GAYLE
BARTON
Sr. User Experience Designer
Sr. Product Designer
Digital Design Manager
COMMUNITY GROWTH + TOOL KIT
DESIGN THINKING
Started the non-linear process that contains five phases:
Accenture, Heartland Forward and Builders + Backers came together to help entrepreneurial thinking and inspire action across the heartland. The American Heartland, defined by the Walton Family Foundation as a 20-state region between the coasts, struggles to find a cohesive identity. Coastal regions have boomed with the success of technology, subsequently attracting the brightest American talent. This leaves the Heartland struggling to compete and realize competitive economic prosperity.
THE CHALLENGES FOR THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA
30% of US population
but only
19% of Advanced Services GDP
21% of R&D expenditures
5% of VC funding
DESIGN TOOLS
Adobe UXD
UX SKILLS & TECHNIQUES
User journey maping
MANAGEMENT
SKILLS
Road-mapping
Planning, 2 week Sprints
Content management & tracking
Decision-making
Problem-solving
TIMELINE
8 Weeks
THE PROJECT GOALS
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Inspire more people to see themselves as entrepreneurs, creating value for communities and increasing access to capital and resources.
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Helping investors participate effectively to incubate the initiatives they choose.
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Let's give the entrepreneurs the opportunity to solve problems in their communities, give them the support system to move from idea to reality.
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Create product that utilizes Heartland Forward economic research.
THE TEAM
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Heartland Forward, program manager for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
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Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), from Builders and Backers
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Accenture
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Two product owners
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One project manager/scrum master
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One lead programmer
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Three developers
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One user experience designer
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MY ROLE & RESPONSIBILITY
I was responsible for:
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The conceptual development of the digital experiences for a mobile first, responsive product, digital content and imagery.
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Clearly documenting the design of the project's functionality, architecture, UI, content and navigation.
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Gather primary research and facilitate user testing for the project and included client's insights and suggestions.
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Helped establish and maintain quality of work that was well received by the client.
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Participate in technical conversations with the internal team in development sprints.
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Supported the project manager to define user stories.
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I was a start to end designer for this project.
Empathize
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEW AND SCOPING SESSION
Our main stakeholder was the client-side program manager for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Heartland Forward. She had a clear vision for a social platform that would leverage Heartland Forward’s economic research. However, before moving forward, we needed to ensure that the platform was aligned with user needs.
To begin, I facilitated a scoping session. During this session, we identified the business goals, discussed technical limitations, and explored user needs. Additionally, we reviewed the process for builders applying to the Builders + Backers Idea Accelerator Program to better understand their journey and requirements.
We had the what, so I asked these questions to find the why.
FOR WHOM ARE WE SOLVING
A PROBLEM
FOR?
BUILDERS: Those who want to build something in their community
BACKERS: Those who want to fund something in their community
WHAT ARE THE TOP PROBLEMS FACED
AS A
BUILDER?
Navigate the process for a new initiative.
Validate problems and builders solutions.
Knowledge share at scale.
Orchestrating graduates of the system.
HOW IS
THIS PROBLEM BEING
SOLVED CURRENTLY?
Consultants.
Ad-hoc workarounds that are not sustainable or scalable. Traditional entrepreneurship channels, accelerators. Joining chamber of commerce.
WHO ARE THE POTENTIAL
EARLY USER
OF THIS PLATFORM?
Builders who are currently in the workshops.
Backers with formal
and informal influence/leadership in their community.
HOW DO YOU GET, KEEP,
AND
GROW BUILDERS?
Get new initiatives by having successful ones. Keep builders by having touch points of curriculum and mentorship in a Slack Channel.
Have workshop touch points during the Builder's process. Mentorship pairing, Slack Communication.
The Backers be able to see initiative's growth.
WHERE
IS THE VALUE? WHAT IS THE REVENUE STREAM?
Subscribe to Hearland Forwards analytics platform and add-on to CGTK. DaaS (Data as a Service) to identify the best expansion markets, forecast labor availability, and benchmark local economies.
