Mandala System: Design as a Response to the Struggles of Poverty

The circumstances of poverty inflict a unique burden on the lives of those it affects. They are often forced to live in a state of focus on their immediate situation that causes both mental and physical distress. This focus forces the affected people to lose the ability to plan for the future and utilize existing tools to work toward a better future. Due to cultural circumstances, the single most significant group living in poverty in this state are single mothers. South Bend suffers from a large population of single mothers living in poverty and functions well as an area to focus this research. These women live under extreme versions of common circumstance for many American families. Because of this, the concepts from this project could lead to applications with a much more extensive use than the targeted research subjects. The goal of this project is to utilize the design thinking process to build a system to that helps the user develop new behaviors to work towards a healthier lifestyle. The object of the system is to enable these users to integrate daily exercise into their lives to work towards better physical and mental health. The lens utilized to craft the structure system is the concept of choice architecture to aid better-informed decision-making. Ultimately the research has revealed that a combination of technology as a trainer to build the structure needed for behavioral change, as well as community support, could be a highly effective combination for behavioral change. The growth of access to more and more powerful devices in addition to ever cheaper data connections have created a unique opportunity to engage people of all demographics through mobile technology efficiently. This same technology has proven itself to be a conduit for communication and social engagement.

The implementation of the concepts derived from this research combines a forward reaching use of computational techniques and mobile technology labeled the Mandala System©. User interaction with system tools takes place through a virtual guide named Circe. Additionally, Mandala incorporates a user based social network with tools to encourage user interactions both online and in person to help users expand their support communities.