Transitioning to bigger picture phase
As we start to count down the remaining days of the semester, Team Boulder Crest continues to work hard at the lab, rain or shine (we get a lot of both this time of year in Pittsburgh). Per our summer semester planning, we’ve spent the last week wrapping up the “quick wins” phase. After redesigning myPATHH’s dashboard and assignment sections, we have transitioned to bigger-picture service design solutions starting this week. We are a bit nervous as we start this new phase but are excited to embrace new challenges. Here are some highlights from our busy last week:
User testing
Last week we were fortunate to reconnect with several Boulder Crest staff members who we briefly met and interviewed during our onsite visit. We set up user-testing sessions with them, which were hybrids of think-alouds and design walk-throughs. During these sessions we received feedback on our redesigns of the “assignments” section of myPATHH and the “dashboard” . These participants were especially valuable to speak with, as they wear multiple hats at Boulder Crest. They are coaches for some teams, giving them an understanding of how students currently use myPATHH. They have also worked closely with people who developed the Warrior PATHH curriculum, so they know how the myPATHH features should be working. Finally, many of them use myPATHH as well, and therefore know the strengths and weaknesses of the current state. These testing sessions provided us with a new perspective on our designs, and we were eager to incorporate this feedback into the final iteration.
Wrapping up the “quick wins”
As we are reaching the end of two fast-paced sprints focusing on “quick wins” (the redesigning sections of the myPATHH interface), we will document our design for future implementation. In the upcoming weeks we will prepare our work for a hand-off to the Shoulder 2 Shoulder development team. Simultaneously, we will put together a backlog of our recommendations for features and tweaks to myPATHH in the future. This will take the form of a road map to serve as a guide and reference for Boulder Crest and Shoulder 2 Shoulder moving forward.
But our exploration of myPATHH does not end here. As we move our focus toward the bigger-picture systemic changes, myPATHH will retain an important role in our service design ideation and planning. We see the site as a smaller gear that is connected to a larger machine, and will inevitably have a part to play in any systemic changes we suggest.
Our Team-Defined Final Deliverable
During the past week we also decided on the general form of our team-defined final deliverable for the project — a report for Boulder Crest that includes documentation of our design process and a roadmap that details our design proposals for both quick wins and larger service design opportunities. This report will condense our work throughout the 8-month process, and will provide inspiration and guidance for Boulder Crest as the organization scales.
Planning for the next two sprints
In the next two sprints, we will be concentrating our efforts on a few goals in parallel:
1. Ideating service design solutions to explore in the coming phase.
2. Finishing up the deliverables for the “quick win” myPATHH features.
3. Starting on the final deliverables.
We have made ambitious plans to accomplish these goals (divide and conquer is key!) and are excited for what’s to come. Did I mention we will also be traveling to Boulder Crest’s other retreat location — Arizona — in two weeks? Packing all of the sunscreen we own! And maybe some scorpion repellent…
Stay tuned for the next steps in our journey :)
