Surveys
Empathy Map
User interviews
Affinity Map
Problem Statement
Design Studio
System Map
Feature prioritisation
Wireframe/prototyping
Archetype
Competitor &
Comparator Analysis
Because X, they need Y
Usability Testing
Week 2
Week 1
Supporting Youths to Reach their Potential
The world is becoming an ever-more complex place to navigate and find our way as adults, so you can only imagine how much harder it is for young people starting out in the world! Reach is an organisation that supports, guides and helps young people reach their potential and develop the necessary skills to kick start their life through workshops and camps in schools and vulnerable communities around Australia.
As an ever-growing social impact company, they were looking for ways to change their current training system to train up staff efficiently so that they would be able to reach more young people
So popular but there’s not enough Reach!
Further conversation and understanding of the business through a business analysis revealed that Reach is experiencing a higher demand of their workshops since the easing of COVID. Ultimately, there’s just not enough of them to go around!
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As more experienced facilitators are the ones running these workshops, Reach found themselves facing a supply issue with a lack of skilled and trained staff in the facilitator group. They seemed to have an abundance of talent in their facilitators in training or less experienced facilitators, so why weren’t they progressing? What was holding them back to becoming more experienced facilitators?
Understanding the context through a business analysis showed that Destination NSW had two sister sites: Visit NSW and Sydney.com.
These sites were heavily focused on events and bringing bigger event types to Sydney.
Facilitator’s are the stars and its a process to get there.
It was hard to get a consistent understanding of the current training and the progression levels that staff currently went through as there did seem to be a lack of resources and information about the process. What we gathered from different stakeholders, it seemed like there are 4 general levels of crew progression:
Crew
Facilitator In Training (FITs)
Facilitators (FACs)
Experienced Facilitators (Exp FACs)
They run the workshops
It was also revealed that Reach is planning to transition from having 2 FIT/FACS running a workshop to having just one FAC going solo per workshop in order to meet the current demand. To gain more information about how the FIT/FACs felt regarding this change and to understand their current experience, we needed to hear directly from them.
- Business Analysis
- Competitive Analysis
Despite tight time constraints and some scheduling hiccups, we managed to grab hold of 6 facilitators and FITs to hear their thoughts on the current process and understand their experience. Our vision of their current training experience was clearer as we placed valuable information into an affinity map. The key insights revealed that less experiences FIT and FACs:
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Are very excited about conducting workshops but they still don’t feel comfortable enough because
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Their skill gaps cause them to feel under confident
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They feel like there’s a lack of ability to grow skills outside of training
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Feel a lack of consistent opportunities for them to grow their skills
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Road to becoming FAC is long and frustrating because accreditation process doesn’t feel transparent
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Progressing expectations are not clear enough
Lack of experienced but also confident facilitators
For travel, people crave places with different or out of comfort zone experiences or attraction.
​For living, people choose familiarity, often with surrounding friends or family.
All these issues showed that there were multiple touchpoints in their training that there seemed to be pain points.
To help the client visualise where these areas of improvement were located in their current experience, a service blueprint on the training process from being a FIT to FAC was created.
This also help us have a discussion with the client on areas of focus, what they were already trying to address (green) and hone in on a specific starting point regarding
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Lack of resources for self learning
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Lack of opportunities to run workshops
These allowed us to see the issues with the system, but we lacked clarity on the FAC and FITs motivations and attitudes. What was important to them? To understand and embody their thoughts, feelings and attitudes about the process on a deeper level we created an archetype from the insights collected in user interviews and chats.
The Skill Seeker wants to grow their skills to reach more people
Wants to work on skill gaps
The creation of the Skill Seeker was necessary to narrow down the scope of the project in order to provide a more tailored understanding and view of their challenges and would guide us to ideating more effective solutions.
Inspired by work of shaping lives
Key characteristics:
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Loves going out with friends and family
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Always trying to save for the future!
