nycpublic.org innovation workshop

Design + Hackathon Workshop

05.31.2013 – 06.02.2013

NYCpublic.org

NYCpublic Design + Hackathon 05.31.2013 – 06.02.2013 2

NYCpublic.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering New York City’s public school parents as they work to build expertise, share knowledge, and influence policy. They aim to help parents to

1: Learn about various education contexts

2: Connect with parents with similar interests

3: Collaborate to ideate tangible solution

4: Take Action to influence positive change


NYCpublic.org and few design strategists collaborated to design the three days in-tense workshop to enable parents, designer and engineers to create a tangible solution to support parents to accomplish their goal to effect changes in education context.


PLANNINGDesigning workshop

Workshop PlannerThe goal of the workshop design is bring common language for all participants to collaborate to design the solution. It is a democratization of design process so that even non designer can actively participate in design process.

This crowdsourcing / co-creation process enable to generate great solution that is never been thought out by staff of NYCpublic.

Strategic designers aimed to design each activity as clear as possible without requiring lengthly explanation.



Framework and WorksheetsWell designed frameworks enable participants to generate idea in disciplined manner. It is a method to visualize their tacit knowledge and idea in organized manner.

Worksheets are designed to allow participants to jump into activities to create outcomes that design strategist envisioned for each stage.


Ideation Matrix Worksheet Poster Innovation Tactics Keywords Features Idea

Desirable Outcomes


Digital Technology Keywords for inspiration


FOR ISSSUE

SOLUTION SHOULD(achieve this outcome)

NAME OF YOUR IDEA

SHORT DESCRIPTION

SKETCH

Worksheet for creating scenario / sketch based on features

Worksheet for creating Desirable Outcomes


1st Day

WORKSHOP


We started with sharing stories.Public school parents told us about trying to make change.

Other parents and designers listened closely, using Post-Its to capture the rewards and challenges the storytelling parents experienced.


Then, we find common themesWe reorganized bunch of Post-Its notes on the wall and created several categories. We then gave a title for each clusters to see what are the themes that we captured from parents stories.

and generated our desired outcomesBased on the wall, we imagined what we want to achieve as outcomes. Those are not solutions but rather end result from solutions that we would design.

We synthesize all of the outcomes and distilled down to six most important desired outcomes.


We came up with features & scenarios. These giant matrix worksheet posters helped us brainstorm features for digital tools (app and website) that might achieve the desired outcomes.


Creating ScenariosBased on many features we came up with, we created scenarios that describe a parent interacting with some features.


We sketched digital toolsScenario helped to envision what type of digital tools can be created. Teams worked on turning scenario into digital tools.


2nd Day

WORKSHOP


We started to build prototypesHackers (web developers and coders) joined us. We decided what to keep working on. They began coding.


Wireframes for one of the concept “Kickstarter for Parents”


3rd Day

WORKSHOP


We have the beginnings of a site that will be a real resource for public school parents.Participants have developed two very strong concepts that would worth spending next 6 months to a year to fully test out.

These concepts are the outcomes of collaboration between parents, designers and engineers and it would be nearly impossible to generate same quality ideas by the staff of NYCpublic.org.

Two co-founders are extremely happy about the outcomes and they now have clear idea about possible digital tools that they can build for parents.


Working prototype for one of the concept “Kickstarter for Parents”


# of folks who cared enough to register 74# of actual participants 31# of parents who shared their stories, challenges, and victories 4# of hours donated to NYCpublic.org roughly 400# of hours strategic designers spent planning this event 40# of meetings mentor ux designers and hackers indulged us in 8# of post-its used 100s# incredible ideas 100s# of super yummy savory pies donated by 4 & 20 Blackbirds devoured 35# of charrette activities completed 9# of designers 10# of hackers 7# of hacker/designers 2# of parent/hackers/designers 3# of current or former teachers or teaching artists 6# of super helpful participants form the census bureau 1# of current or former Community Education Council members 2# of people who said “I can’t make it, but I would like to hear about opportunities to support NYCpublic.org with design or coding as you move forward.” 13Contribution of the folks at the Shelby White and Leon Levy Info Commons Priceless


Thank you