User-Centered UX Discovery for Flood Resilience Knowledge Platforms: Practical Action Flood Solutions Catalogue
This resource documents a user experience (UX) discovery process undertaken by Practical Action and Aptivate to design the Flood Solutions Catalogue, a knowledge-sharing platform developed under the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance. The initiative aimed to improve how flood-affected communities, practitioners, and governments access and share practical solutions for flood preparedness and risk management.
Using a participatory, user-centered design approach, the project engaged diverse stakeholders—including community members from flood-prone areas in Peru, local authorities, and international partners—through interviews, workshops, and co-design activities. These sessions generated personas, user journeys, and prioritized user needs, ensuring that the platform reflects real-world challenges and knowledge gaps.
A core component of the process was empowering participants to actively shape the system. Interactive exercises—such as designing an ideal solution with a hypothetical budget—helped translate local experience into actionable design priorities and fostered ownership among users.
The project also highlights the importance of bridging gaps between communities and institutions, particularly addressing challenges in communication, trust, and knowledge flow. The resulting insights informed not only the design of the Flood Solutions Catalogue, but also broader recommendations for facilitating collaboration, strengthening community voices, and improving the accessibility of resilience knowledge.