Jane is a young adult in the early stages of her first relationship. She needs a benchmark for healthy relationships because it will help her identify abusive behaviors, engage in conversations, find resources, and challenge harmful social norms to improve her relationship.
Imagine this: You, at 18 years of age, getting into your first relationship. Isn’t it so exciting? The relationship becomes your whole world. There are fireworks. And there are sparks. An occasional insult or two doesn't bother you until the relationship gets abusive. This is the reality of 47% of young adults, out of which only 2% can get out of abusive relationships in the early stages. These are just the stats for India. However, the numbers are similar across Asia.
Problem Statement
Figma Jam
Google Docs
Skills & Tools
Callista Faustine
Sakshi Khilari
Sumedha Kulkarni
Tanvi Gawande
Group members
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1on0e8i_aXMLpn5LBpRoUizgTIUiUw41s1v40ldJX8V0/edit?usp=sharing
Links
Project: CHI Design brief
Goal 16: “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”
UX Research · Design · CHI Design
Domestic abuse is a pattern of repetitive behavior in which the abuser exerts power and control over the victim through various forms, including psychological, emotional, sexual, physical, and financial abuse.
Domestic Abuse can occur in relationships between any gender orientation, age, race, and economic status. Apart from this, abuse can be of many forms, and usually one or a combination of them takes place in an abusive relationship. The timeline of an abusive relationship is also complex. In most successful cases, an abusive relationship starts with getting into a relationship, identifying early signs of abuse, recognizing abuse, seeking help, and finally getting out of the relationship. The worst case scenario is when the victim fails to identify abuse, let alone try to get out of the relationship.
To further understand what goes on in an abusive relationship from the victim’s perspective, we interviewed a young girl from India who had a terrible romantic experience in her first relationship.
What is Domestic Abuse?
Through this interview, we came to understand just how challenging it can be for someone to recognize and navigate an abusive relationship. Early signs, like controlling behaviors or isolation, often go unnoticed because they’re easily mistaken for care or normal relationship struggles. What stood out to us was the importance of having supportive friends who can ask the right questions and offer a different perspective when things don’t feel right.
We also realized how deeply societal and cultural norms can influence someone’s decisions, sometimes making it harder to leave. We learned recovery isn’t a quick fix but a journey of rebuilding confidence, reconnecting with loved ones, and finding peace through self-care. This experience reminded us of the importance of creating solutions that provide practical support and feel understanding, empowering, and safe for anyone going through such a tough time.
The thought of altering someone’s perception of reality to such an extreme that they lose sight of what is acceptable and not in a relationship is scary. This is why we decided to focus on identifying early signs of abuse in a relationship and framing our design intervention around it.
Report on Interview
Early relationships present unique challenges as individuals navigate emotions they may not fully understand or know how to manage. This vulnerability can lead to unhealthy or abusive relationships, regardless of age. This research tries to identify factors that promote healthy relationships by studying young adults in their first relationships. It also seeks to inform early interventions that teach essential relationship skills, such as emotional regulation and conflict management, fostering healthier relationships throughout their lives.
Early Signs of Abuse
Young Adults
Our research identified that young adults aged 18–25 are at a critical stage in life. They’re still figuring out who they are and what they want from relationships. This age group faces unique challenges that make them particularly vulnerable to unhealthy relationship patterns.
1. Navigating First Relationships
Many experience their first serious relationships at this age without a clear idea of a healthy partnership. They’re still learning to balance individual needs with those of a partner.
2. Social Pressure and Lack of Benchmarks
Peer pressure to be in a relationship often pushes individuals into partnerships without understanding red flags. Many in this age group lack a benchmark for differentiating care from control, making them vulnerable to emotional abuse.
3. Influence of Social Media
Social media amplifies the pressure to portray a perfect life, which can lead young adults to hide their struggles in their relationships, allowing unhealthy dynamics to persist.
4. Barriers to Open Communication
Cultural norms, especially in South and Southeast Asia, make it hard for young adults to discuss dating with parents, who may see it as inappropriate at this stage. Fear of judgment also prevents them from opening up to peers.
5. A Crucial Opportunity for Awareness
This is a formative time to shape healthy relationship habits. Educating this group on the signs of abuse and fostering awareness can help break cycles of harmful behavior and empower them to build healthier relationships in the future.
Focusing on 18–—to 25-year-olds allows us to address these issues early on, equipping them with the knowledge they need to build healthier relationships for the future. This isn’t just about awareness; it’s about empowering an entire generation to recognize and reject abuse before it becomes a pattern.
Why the Southeast Asian region and culture?
Southeast Asian countries share similar cultural and societal norms regarding family, friendships, and romantic relationships. Traditional gender roles and the influence of community values significantly shape young adults' first experiences in relationships. While extensive research exists on relationships in Western contexts, there is a gap in studies that focus on Southern and Southeast Asia. These regions' unique cultural and social dynamics show the need for research to address these gaps.
Target Group
Our final solution is an exhibition leading users through various immersive and interactive experiences.
Creating awareness in youth about early abusive patterns in romantic relationships
Topic
The exhibition is welcome at any stage in a relationship but will be most helpful if made aware earlier. Raising awareness early on helps individuals identify unhealthy traits before they become attached, dependent, and ingrained, which is why we focus on early relationships. We are not defining the time period just because each relationship works differently, and how people define it early might be different from one another.
Early Relationships
We are targeting individuals who go to the exhibition with friends. Friends are a great source of support, especially for a very nuanced topic. We also encourage people to engage in the activity, talk, and reflect on what they think about each room to start a conversation about their relationship or their friend’s relationship. Friends are also a third perspective on your relationship, offering insights into whether your partner’s behavioral traits are healthy or unhealthy.
We also encouraged partners and families to come to the exhibition. It is open to the public. We focused on friend groups because if you go with your partner, there can be many reactions. It might lead to different extremes of defensiveness and confrontational or fostering better relationship dynamics.
Target Audience for the Exhibition
We are not helping individuals leave abusive relationships, but instead, we want to help individuals become aware of their abusive relationships or early signs of what an abusive relationship might look like. We are also not solving the trauma or PTSD of what victims go through since it is not within our scope.
What we are (not) trying to solve
This is an accessible, non-judgemental space for respite when a user feels triggered. Every room will have an exit door to this space. This place will be full of greenery and small ponds, open to the sky so that the user feels relaxed when they exit any triggering place. There will be seating dispersed throughout the space to give everyone their own space.
An immersive room where clips of local films are displayed. The clips show subtle emotional abuse that is normalized in Southeast Asian relationships. As people see films and subtle abusive insults in familiar culture, they can relate to these films in a new context, creating awareness.
The mirror transitions from pink to red, symbolizing the shift from romanticized relationships to abusive ones. As participants move through the back, the mirror becomes progressively foggier, illustrating the distortion of perspective and the gradual loss of self often experienced in abusive relationships.
Lastly, we designed a booth where visitors can vent their feelings by writing about an emotional burden or toxic behavior they have witnessed or experienced and shredding the paper in a paper shredding machine.
Visitors can also anonymously write advice or their thoughts on abuse for other visitors and put them in the box. The exhibition staff can then display those paper notes on the Display board.
Participants will enter the resources area, where they can collect a brochure for themselves or share it with others. The brochure will include key quotes about what abuse is, with contact information for domestic abuse hotlines. A QR code will be available so visitors can visit the website for easy access to information about safe shelters, NGOs, and counseling centers that help support those affected by abuse.
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