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User Experience & FeedbackToolkitHow will your solution work in the real world?

The Early Childhood Innovation Prize

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Why this toolkit?

So you’ve submitted a solution to the Prize, and you want to take it to the next level. It’s time to prototype and learn how your solution will work in the context of Early Childhood Education in the United States!

Whether your solution is brand new, or you have already put the idea into practice, it’s always a good idea to gain insights from the perspective of your users.

This toolkit provides two important tools to do that. The first half of the toolkit explains how to create an Experience Map that visualizes the experience a user might have with your idea over time. The second half of the toolkit provides you with a method to gather feedback so you can make your solution even better.

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Tool 1: The Experience Map

Creating an Experience Map helps you break down your solution into bite-sized pieces that can be easily made and tested. Have fun trying out the following step-by-step instructions created by +Acumen, and let the example below inspire your journey!

5 Steps for Creating an Experience Map

Step 1: Visualize the Experience

Visualize the experience that a user might have with your solution over time. Any experience with the product, platform or service that you create will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. How will a user find out about your idea? What will their first experience with the product or service be like? How does the experience culminate at the end?

Step 2: Select a User

Select a user for your product or service. Give this person a name and write

An Experience Map helps you to identify and strategize for key moments in the product, experience, or service you’re designing. Consider how your user first becomes aware of your solution, how they make a decision to try it, what their first interaction and engagement is like, how they might become a repeat user, and how the solution might ultimately impact their life.

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down a few characteristics about them, such as their name, age, profession, desires and fears.

Step 3: Define key moments

Place Post-it notes in each of the empty boxes in the space provided. Now draw the key moments that your team has just identified in the journey for a user experiencing your solution. Rough sketches or cartoons are great. Stick figures are fine too—you don’t need to be an artist. Try to limit these key moments to six or less.

Step 4: Reflect on your story

Reflect on your story. Do you need to rearrange the order of the Post-it notes? Are there key steps in the user’s experience that you’ve missed? Add them now. For each moment you’ve sketched, give that moment a title in the space above the Post-it and write a brief description of what’s happening in

the space provided below the Post-it.

Step 5: Share your insights with us!

Share your insights with us! Upload your work on https://openideo.com/ecprize. Click ‘Update Your Entry’, then ‘Upload File’ and attach the User Experience Map as a document.

A HELPFUL TIP

Hang your Experience Map up in a place where the entire team can see it. Quickly walk through the experience together.

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Postpartum Registry for Friends

The New Mom’s Wish List allows friends to gift their time/services to help a new mom-to-be find time for self-care, sleep, and mental health. View here!

Mobile Midwife

Bringing the benefits of Centering Pregnancy (group prenatal care) directly to pregnant women in their own communities. View here!

Postpartum Pay-It-Forward Project

Expectant moms help new moms with postpartum support, and receive support after they deliver. View here! Also check out the user journey video.

In a recent Challenge on the OpenIDEO platform we explored how we might reimagine the new life experience by addressing the diverse challenges of all mothers, babies, and those who care for them. Many of the participants created Experience Maps to explore and improve their solutions, each using the tool in their own unique way.

Here are three examples to inspire you:

Example: The New Life Challenge

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Create your own Experience Map!

Describe your idea with one concise sentence.

Draw and describe the ideal user:

Title: Name:

Age:

Profession:

Any other key characteristics:

Concisely describe what is happening

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Tool 2: Gathering feedback

Let’s face it: receiving feedback can be nerve-wracking. Your users might not understand your solution right away, or criticize your favorite part of it. Many people prefer to skip this stage of the design process. But what if you approach gathering feedback with an attitude of curiosity? What if you think of your users’ comments as a way to learn and grow as a designer, and increase the likelihood of successful implementation of your solution?

Depending on the stage your solution is in, you can use different means to gather feedback. If your solution is in an early stage, you can use your Experience Map. Walk people through the Map, and see how they respond. If your solution is more mature, you can create a physical or digital prototype. Here are examples of different types of prototypes. If your solution is already implemented, you can use your actual solution to gather feedback from a new user group.

Friendly ATM prototype View here! Cobuy digital prototype View here!

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Here are some guidelines for gathering feedback in an effective -and fun- way.

Select Locations to Test Your Solution

Decide what context you want to test your solution in. Will it be most helpful to first show a rough idea in an informal setting? Or will you learn the most from testing your prototype in the community where it will be used? Will you do your user tests online? Or can you meet to your users in

person?

Capture Feedback Learnings

Take notes of both the positive and negative comments from people as you test your solution. The subtle impressions of a participant’s reactions are often most important to remember. Use the prompts that we’ve provided for you on the next page of this worksheet to assist in capturing feedback.

Define Feedback Activities

Based on what you are trying to learn, carefully plan your feedback activities. Arrange for a conversation if you are interested in a first impression. Set up an activity or service as if they are real if you want to observe people’s actual behaviors. Consider letting people use a prototype of your solution over a couple of days over the coming weeks if you are interested in its longer-term

impact.

Do Quick Debriefs with Your Team

Plan for some extra time after a feedback session to share impressions with your team while they are still fresh in your mind. Discuss how to improve your solution and capture ideas for a next iteration immediately. You can do this

debrief virtually anywhere (on the sidewalk, in a car, or while riding on the bus).

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Invite Honesty and Stay Neutral

Introduce your solution as a work in progress and make sure to present it in a neutral tone. Don’t be defensive—listen to all feedback.

Iterate!

Based upon feedback you receive, incorporate valuable feedback into your concept. Make changes where people see barriers. Emphasize what was well received. Go through feedback cycles repeatedly and continue to improve your concept.

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Organizing Your Feedback

The questions below have been categorized to help you organize your feedback. Be sure to debrief with your teammates after each feedback session.

The Good?

• What did people value the most? • What got them excited? • What convinced them about the idea?

The Bad?

• What failed?• Were there suggestions for improvement?• What needs further investigation? The Unexpected?

• Did anything happen that you didn’t expect? What’s Next?

• Based on what you learned, how will you change your idea? • What will you test next?

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Submit to the Prize

Good Luck!