Community driven ideation toolkits for students. (End to End)
Problem: How could we foster creativity in young students?
Task: Develop a digital solution using the whole UX process.
Proposal: A community driven toolkit with three initial key tools to be utilized to share ideas, gain fresh perspectives and experiment with ideation without fear of judgement.
No idea is wrong, anything is possible.
Its members will form a network of the best creative thinkers to be harnessed by potential employees.
Tangl: UX Research – Generative & Evaluative Generative & Evaluative
When planning our project we decided to combine Lean Start-Up methodology for user research & rapid experimentation to launch a new product, and Agile works for further product development.
With a Lean UX approach we were able to test and validate hypothesis quickly with users with minimal waste. Once we have an MVP, we’re able to adapt an Agile approach with a SCRUM framework to develop the product again with minimal waste.
Developing the User Persona: Inspiration Hunter
We began by narrowing down our target user to University students and creating an initial user persona based on our assumptions. As we interviewed users we continually refined our user persona.
The main personality trait of our User Persona was the ‘Inspiration Hunter’. Someone who can be low on confidence during creative projects and often abandons projects when struck by a creative block.
13 User Interviews & Contextual Enquiry We found users for research by advertising around universities and student hang-outs. We conducted 13 initial interviews once we had filtered the type of user we were looking for. We structured interviews around what creativity meant to them, and the users emotional responses during their creative working process, to find out pain-points and where their gains are. We also held contextual enquiries with users whilst they carried out creative tasks to observe their thought processes.
Data Analysis (Converge)
We reached saturation after 6 interviews, with users continually giving us the same responses. Whilst analyzing the data the strongest themes we found by talking to users were:
1. Control over their creative process.
2. The need for a fresh environment for support, networking and different perspectives. Human connections.
3. How mental well-being plays a crucial role in creativity.
With this information, we found that no. 2 was the most important topic, with the other 2 themes feeding into it.
6 Further Interviews & Survey
Extreme no user
Mainstream
Extreme expert / Early adopter
Once we had our main topic of investigation, we set about conducting 6 further informal interviews with the users to find out more about this fresh environment they sought after.
We talked to users who never used any type of creative communal environment, those who had, and those who were very used to working this way. This was useful to gain empathy with all types of potential users and learn as much as possible about their needs.
Framing the problem How might we engage inspiration hunters to share different perspectives, and harness their infinite source of inspiration?
Once we had analysed the data obtained from our second round of interviews, we set about framing the problem as a ‘how might we’ question (as seen below)
We ideated this question by playing quick fire 1 minute rounds of ideation. We asked ourselves what it would take for someone to be engaged in sharing their perspective and resources, as well as hunting new ones.
Ideation Techniques
Once we had analysed the data obtained from our second round of interviews, we set about framing the problem as a ‘how might we’ question (as seen below)
We ideated this question by playing quick fire 1 minute rounds of ideation. We asked ourselves what it would take for someone to be engaged in sharing their perspective and resources, as well as hunting new ones.
Forming an Hypothesis
If students do not have an experimental creative community to call upon for support without an ego based framework, they ultimately get lost during their creative process and will then abandon projects due to lack of enthusiasm and motivation caused by a creative block.
By providing students with a safe space to experiment with ideas and gain fresh perspectives, we will give them access to an existing rich un-matched source of inspiration to overcome their creative block.
Framing the problem How might we engage inspiration hunters to share different perspectives, and harness their infinite source of inspiration to break eachother out of creative blocks?
Business Viability & Benchmarking
We went about seeking existing platforms catering for creative inspiration and community support. This was to research the business viability and benchmark a host of platforms which were most popular with our target user. We could also identify gaps in the market and how we could place our product in its strongest market position.
Converge
User Stories, Wireframing, Prototyping & Usability Testing
With a prototype mindset, we decided to create the community users desired, and supply them with a toolkit to have fun inspiring each other using our feature ideas from ideation. This was the base for our MVP. We wrote user stories to build from, began user journey mapping and prototyping our ideas through wireframes to test with users and experts to learn how we could improve usability and value as early as possible.
7 Expert Interviews & User Testing
We got in contact with experienced experts from the creative communities such as IDEO and held interviews to learn from them and test our ideas. We soon realised the main factor at play was creating a magical environment different to the world the users are normally used to, utilizing language and the UX Writing to set the tone of the community to motivate and retain users. We reached saturation talking to experts with the most important points which drove a successful creative community being:
1. Playful, fun, social environment 2. Shared goal and understanding 3. Safe space to experiment
Data Analytics: Opportunity Solution Tree & Continuous Discovery
We continued to develop our product and features with experts and user testing until we had a firm MVP. This is where we adopted the OST method to enable continuous learning, and identifying new business opportunities and experimenting based on quantitative data. Now we were able to work more with an Agile approach and the Scrum framework to continue developing the product.
Tangl: Value Proposition & MVP
For students that hunt for inspiration and need non-judgemental support, and who need to overcome their creative block fast. Our community driven toolkit connects different perspectives from every corner of the world. Unlike judgemental communities, we offer a playful safe space leading you to places you’ve never imagined, where anything is possible.
Features
Eureka!
Inspiration Boards
An infinite source of shared creative references with visual aids, compiled and Favorited by the community for future use.
Randomized Video Chat
Community Code / Check-list
Through our expert interviews we found out that adding a code to abide by helping to set the tone of the community and give people an idea of what to expect. This appears as a checklist step before sign up.
Business We have created a unique value by providing students with an environment which does not currently exist exclusively for them.
We have gamified ideation techniques to engage both the student looking to gain inspiration and the student looking to brain-train and warm up their creative muscles.
The application will be free for users, subsidized by universities and employment media channels. This will establish a global network of diverse creative minds to be utilized by the professional world opening new doors of opportunity
Storytelling To tell the story of our new magical world where anything is possible, we drew inspiration from images that visualize the emotions we wanted to trigger in our users whilst using the product.
It is vital to understand that the use of the product is placed at the ideation phase of the creative process, where users need to be encouraged to experiment and embrace ambiguity.
We needed to combine the visual power of a design system with powerful UX Writing to create the new world users are stepping into.
UX Writing
The language used throughout the user journey is informal, playful and fun. It actively encourages users to get messy with ideas like throwing paint around a room without fear of being wrong.
We wrote a community code which is introduced at the start of their journey, and issued in reminders when using features, which sets the tone for how they interact with others in the community since they themselves are the protagonists in this space. We just supply the space and the tools.
Measuring User Outcomes In our strategy it was outlined that we would be testing our ideas with users and experts through rapid prototyping as soon as possible. This was in order to not only validate the idea, but learn how to make it better. We have been testing the MVP with groups of users which has come back with overwhelmingly positive feedback. We are currently conducting a quantitative study to gather large volumes of responses to validate our current numbers.
Future Business We are currently talking with University course leaders about subscription interest, with 4 in 5 requesting trial period with students.
We are exploring professional networking channels who may be interested in implementing Tangl identification badges to identify users.
