Ample Labs:
Pathway to Partnership
Define
Problem Statement
Ample Labs, as an emerging social innovation startup, is highly reliant on partnerships and sponsors to meet the organization's mission to empower individuals facing homelessness by creating accessible platforms using innovative technologies.
Using value-centred design approach, my team addressed this challenge: How might we improve Ample Labs' partnership process with current and potential partners?
Research
Review Existing Resources
When reviewing existing sources, I gathered as many existing sources of information that is relevant to the organization. Some examples include their website, social media channels, organization's slack, and onboarding materials, personas, research studies, and reports.
Gathering currently existing reports and surveys as the starting point can help generate the right hypothesis and ask the right questions for the following steps. I extracted relevant factual observations from the existing sources, consolidating and summarizing them in group findings is a necessary action.
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Internal Interviews
After the preliminary information gathering, we interviewed Internally to understand the organization’s side of value creation. We interviewed two leads who are in close contact with the target group. We probed them about their knowledge about the target group and identified gaps in knowledge about user behaviours.
Click the image to enlarge the business model canvas
Click the image to enlarge the value proposition canvas
External Interviews
We interviewed 7 of the Ample Labs' current social and tech partners as introduced by the organization liaison. The external interviews aimed to answer the following questions:
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Who are the different stakeholders that visit Ample Labs website?
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What kind of information are they looking for / trying to access?
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An audit of what that journey could potentially look like?
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Where are the gaps?
Two major user types were identified through our external interviews:
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Tech Community
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Social Service Providers
Two Empathy Maps are created to gain empathy and develop actionable insights to create a better product and give users a delightful experience. Using real data gathered from the interviews, it gives a holistic view of the two target users.
The team used Google Doc to collect one observation per point (instead of per sticky note)
Experience Mapping
All the data collected were used to create the alignment diagram. The experience map reveals both sides of value creation in a single overview between individuals and organizations and their value exchange. The experience map reveals opportunities for Ample Labs in their pathway to paternships.
Ideate
Card Sorting
The cards were created based on the current website as well as from our user research interview question: What would you like to see on Ample Labs' website?
We used Optimal Workshop to conduct the closed cart sorting exercise remotely with our partners as well as other potential users of their website to inform overall architecture.
Prototype
IA Schematic Diagram
Based on the data collected through the Optimal Workshop, we create the IA Schematic Diagram of the overall architecture of the new website.
The organization has decided on the long scroll page approach for the redesign. From there, we focused on the redesign of the partner section of the long scroll webpage.
Website Design
The website redesign took place concurrently with the Ample Lab’s overall rebranding effort which included logo design, organization restructuring, and a completely new website. We worked closely with Ample Labs’ designer who has already initiated the website redesign. Consequently, our prototype reflects both the new web design as well as the data gathered from user research.
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We decided to create a desktop interface as well as the mobile interface of the website.
Low fidelity prototypes
Test
User Experience
Questionnaire
We used User Experience Questionnaire (https://www.ueq-online.org/) to obtain feedback from users on the mid-fidelity design. For the user testing, we decided to open up our participant demographic to be the general public as well as the current partners under the assumption that anyone could be a potential partner.
The session was conducted virtually through Google Form.
Design Improvements
Based on User Testing
Based on the quantitative and qualitative user testing feedback, some of the changes were made:
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Introduced pop-up that offers more extensive background on the partnership
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Included more visuals and photos
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More explanation on why another organization should partner with Ample Labs
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Included more visuals and photos to support this content addition
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Included benefits that Ample Labs offers
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Added a “reset” button underneath the contact form​
Co-designed with: Rumman Ferdaus, Dandi Feng, Polina Kabakova, Zixiao Yang
Takeaways
What have I learned from this project?
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The data collection process for experience mapping is not any different from other UX methods.
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Communicating and advocating for the value of user research.
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Rather than designing for the client, but co-designing with the client to provide solutions that work.
What would I have done differently?
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Set internal deadline beyond the final deliverable date to improve workflow.
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Help liaison frame the purpose of our research when being introduced to external research participants.
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Be introduced to all staff involved in the project at the beginning to keep everyone in the loop.