IDEO: Amplify
Improving education opportunties for refugees through Human-Centered Design
Overview: There are more than 50 million refugees around the world. IDEO partnered with UNICEF, UNHCR, and our challenge winners to help these refugees learn new skills and gain access to quality education. Our five grantees represent the breadth, complexity, and diversity of educational needs refugees face across the Middle East and Africa.
Design Problem: How might we improve education and expand learning opportunities for refugees around the world? Since Syrian Refugees were a primary group we wanted to support, and due to safety concerns, I conducted user research remotely in lieu of in-person research.
Solution and Methods: Through the customer discovery process, I developed user archetypes in order to help us understand who the core of our network was. We wanted to find partners on the ground who could help us have a large impact through the program. As a design researcher, my role was to develop a body of research and socialize it. There were dozens of calls that were completed and interviews that were synthesized to pinpoint our core user group.
Organization: IDEO
Role: Design Researcher, Information Designer
Team: 1 Program Director, 1 Program Manager, 1 Design Director
Timeline: 2016
Taghyeer is an organization in Jordan that sparks a love of reading among children, promoting learning and healing for Syrian refugees along the way.
How might we improve education and expand learning opportunities for refugees around the world?
The Challenge
How might we improve education and expand learning opportunities for refugees around the world?
The core needs:Understand and refine the customer pains
Primary challenges in the energy industry?
What are the opportunities to solve shared challenges across segments?
Who are the primary users and what are their shared pains?
How can we find and test the value proposition quickly?
How can we receive seed funding from Venture Partners and convincingly depict the findings in 12 weeks?
Goals
Develop user archetypes
Socialize and synthesize findings between internal team and external funding partners
Train design team on the regional network
Short listed network and funding opportunity
This was the full process of the Challenge. I supported the first phase.
Design Research
By finding the core of the network, we were able to build a network and understand the issues and current solutions on the ground as it related to education.
Product Strategy & Insights
I began by discovering who the user personas were for the project, and tracking who communicated with who. Interviewing experts led to some strong suggestions. The design visuals were used as an internal document to inform the upcoming challenge team.
Outcomes
750 contributions, 5 projects funded from the Refugee Education challenge that has reached more than 17,000 teachers and students across Africa and the Middle East through their pilot projects.
A collaborative and reimagined RFP process that has long term benefits for the participants:
Network: Organizations built credibility, connected with other innovators, learned from each other, and leveraged the community over time as a result of our open platform and community management strategies.
Design Thinking: Though all participants were at different points along their design thinking journey, the Challenge provided tools to help each team to quickly learn or refine their skills in brainstorming, interviewing, and prototyping.
Storytelling: Articulating new ideas can be hard. Challenges pushed participants to consider their key audiences and tailor the way in which they tell their story. For example, all participants learned to explain their idea in one sentence so they could pitch for funding.
Feedback: The top benefit cited by participants was the direct feedback that they received, helping them to grow and make an impact in their communities.
