases, and laid out an affinity diagram and built empathy maps. The research - along with the visual aids I constructed - identified a pattern of pain points that were shared at the local, national, and global levels.
There were users who were extremely pro-vaccination, but had a difficult time in understanding what vaccines were and were not relevant to them specifically. Additionally figuring out requirements of age, spacing, health status...etc. in order to qualify for certain vaccinations was also a point of confusion for users. This desire for clearer information spread from general vaccination into the realm of COVID-19 vaccinations as well, as people tried to figure out changing guidelines for booster shot spacing and for testing.
A large swath of the vaccine-hesitant users had trust issues with the health system in general, and with the administration of vaccines specifically. A history of medical experimentation on indigenous people, immigrants, and people-of-color lead many users to distrust the medical system, and feel hesitant to allow that system to inject their bodies with anything. The quick nature of the COVID-19 vaccine creation made many of the hesitant users uneasy with fears of laxed safety and testing.
Another group of vaccine-hesitant users chocked up their lack of vaccination to anxieties like fear-of-needles, fear-of-side-effects, fear-of-vaccines in general.