Subscribe to Hearland Forward analytics platform (Data as a Service) to identify the best expansion markets, forecast labor availability, and benchmark local economies.
HOW IS THIS PLATFORM POSITIONED TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS?
Heartland Forward source data, and knowledge sharing from Builders and Backers. DIY tools allow builders to use data-driven metrics that matter to their initiative and to the heartland.
Heartland Forward sourced data and knowledge sharing. DIY tools allow builders to use the data-driven metrics that matter to their initiative and to the heartland.
HOW
DO
WE
MESURE SUCCESS?
Heading 6
Immediate response at and after the Summit.
Usage of the analytics
Successful initiatives that are serving the community.
Data points collected during the initiative growth process.
COLLABORATION WITH THE TEAM
Collaborated with the team to refine the user journey and reviewed with the client stakeholder.
Used existing conversational user interviews with 12 Builders. Lead a group activity of organizing and categorizing their insights and feedback in a Mural sticky note board.
PROTO - PERSONAS
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Help align stakeholders views of the customer.
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Gain buy in for user centred design
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Help stakeholders and team members be more empathetic to end users needs
Define
USER JOURNEY AND STORY TELLING
After the user research and sticky note sorting. I facilitated a team sketch session with a group of subject matter experts from Builders and Backers. I hand sketched as they talked about the user journey of the builder as they go through the accelerator program. We also talked about when the backer gets involved and how would they navigate the system if it was all on a platform. We came up with these call-to-action touch points that helped section the journey in to manageable chunks.
Erika the Builders Journey
John the Backers Journey
Researched social and networking platforms
LINKEDIN AUDIT
Many of the Builders mentioned in the research that they were using linkedin to network. What it lacked was that the users were not directly getting connected to people in their community and it did not connect to their community data. I conducted an audit of Linkedin. Highlighted the functions, the components, and the interactions that might be useful for the Community Platform and Tool Kit.
MAIN THEMES to FEATURES
Matched themes with Features during a team ideation session.
Such as: Explore data, Setting up a Private Work Space, Saving & Share Data Points, Keyword searching, Browsing other Initiatives, Filter by Topic & Community, In-platform Messaging, Concept Incubated, Insights & Support to Run an Experiment, Record Results, Define Success Metrics, Add back to the Data Pool [ new? existing? both? ], Validate Idea, Post Initiatives, Comment & Share Initiatives, Tag Progress, A calendar of events, Help/Want board, Application Form, Step by Step Process, Article & Document sharing, Community & Groups, and Find Investors.
Prototype
User Flows
The stake holder was getting too over whelmed and not understanding the design and development process. This was her first exposure to this type of development work. She could not keep up with the barrage of questions during our once-a-week stakeholder meeting. The team was also getting confused and not communicating effectively. So I put together an interaction and flow diagram in Mural. We prepared our questions ahead of time as a a team and noted them in green and red sticky notes on the Mural board. This helped in our communication and were able to solve for dead ends and errors. We were able to communicate more effectively with the stakeholder and to help us run the process smoother we moved to bi-weekly design reviews and tech demos.
Test
MAZE UI VALIDATION AND USER FEEDBACK
Used Maze for user feedback on the users flows. Recorded the Session with 5 builders.
Added observations in Optimal Workshop Re-framer study. Gained insight on how the user will navigate the platform. Went back to the design and iterated the pain points and fixed where the builder got confused.
STYLE GUIDE
Built a style guide to support the development and future iterations of the platform.
Link to Style Guide.
Results
RESULTS
Delivered Adobe XD designs to the development team and assisted the product manager in writing technical user stories for the backlog. I also managed content, including copy and visuals, and provided support to the development team throughout the sprints.
We successfully delivered a working MVP before the 2021 Heartland Forward Summit. I’m thrilled that the Heartland Forward team has continued to evolve the digital platform, which is now actively used by builders and backers.
Heartland Forward and Builder and Backers was recognized by Fast Company's 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards for revolutionizing entrepreneurship.