Compass Project

The Compass Project is a co-designed digital kiosk that helps people experiencing homelessness in Chatham County, Georgia, connect to nearby food, shelter, hygiene, and healthcare services. Developed in partnership with the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless and residents with lived experience, the project used participatory design to create a tool rooted in real-world needs, trust, and usability. As a visual designer, I co-led workshops, conducted primary research, and translated participant feedback into a modular visual system and interactive prototype. The kiosk interface designed for high-stress environments features bold typography, multilingual support, intuitive navigation, and real-time maps of nearby services. Community members selected icons, colors, and layouts, shaping everything from search behavior to emergency alerts. The design prioritized dignity, accessibility, and long-term usability, with scalable documentation and systems to support future deployments. The Compass Project was guided by the Design Justice Network Principles and Richard Buchanan’s four orders of design: graphic, industrial, interaction, and systemic, ensuring that every decision was grounded in community insight and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Thank you to Carlin, James, Octavian, Pamela, Anthony, Ade, Sarah, and Audrey, who shaped every aspect of this project. Designers: Juliana Gonzales, Nyja Holland, Fozzie Kretschmer, Olivia Mullins, Rachel Prado,  Dylan Randall-Newberg, Javier Sauce-Diaz, Nency Vaghani, and Pingyao Wan