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And that's a wrap!

The last four months have been filled with so many incredible memories - and we can’t believe it passed by so quickly.

By now, you know that we ended up working on two final deliverables, both web tools, and each designed to improve an aspect within the experience of signing up for an RESP. Last Friday was our final presentation to Prosper Canada and the Bridgeable team, where we were able to explore our summer’s process and its results in detail. We had such a fun time showing off the two tools through mini-skits, complete with guest Bridgeablers acting as parents looking to sign up and learn more about the different types of RESP accounts! It was so rewarding to be able to look back at the summer, and go through all of the things we were able to accomplish together as a team, from start to finish.

Dear Tumblr world, to be honest, I had a hard time thinking about how I should end off this summer for you.  There was so much we could have written about our tools, our process, and everyone’s reactions… but beyond reviewing what we did, I realized there was something else I’d rather share. So without further ado…

The three most important things I learned this summer

1. Ask for help. No seriously, do it.

Perhaps this is just the norm when it comes to creative work environments, but working at Bridgeable was an incredibly comfortable experience. Both Kristin and Jessica can attest to the fact that I was extremely (to the words-can’t-express level) nervous at the beginning of the summer, and I definitely came in with the mindset that asking for help would mean that I was incapable.

 Boy, was I ever wrong.

 I think that so many of us enter our first internships forgetting that we, and the people who hire us, know that this is an initial learning experience. These positions have been designed for those of us who have little to no experience, and so we should never forget to inquire away, as to get the most out of every last drop of this experience.

2. Trust in the process

It’s so easy to get away from yourself and start imagining solutions before you’ve gotten to the crux of the problem, especially when what you’re imagining is really exciting! There were so many moments in the beginning phases where Kristin, Jessica, and I would get completely absorbed, talking about all the amazing things we would love to create.

Of course, this happened because we were really excited about the project’s potential, but at the same time, when we did this we forgot about the most important aspect: the user’s voice. And we definitely learned this as we went further into the process, as many an idea that might have been great, wouldn’t quite have worked for the people we were trying most to benefit.

3. Working at Bridgeable means loving what you do

For those of you who have read “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, or know of its principles, you’ll know what I mean when I say this. In my brief time at Bridgeable, I can honestly say I was always surrounded by passionate and creative people. People who not only did what they loved - creating beautiful things - but also loved what they did - creating real solutions for our community and the world around us. I’d like to finish off with what I think was the most important lesson of the summer: when you feel good about what you do, the end product is almost always better.

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Refine. Design. Validate. Repeat.

Now that we are feeling more comfortable with the programming lingo and both web tools are well underway, we are shifting our focus to the visuals and the content on the sites. Because the language and communication of both tools is critical to the value they can create, we know there is a lot of work and refinement that will take place when it comes to content. So far we have had 5 validation sessions: one with a community organization, one with a low-income individual and three with bank employees. From these meetings, we have gathered very helpful feedback that will guide us in creating final prototypes that truly work for the end users! As some say, “Feedback is the breakfast of designers.”

  Here is a sneak peak at how some of the tools look:

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How to build not one, but two web tools when you’ve never done it before.

Step 1: Make sure you really want to do it in 4 weeks time

  Step 2: Download Omnigraffle and Balsamiq and learn how to use them as you go

  Step 3: Work very hard and pay attention to details

  Step 4: Ask for all the help you can get from other Bridgeablers

(who are amazing and have many hidden talents when it comes to programming! Just ask.)

  We set out sites on developing (1) a User Support Tool to help prepare low-income individuals before their meeting to sign up for an RESP with the CLB and (2) a Financial Institution Support Tool to reposition the conversation that happens at a sign-up appointment and ensure that all financial advisors or account managers know that the CLB exists.

  To develop these two tools, we learned how to develop back-end logic flow charts, wire frames and how to speak programming lingo. While we are far from fluent, we’ve been able to get by and have began developing the two tools. Take a look at the crazy new world we are in: 

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Get Ready. Get Set. Co-Design!

Finally, the day for co-creation came! Last week on July 10 we held our co-creation session at PCYI’s offices with 16 participants from community organizations, financial institutions and other backgrounds relevant to the topic (RESP/CLB) and our key audience (low-income families).

  At the session, we asked a lot of the participants and, while they worked very hard, they also had a great time designing solutions, sharing their point of view and getting to know the other people in the room who were invested in their same cause – to increases CLB uptake with low-income families! 

  Prosper Canada was excited to see that the workshop led to real, tangible, actionable solutions rather they staying at a high level and defining blue-sky opportunities. While we worked hard to plan for that, it would not have been a possible outcome if it were not for the amazing participation and help form those who attended the session. But, you don’t have to take our word for it; take a look at the pictures below from the session! 