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Money Conscious
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Likes to feel like they add value to the community
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Values convenience and efficency
Love the face to face connection and holding workshops
Strong desire to keep improving skills
Understanding the Skill Seeker
The Skill Seeker wants to develop more skills to reach more youths in the community.
But when there’s a lack of resources to support their training and unclear steps on how to work on their feedback, they find it hard to develop their skill gaps adequately.
As a result, the apprehensive achiever feels nervous, underconfident and uninspired and this causes them to consider leaving Reach.
Enjoys variety in training to gain more exposure
They need accessible, understandable feedback and opportunities for growth
The challenges identified in the journey map showed us their thoughts but more importantly, the needs and goals of our Skill Seeker. Using the “because X, they need Y” technique, revealed what their ideal experience would look like for each area of concern.
Because they want...
They need...
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
Find it hard to find FAC with time for feedback
Need consistent practice to bridge skill gaps
Find there aren’t enough accessible resources
Find it hard to act on feedback
Want support for transition into solo workshops
Quick and easy access to FACs to receive performance reviews
More consistent opportunities to practice skills
Accessible, engaging content and resources
Feedback that can be quickly translated into actionable steps
Support to build confidence and skills that help them feel comfortable
With the Skill Seeker's needs clarified, we performed a design studio with the team to discuss and start ideating recommendations that could meet the 5 identified needs of the Skill Seeker. Taking the strongest concepts after each sketching session, we narrowed down our recommendations that would meet their needs.
Exploring this also showed us that the solution would most likely be a mobile solution as our budget socialite values convenience and would need to access these features on the go!
Online Calendar
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
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FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
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Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Solutions
Using online calendar and waitlist to increase access to experienced FACs for feedback or PRs!
Too many at once. We need a starting point!
There are alot of concept recommendations presented but what Reach really needed is a starting point
A prioritisation matrix was key to helping us focus on solutions that Reach would be able to implement at low effort and cost but still have a high impact to FACs..
From the first quadrant, we narrowed down the top 3 actionable recommendations that Reach could begin improvements on:
Once they have accumulated 6 or 12 stamps, the user will earn freebies or vouchers to encourage further spending. This will help Destination NSW promote Sydney and encourage resident engagement!
To focus further on budget-friendly options, we also incorporated a Promotions and Special deals section to specifically cater for our user needs.
Once they have accumulated 6 or 12 stamps, the user will earn freebies or vouchers to encourage further spending. This will help Destination NSW promote Sydney and encourage resident engagement!
Help REACH, reach their potential
By hearing from Reach’s FIT and FACs, we identified main areas of improvement in their processes. And with their thoughts, feelings and challenges guiding us, our concept solutions really aimed to:
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Locals feel connected to the community by contributing a sense of value.
2
People found meaning in building or adding value/impact to the community in some way.
It’s a team effort and maintaining open communication is key
Discussing these recommendations with internal teams, the rest of L&D and other facts FACS is key to moving forward:
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Mainly as our prioritisations are based on our understanding of Reach and their processes and may change based on further discussion with their teams.
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Required to also understand the scope of these concept solutions and the logistic capability and feasibility
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Understand whether further revisions and research is needed to find better solutions.
Maintaining open communication and dialogue with FACs to stay sensitive to their needs is the answer to finding more opportunities that would be mutually beneficial!
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Reflections and Key Takeaways
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You always learn something new from everyone, even your client! Emeli taught me so much about the importance of bringing passion and energy, not just in presentations, but also in regular meetings to really boost the project morale!
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Embrace change and be flexible because things won't always go as planned and that's ok! Just make sure you communicate clearly with your client and team so that everyone is on the same page.
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The full experience of being in the design squiggle can be extremely daunting, but have faith that it'll unravel if you follow the research threads from listening to your user thoughts and client goals!
"We had an idea of these problems but we weren't sure what exactly they were or how to tackle them. The way you presented the findings and solutions through your design artefacts really gave us so much more clarity on the situation and what we need to do next"
Telaine Cowdrey
Head of Learning and Development, Reach Foundation
Design Process Summary
Reach is an organisation that supports, guides and helps young people reach their potential and develop the necessary skills to kick start their life through workshops and camps conducted around Australia. Needing to upscale their operations to reach more vulnerable communities, they needed us to help them find areas of improvement in their current training system for their facilitators.
