A Statement From Our Inspiration

 

 

Sharing YASU Care

 

This document is to be referenced for any public announcement for yasu care and the collaborative effort between YASU and Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Team. 

 

Brief Summary

 

Starting in January 2022, a team of graduate students in the Human-Computer Interactions program at Carnegie Mellon University (Diva Agarwal, Elizabeth Chu, Jessica Lin, Harkiran Saluja, and Joshua Suber) collaborated with Young Adult Survivors United on a 7-month project. Their goal was to uncover ways to enhance the systems, tools, and processes that are used to meet the needs of young adult cancer survivors and co-survivors. 

 

This resulted in YASU Care – a strategic framework that outlined how YASU could better meet the needs of its members through its support groups and services. They worked with YASU staff, subject-matter expert, and participants from the young adult cancer community to identify areas of opportunity. By finding ways to enhance transparency, empowerment, and personalization in YASU’s existing systems and tools they created a plan for organizational growth while always keeping the needs of the members on the forefront.

 

Some Quotes from Team

 

“Our client YASU supports people who are navigating one of the most challenging experiences of their lives. The community members who helped us throughout the project have shown us resilience, vulnerability, and how to celebrate life in a beautiful and humbling way. Thank you to the YASU staff and community – as well as young adult survivors outside of the community – for letting us into your world and giving us the opportunity to create with you.”

 

“This experience has enabled me to strengthen my skills as a researcher and gain professional experience while still in school. I was able to better empathize with my stakeholders, especially considering our main audience was young adult cancer survivors.” Harkiran Kaur Saluja

“This capstone experience reminded me the impact UX has on people’s lives. YASU is an organization that is really making a difference, and it was great to leverage my skills to provide new ways of approaching their challenges.” Josh Suber