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Let the co-creation planning begin!

After the summarizing our research and unearthing key Bridge Principles for our solution to follow, we set our sights on the co-creation workshop. At this workshop, we have to opportunity to build solutions with a variety to key stakeholders in order to ensure our prototypes solve the needs of all stakeholders rather than just one.

  In preparation, we planned, planned, planned and planned some more.

  When you have a room full of people with different areas of expertise, you want to make sure everyone begins with the same level knowledge on the specific design problem we are going to ask them to solve. To do this, we are creating a pre-read assignment that highlighted the research findings as well as general information around RESPs. We are also creating custom templates for each activity to ensure that there were clearly defined parameters and end goals to hit with each activity. As Chris says…

  “Design is in the details”

  Ok, back to planning for the workshop! 

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Rallying our research to be workshop-ready

Time continues to fly by! We had our Research Readout on July 25th where we shared the insights from all the stories and information we’ve been gathering. Acknowledging that Prosper Canada and PCYI have been working in this field for years and are intimately familiar with many of the materials already, we used the advantage of our fresh eyes and our position as outsiders to offer a different perspective.

One of the key tools we used to represent our research is a user experience map: this is a design tool that captures the experience of the individual actually going through and using the service. It records the stages in their journey but also their emotional reaction to what’s happening at each of these stages. For this project, we mapped the general process of signing up for an RESP as it relates to the experiences of two persona types we identified.

As people encountered barriers moving through the process, we found that their reactions were generally linked to whether the individual was temporarily in a low-income situation (such as a graduate student or recent immigrant), or whether they had been low-income for a longer period of time and may be constantly moving above and below the poverty line. One of the greatest differences between these personas is the motivation to push through obstacles because they have confidence in the greater, longterm reward of an RESP. So what might register as a minor annoyance for Persona 1 would be a major deterrent for Persona 2.

As we were summarizing our research, we began organizing our findings into direct insights that would help inform the prototypes we wanted to focus on for co-creation. In the short two weeks between the Research Readout and our co-creation session, we planned the break-out activities, pulled together the logistics, and developed materials that would communicate these insights to the attendees. No small task! But it was certainly exciting to see the research starting to take the shape of possible solutions that could actually exist! Stay tuned to read how it turned out..

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Interviews, Analysis, Synthesis... oh my!

It has been an excitingly busy few weeks! During the week of June 16, we conducted our last seven interviews with banks, community agencies, and low-income families.  These interviews were very exciting because they included our first face-to-face conversation with a community agency as well as our first face-to-face conversations with low-income individuals. 

  While teams of two were rotating into the field for interviews, others were back at Bridgeable working feverishly to analyze and synthesize the data we already had as well as to amend the analysis according to the new information we collected daily. We had a lot of data to work with, but that is a design researchers preferred problem to have!

  By the end of the week, we had analyzed the data through a user journey map, service design blueprint and high-level insight clustering. We left our war-room for the weekend feeling very excited about the shape our synthesis was taking.  Below are some work-in-progress pictures of synthesis. You’ll have to stay tuned for the next post to see how it all came together! 

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Feeling banksy (in the financial institution sense)

Forgive me for the late update tumblr, this past week's been a little hectic! At this point, last Monday feels like a lifetime ago, but I'll take a whack at recapping the last week and a half.

It has really been bank week, as we've geared up and spoken to quite a number of perspectives from financial institutions —with Financial Service Representatives and Customer Service Representatives alike. All three of us were able to speak with some personal contacts at bank branches across Vancouver and Toronto, and in addition Kristin had the chance to venture to an RBC branch in Brampton.  

In terms of new information, it was so valuable to be able to see more of the financial institution side of things! There's so much in the world of retail banking that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of, so the more we can understand, the better. The interviews have led us to some great insights so far, as well as some great quotable moments! Here are a couple insights:

1. The Rule of 72

A great way to make communicate complexity in investments! Divide 72 by the percentage interest rate will give you an approximation of the number of years it will take for your investment to double. This is so useful when it comes to explaining the RESP and CLB to parents, because they will be able to better envision the future impact the CLB account may have.

(As always, Investopedia phrases it better)

2. It's not always about income

Financial literacy (and illiteracy) comes in many sizes, shapes, and forms. We've heard that there are many people that either use online banking exclusively or head straight to the ATM when they do their banking. Where the teller used to be a great source of information on new practices and incentives in the saving world, many people are beginning to lack the knowledge because they don't interact with tellers as often as they could. This group of automatic-banking-lovers stretches across income brackets, and is an interesting insight for consideration when thinking about the general behaviours we have when it comes to our "financial diet".

