Art for Everyone
This was a final group project for a class I took in the fall semester of 2021, Human Centered Design at Harvey Mudd College. For this project, our design team co-designed with our users from an organization in Pomona, California called Uncommon Good (UG). This organization provides support to first-generation, low-income students in the city for college prep. The problem UG brought to us was a need for a creative outlet for these students in addition to the academic support. Following the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process, we empathized, defined, ideated, prototyped, and finally tested.
Our design team: four college students, two UG studentsWe engaged with…
For this project, we engaged with two UG students, Brianna and Miranda, a high school senior named Hailey, and a community college freshman named Sarah. Throughout the project, I also contributed to our sociocultural context by introducing my own Latin American family values into our design process. Building off our four formal interviews and two informal contributors’ POVs, we gathered key traits and created two personas, Joey and Isabella.
Joey is a 17-year-old high school student from Whittier, California who enjoys fashion and making outfits. One thing that seemed important to her was the question “where can I find a fast and creative way to connect with new friends in the COVID era?” We wonder if that means that Joey would benefit from meeting new people in a low stakes, low commitment and artistic environment.
Isabella is a Mexican-American high school student from Southern California who is interested in art and spends a lot of time with friends but is eager to meet more. One thing that seemed important to her was the question "why don't we have finger painting class in high school?" We wonder if that means that Isabella wants to express herself in fun, silly and easy ways in a structured, unobtrusive environment where she can work with her hands on something imperfect.
We structured our approach…
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Based on the conversations and empathy work we did with our interviewees, we developed a list of How Might We questions to best meet our personas’ needs. Here are our top four:
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How might we celebrate creativity?
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How might we treat arts as we do academics?
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How might we encourage creative expression?
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How might we offer low commitment activities?
We brainstormed…
We then developed ten ideas for each How Might We question, summing up to 100 ideas total. We came up with so many ideas that we weren’t sure which one to choose, but after discussing our options with our UG co-designers, we noticed them gravitate towards the art workshop idea. Below is a table we used to categorize our ideas and narrow down the most feasible and user-conscious options.
Design process
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We built off of three top ideas, conducting a preliminary prototype of each using artboards on Mural before engaging a diverse set of stakeholders on two full cycles of testing, feedback gathering, and iterative refinement for our top prototype.
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Art Workshop
Low stakes, relaxing, creative arts workshop led by UG teens and parents for students and parents. Sustainable, low commitment, and fun!
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Craft Room at UG
Dedicated space for creativity in an academically-focused environment, can be used by students from many schools so is an efficient centralized system, offers many different creative resources, and potentially costly to establish and operate.
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Art Field Trips
Structured, scheduled programs led by either UG peers or staff and designed to engage students in more distant (DTLA, etc.) spaces for new experiences. Logistically complex and potentially costly with transportation expenses.
We prototyped and tested… Art workshop
After much deliberation and going back to the users’ original needs, we decided to pursue the low stakes, relaxing, creative arts workshop led by UG teens for students and parents together. Sustainable, low commitment, and fun! Seven Claremont Colleges students and two faculty tested our first Art Workshop prototype. In this workshop, participants were instructed in a card-making paper arts activity. We noticed there were various levels of engagement and intricacy, and also recognized that this was not a perfectly analogous testing environment; student participants were both older and not from the same first-generation, low-income background as UG youth, and faculty already were creative professionals and thus primed for success.
Feedback
At the end of our first testing round, we distributed this feedback form to all participants and received a 100% response rate. Our feedback focused around three primary topics:
We were encouraged by attendees to:
Start asking for an optional donation to cover expenses
Create a take home kit to give students extra creative time
Workshops for BOTH parents & students, separate or not
This was the feedback survey we distributed to the participants which prepared us for future iterations.
Other prototypes
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Craft Room
A craft room with regular weekly hours before and/or after scheduled UG meeting times. UG students can attend the space and create/explore how arts can allow them to de-stress. UG would ask for donations from major art stores to get materials.
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Art Field Trip
Field trips exposing students to explore the LA arts scene after school, on weekends, and during breaks. Students would be grouped into interest-based networks through trips, and escape their daily stressors. Students would discover new passions they otherwise would not be exposed to. Greater emphasis towards arts in UG programs would help promote positive mental health.
Iteration
Building off the feedback we received in our in-person testing, we constructed a comprehensive lesson plan for an open-format creative event specifically for parents. The event, intended to facilitate bonding and de-stressing amongst parents, mentioned our newly conceived take-home kit. All our communication materials were also bilingual (English-Spanish) to facilitate an accessible climate.
Testing
Although we did not have time to fully test out this final workshop idea, we worked closely with UG staff to obtain authorization and send UG parents an email in English and Spanish, along with an interest form explaining a possible upcoming workshop to gauge interest among parents. The email was sent to about sixty parents, and in twenty-four hours we had seven sign-ups (one emailed and was not included in the chart to right), indicating a 12% response rate. The feedback was positive; 100% of respondents said they would be able to attend the workshop, and one parent mentioned that they would like to learn more about the event. Several testers responded in Spanish, indicating our accessibility efforts were impactful.
Iteration 2.0
During an evening presentation we tested our last iteration based on previous feedback: the take home kits. Each participant was given a basket in which they could put craft materials into to take home and continue the fun and destress. The feedback we got was positive; seated participants liked that the project did not have to end at the workshop.
Final Prototype: Art for Everyone!
Our final iteration of this workshop idea was: Art for Everyone: Amplifying Safety and Joy for Uncommon Good Students and Parents. Taking feedback from past iterations, we devised an art workshop for both students and parents to participate in. The students would participate in a peer-led workshop while parents went to a separate workshop. There would be varying levels of complexity of the project, where failure is encouraged. At the end of the workshop, participants would have the option to take a “take-home kit” where they could finish and continue de-stressing in their own homes.
Feedback
Throughout this process we received useful feedback. Here are some key highlights and suggestions for future iterations:
Persona sounds like UG students
Creativity currently stifled by public school system, find a creative outlet for students
Positives: low stakes environment, embracing of imperfection, peer-to-peer sustainable teaching model
Question: would combining students and parents be impactful?
Parent event is a great idea because many parents wait around for their children during UG meetings
What we learned & next steps
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We learned that high school students and parents are looking for a low commitment and low stakes environment to be creative with their peers. Activities involving the arts that are “just for fun” rather than to pad their college application. In turn, this creates the process of destressing, and when involving their parents it can become a joint activity to celebrate art and relaxation as a family.
Moving forward we would like to set up our first pilot workshops at Uncommon Good. We would organize two workshops, one for students and one for parents, and test and gather feedback for each separately. After validating our work thus far with a full-scale proof of concept, we would meet to comprehensively review our work with Uncommon Good staff, especially Dre and Natalie, who have been instrumental to our process so far. We would also continue our Human-Centered Design process with a larger scale and deeper test of take-home kits in tandem with the UG-hosted workshop pilot! Through our work, we hope to help foster a much needed creative outlet for both students and their parents, creating a workshop model that emphasizes economic and organizational sustainability while leveraging community partnerships and the initiative of Uncommon Good students and parents themselves to lead the work. In this deep engagement with the creative side of UG People, we hope to improve the mental health and psychological security of our community members.