TEAM SPARK: Fourth Sprint

Designing Across Cultures at Digital Society School

Our Team

We are a group of multidisciplinary professionals working on a cross-cultural design project that attempts to build trust and reliability through data.

• Kelsey Trites: has a background in Organizational Culture and Management.
• Mercy C. Chumo: has a background in Agriculture, Sustainability and Management.
• Shreya Gupta: has a background in Computer Science Engineering and Digital Game and User Experience Design.
• Prasam Pal: has a background in Mechanical Engineering, and Industrial & Product Design.
• Coach: Anneke van Woerden with #spark_legends
• Program Manager: Nick Verouden

Rest prevents us from giving up

Before starting the last leg of the project, the whole team took a week of vacation time to rest and explore our new home, the Netherlands. We returned to the Digital Society School Clubhouse with the renewed energy necessary to tackle our greatest creative challenge yet, designing our prototype.

But, how to do it? There is nothing like a sprint planning session to efficiently decide on team goals and expectations. We decided to continue with our previous sprint goal to create consistency as we expected to transition mid-sprint from our solution development into testing.

How might we build potential buyer confidence in Dutch Spark’s carbon reduction projects by creating a learning tool that visualizes the impact they are purchasing?

In our previous sprint, we worked with this goal to develop a framework for our solution. In this framework, we outlined what our tool can do and where it can live. To conclude the development stage we needed to translate those insights into material objects. We would do this by each drawing up one idea to share.

Show, don’t tell!

The team got down to business, each of us coming up with ideas that we could draw or design using simple software. This is called wireframing in design and is an excellent way to get across ideas by showing instead of telling.

Each idea attempted to combine qualitative and quantitative data from one particular clean cooking project. It was surprising to see such different ideas sprout from the same data, demonstrating the creative potential of a diverse team. We brought in a professional to help us narrow our visions into concise options that we could test with users.

Return of the Maaike

The team invited one of our favourite Data Storytellers, Maaike Van Cruchten to join us for our translate session. The aim of this session is to receive guidance from a data professional by sharing our wireframes and general insights from the previous sprint. Maaike liked our combined use of visuals, text and infographics to tell the story of clean cooking. She also provided us with many tips and tricks to better format our data to create emotional engagement with our users. We were also advised on ways to conduct our testing with potential users to generate valuable feedback.

It became clear after our meeting that two of the ideas would work best as potential tools for visualizing impact. The wireframes were transitioned into Figma, a collaborative design software, and the team began adding Maaike’s feedback into the designs.

‘Framing’ the impact of clean cooking

In the first wireframe, we focused on telling the scrollable story of one clean cooking project using high-quality visuals, simplified graphs and text. Navigating through a map, potential users of the tool can find Dutch Spark projects. The data visualized is heavily focused on the impact of clean cooking on the Sustainable Development Goals and highlights community involvement.

The second wireframe visualizes the same project more graphically, condensing data into infographics with integrated visuals and minimal text. In this design, the potential user engages with a filtering option that provides them with a personalized experience. The scrollable website explains the project lifecycle and introduces features of high-quality offset projects.

The two wireframes were imagined to be part of the Dutch Spark website or a related online hub where potential carbon credit buyers can learn more about what makes clean cooking trustworthy.

Testing time

The team was very excited to finally get the opportunity to show our ideas to potential buyers. The process of usability testing is vital as it gives direct input on how real people interact with your product.

Our team employed a simplified testing method, asking participants to identify elements on each wireframe that they noticed, were uncertain of, encouraged decision making, and wanted to know more about. After viewing both wireframes, participants were asked to make a comparison by identifying characteristics that helped them as potential carbon credit buyers.

Our sample group included people responsible for making decisions about sustainability investments. Most knew about carbon offsetting, some had even made offsets in the past. This range of participants helped us to gain varied feedback about the wireframes.

The testing provided invaluable insights into the mind of a carbon credit buyer. There were three overarching themes represented by all the users:

• Buyers want to know how the project was implemented and what happened during the lifecycle, including plans for the future.
• Buyers want to see how they (or their organization) create an impact in the form of carbon reduction and/or improving community livelihoods.
• Buyers want compelling visuals and simplified infographics.

It became clear that to deliver a usable tool, we needed to combine our two wireframes.

One prototype to rule them all

In preparation for our final sprint review, we aimed to create a clickable model of our tool, or prototype. To do this, we started with a new wireframe that combined scrollable storytelling and a filtering function that allowed users to input individual or organizational carbon offset details.

These elements were intentionally chosen for their ability to engage and immerse users. Furthermore, we chose to directly connect the impact generated to the filter function to highlight the necessity of the buyer’s offset. Through telling a transparent story with data, we grew buyer confidence and trust in Dutch Spark’s clean cooking projects.

Starting a conversation

As we near the end of the program, the team reflected on if we solved the original design challenge. The truth is, we can not. Our solution is not the only solution but is intended to continue a conversation about the reliability of carbon offsetting in clean cooking.

These types of problems have been deemed ‘wicked’ by design thinking practitioners. They are not easy to solve and require diverse teams, creativity, experimentation, and acceptance of failure.

We look forward to starting a conversation with our tool this upcoming Showcase in hopes of discovering novel ideas.

I hope you are enjoying this Digital Transformation ride with us; please comment if you want to share something with us or know more about us, our project and partners or Digital Society School