🛠️ Embracing the scrappiness
The past few weeks have been full of scrappy and exciting decisions as we near the tail-end of our project. We worked hard to prepare for meeting with the Teacher’s Academy fellows for the first time while simultaneously building two prototypes to test! Let’s dig into our time with the FAME Fellows and explore our process’s " scrappiness. "
Making this sprint our own
Building off of our learnings from Sprints 1 and 2, and to honor the complexity of our problem space, we decided to take a different approach to Sprint 3 by splitting it into two segmented parts. This decision resulted from our team starting to hone in on multiple strands of prototyping and development. This involves designing at the levels of our particular “product” — the digital interface that presents a school’s DEI policy — and the “service,” aka our client FAME, that it would be a part of.
To tackle our workload, our Sprint 3.1 (the first half of Sprint 3) focused on creating a scrappy paper prototype from our previous sprint (read more here), with direct influences from our learnings like the inclusion of comments. In comparison, our Sprint 3.2 saw us revisit the creation of a digital interface as we attempted to create a design that would be a tool for both educators and administrators. Nestled in between both, which played a direct part in our “split,” was a 3-day trip to the Kiski School to attend the Teacher’s Academy’s Orientation Week. Throughout this visit, we met the Fellows, rapidly built and tested a prototype with them, shadowed them throughout events and conversations, and found time to strategize and analyze our work.
“It [our multi-stream workload] feels like a good place to be in for our second-to-last sprint of the summer. I’ve been thinking a lot about how we need to convey our vision for FAME in tandem with our specific solution, and having both these work streams is comforting. Thinking ahead will really help us cover our bases.” — Martina Tan
Meet the Fellows!
The start of Sprint 3 seemed to come and go in a blink of an eye! Our team had been preparing for a 3-day trip to the Kiski School to meet and work alongside FAME’s Fellows, and it was worth the wait. While this visit was the first time three of our team members met the Fellows, two of our teammates (Leanne and Martina) had already met them after volunteering for FAME’s 5K. The warm introductions they had with the Fellows carried over into our trip as we all found ourselves instantly connecting with the aspiring educators.
Establishing connections and building relationships with our clients is an aspect of our project that our team values dearly, especially considering the sensitive nature of our project. Once we arrived in Saltsburg, PA, a quiet town where the Kiski School is located, our team set out to continue this practice by introducing ourselves and simply conversing with the Fellows. While getting to know each other over the three days, we were struck by the dedication of the Fellows, as many of them were participating in the Teacher’s Academy while also balancing classes and jobs throughout the summer. While young, especially in their careers, their aspiration and evident love for teaching has motivated us to ensure they can grow in meaningful ways through the Teachers’ Academy.
From screen to paper
The most significant advantage we had for our Sprint 3.1 prototype was twofold: Leanne had experience leading our team through Sprint 2, and we had momentum as a team! Our previous sprint elicited valuable insights and feedback, and that was reflected in our iteration. Due to time constraints and to focus on producing feedback on the concept rather than the visual presentation of the design, we set out to create a paper prototype to elicit more interactivity without digital constraints.
While we had some significant advantages, time was not on our side! After meeting the Fellows earlier on in the day, we set out to create the paper prototype that same night. In a few hours, we found ourselves splitting our workload into two flows: one team worked on constructing the paper prototype while another team worked on developing the protocol for testing. Aside from the time constraints, we had to constantly communicate to ensure we were all on the same page as our deadline quickly approached, which is easier said than done after a long day!
Our prototype consisted of the same visual model of stakeholders from our previous sprint but was centered around testing our primary hypothesis:
If an inexperienced educator sees how an experienced educator has critiqued a visual model of a DEI policy, then the inexperienced educator will critique the DEI policy more.
With our hypothesis in mind, we created two distinct variations of our prototype: one that consisted of the DEI policy without any comments and one that showcased the policy with comments included. This allowed us to work alongside the Fellows by presenting them with both prototypes to see if there was any difference in their interaction with the prototype.
Regardless of the time constraints and the pressure to create several pieces for the prototype, there were moments of laughter and joy as our team worked side by side to prepare for our first round of testing with the Fellows. From performing bodystorming skits to explain the prototype to the protocol team to realizing our hard work had paid off, we felt prepared to work alongside the Fellows.
“This building day was super fun, in my opinion. As the Product Design and Prototyping Lead, I felt that I was able to spearhead the prototyping process, and it was amazing what we accomplished in one night. Half of us were dedicated on building the protocol, and Marlon and I were on the prototype.” — Leanne Liu
Testing with aspiring educators
We were ready to start our testing with our newly built paper prototype! There was excitement around the team to get our proposed solution in front of our target user group: aspiring educators. Due to our prototype's fidelity, our participants could focus primarily on the content displayed. This was our first time performing Wizard of Oz in real-time with participants, which was brilliant! While one team member conducted the test, our participants moved their pieces around the board to explore the DEI policy, and another team member, the “wizard,” would change the content displayed at any time. In doing so, we could replicate the interaction our participants would have with a digital interface while lessening feedback concerning the visual design of the solution.
As we conducted our testing, there were memorable moments as our participants became increasingly more vocal about their feedback. From critiquing or agreeing with the DEI policy, verbalizing and writing their thoughts on comments left by veteran educators, and expressing a desire for more interaction, we could walk away with a solid understanding that we were on the right path.
“After we decided to split our sprint in half, I remembered back to the first week of the summer when we had our first one week/5 day sprint. Comparing this past week to that first sprint, It’s great to see that our team has gotten much more confident at making informed but speedy design decisions. In the first half of sprint 3, we got down to testing much faster and it felt like we trusted ourselves a lot more.” — Alana Mittleman
Being flies on the wall
Shadowing the Fellows in their programming and orientation was a context-building activity for our team. We wanted to know what they would be going through in the Teachers’ Academy. We saw that the Teachers’ Academy is highly focused on professional and career development. For example, the Fellows had the opportunity to have direct conversations with the director of the hiring process at The Kiski School. This time appeared to be valuable for the Fellows because they were able to understand how they can prepare for the hiring process if they decide that they’d like to work there in the future. And from the director of the hiring process’s side, he saw the Fellows as candidates if they decide to apply. In this way, the Teachers’ Academy at FAME helps create opportunities for early Black educators to get their foot in the door for teaching opportunities.
Taking a giant leap forward (Analysis and Learnings)
One of our main takeaways was that all the Fellows desired to engage with the comments, either to agree/support, comment themselves, or directly respond to comments they disagreed with. It was a validating experience for our team to see our prototype being used as a tool for initiating conversations between veteran educators and early educators.
As for specific learnings, there were some surprising findings we noticed that directly validated our hypothesis:
- All participants read through comments when presented in the interface.
- All participants wanted to engage with the comments by supporting (agreeing), conversing (when disagreeing), or adding their own comments.
- All participants attempted to navigate the interface in a way they would navigate DEI policy themselves. This is different from what we intended users to interact with the interface when we designed it.
