Building on the findings of over 20 first-person interviews with VA staff and discharged veterans, the group surfaced three principal insights: The first is that there is an opportunity to facilitate better communication between veterans—veteran-to-veteran. The team learned that information around the transition to civilian life, and around the available veteran services “is perceived better when it comes straight from a veteran,” the team argued. “Veteran-to-veteran creates a much stronger bond, and the ‘young veteran’ is more likely to pay attention and communicate interest when the information comes directly from the source.”

As part of SVA Products of Design’s partnership with Veterans Affairs (and held through the Design Research and Integration class taught by IDEO’s Lawrence Abrahamson) , designers Jiani Lin, Alexia Cohen, Teng Yu, William Crum, and Antriksh Nangia used design to examine gender and the military—creating two design proposals aimed at changing the way people “see” women veterans.