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Competitive & Comparative Analysis
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User Interviews
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Surveys
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Empathy Map
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Affinity Map
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Archetype
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Problem Statement
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Because X, they need Y
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System Map
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Design Studio
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Feature Prioritisation
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Usability Testing
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Wireframing
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Prototyping
Methods Used
Design Tools
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Figma
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Mural / Miro
Team
Jessie Deng
Joshua Zhang
Natalia Rodrigues
Duration
3 weeks
Project Type
Team Client Project
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3
4
2
Providing consistent opportunities, resources and support!
Using multiple design studio sessions, we narrowed down recommendations into 3 categories that would aim to provide:
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More consistent opportunities
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Accessible resources
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More supportive system for FIT and FACs
Keeping the business needs in mind, we used a prioritisation matrix to prioritise recommendations based on the highest impact and lowest risk/cost to show Reach the best way to start implementing changes.
Our solutions are the start of change
Our solutions and recommendations helped Reach Overall, the client was extremely excited by our recommendations and found clarity in the way we had prioritised implementation. Our findings and recommendations moved Reach to open up further discussions with internal teams to consider logistics to implement improvements and use recommended strategies to support to their facilitators.
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Key Takeaways
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You always learn something new from everyone, even your client!
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Embrace change and be flexible because things won't always go as planned, however, ensure that it is communicated clearly with all parties to reach alignment.
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The full experience of being in the design squiggle can be extremely daunting, but have faith that it'll unravel by patiently following the research threads from user thoughts and client goals!
Service blueprint and journey mapping reveals frustrations regarding skill gaps and lack of support
Gleaning key insights from our interviews and research allowed us to view the process from a high point using service blueprints and journey maps to identify areas of improvement. This also helped the client to walk the staff journey and understand the problems that contributed to the bottleneck of talent.
It revealed that facilitators in training (FITs) and less experienced FACs felt frustrated by the inconsistent opportunities to practice skills, lack of accessible resources and general nervousness and discomfort of transitioning into a new workshop structure due to skill gaps. The root of these issues are all linked to their need to bridge skill gaps and develop skills which allowed us to create the Skill Seeker archetype and tailor improvements to their needs.
Navigating the training confusion fog
Chatting with our client and researching the company showed that they were in high demand but there’s not enough of them to go around. It gave us context as to why they needed to scale - but why target the training process?
Hearing from stakeholders and consultants gave many different perspectives of how staff progressed within Reach which caused confusion about what the current process entailed.
However, we found clarity after synthesizing data gathered from user interviews with staff and Facilitators (FACs) about their experiences.
This helped us piece together a complete picture of the pain points in the process which all pointed to a bottle neck occurring in the progression from Facilitator in training (FIT) to FAC.
Like what you read?
Stay tuned for the Full Case Study (coming soon)
New changes, new goals.
Chatting with the client showed that Reach was undergoing some internal recent changes that are pushing their social impact goals to newer heights.
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Their business goal:
Deliver 1000 workshops to
by 2023
50, 000
young people
Creating the Skill Seeker’s current journey map allowed us to further walk the current training process in more depth and communicate this on a personal level with the client.
This further revealed and confirmed that the main challenges identified in their journey all referred to their need to grow their skills.
My Work: Client Project
Reach Your Potential
Online Calendar
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Online Calendar
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
More actionable, concrete feedback for improving skills
Providing consistent opportunities through regular skill development plans and a workshop sign-up roster
Regular Skill Development Plan
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
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FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.
Workshop roster
Need: Improve access to feedback and ability to schedule longer time slots.
How it Works:
-
FACs can show their availabilities in a calendar format and other FITs or FACs are able to book in time slots with them easily.
-
Haing a set amount of time for feedback session (eg. 30mins) so expectations are clear from both parties.