I'd love to share all of our insights with you, but then this post would be much too long, so you'll have to be content with a few tidbits (at least for now.) Tons of great updates to come about this week's progress, and it's only Wednesday —make sure to look out for Kristin's post coming Monday!

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Navigating the Maze

Having spoken to a range of experts, we’re beginning to see commonalities emerging but each informant continues to offer a unique insight that makes every interview incredibly rewarding.

We’re feeling much more comfortable with the particularities of an RESP while also very conscious that we’ve had the advantage of time and excellent sources on our side to answer any questions. It’s a complicated benefit that affects each demographic in slightly different ways that can have larger consequences.

Our interviews this week cast some interesting perspectives on the issue of age as a barrier to RESP contributions. Since only adults over the age of 18 are able to open bank accounts, this is also what prevents a young teenage mother from opening an RESP for her child on her own.

And from the beneficiary’s side, even if the account is already opened for them, a minor can't directly add their own savings to the account. As one of our interviewees pointed out, teens are marketed credit cards, but don’t have an equally easy option for putting money away in savings. Furthermore, tools aimed at youth to help them plan financially for their future can be scarce or nonexistent.

This week we also lined up a couple of preliminary meetings for our ethnographic research with financial institutions and community organizations. It’s exciting to see the project progressing and to anticipate getting a firsthand look at how the application process plays out.

Meanwhile, it’s also been a settling period for the office into our big and bright new space – with just a touch of commotion in tow. Maneuvering between builders and boxes, we’ve been orienting ourselves physically as well!

It was time for some of our bootcamp project plans to come to life. In between tasks – power tools in hand – we experimented and hacked our way through a series of prototypes for better archiving Bridgeable’s past work.

By Friday, the office was visibly taking shape: the kitchen and print station at least were pretty much in place, right down to the post-its arranged in rainbow spectrum order.

Oh and the new projector is just downright impressive. (World Cup, anyone?)

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Let the research begin!

In our second week, we hit the ground running with eight interviews and a lot of behind-the-scenes work to prepare for more interviews in the next two weeks.  These first interviews were 45-minute phone conversations with “Key Informants,” people who are experts on various topics relevant to RESPs and the CLB. Their areas of expertise included:

Bank Processes

Past and present RESP/CLB programs

Financial Literacy Education

Pros and Cons of opening an RESP/CLB

The phone conversations exposed us to a variety of perspectives on the subject of REPS for low-income families. Some of the big things we heard are captured in the quotes below. 

“Secondary Education is a long-term philosophy kick started by a short term reward [RESPs].” 

Free money:

“We’re always encouraging anyone who walks though doors to begin saving with the RESP. It’s pretty much free money”

“Even if you’re making a million dollars a year, the government is going to give you 20% so why are you saying no to free money?”

“People have a hard time believing that it really is free money. Free money!”

Banks and financial confidence:

“Building financial confidence, it is about changing behaviors and habits, not just handholding”

“That’s the thing about banks. They want a cut of your money and if you don’t have money what are you to them”

“Banks are hard to understand. I try to relate it to the super market, but people will never understand banks like they do the super market”

Uncertainty:

“Am I going to lose this money if my kid doesn’t go?”

“If there is no consumer protection for RESPs, it can be a bad idea for people in certain situations to open the account. It might be better for them to stay off the grid.” 

“I just hope that the money can be used to support whatever choices they want to make in terms of making their lives better – whether that means training for a specific career or higher ed.”

After each phone call, our passion around the project grew and we are ready for another week of research, interviews and recruiting! The week ended with a great Skype session where we learned about the ins and outs of ethnography from an expert in the field, Julie Peggar. She shared a lot of her wisdom with us over the hour phone call and we are excited to incorporate those learnings into our approach for the coming interviews and potential ethnographies.

Also, below are two behind-the-scenes pictures of what many of our phone interviews looked like this week. Bridgeable moved offices on Friday offices and that meant that we had to get creative, finding boxes and Google’s online phone option to be our most valuable resources! 

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3-2-1 Kick-off!

Last Friday was our kick-off event, where we were finally able to meet our Prosper Canada contacts, Adam and Elodie, and Graham from PCYI for the first time.

From this meeting, we were able to hone in (as much as possible) on what our task will be for the summer - and what is it, you ask? Well formally, our mission is this:

I say this is our formal mission because, really, we don't yet know what shape our task will take over the course of the summer! That's the beauty of the design process: we won't what we're doing until we're doing it. 

I won't lie, I'm feeling a little nervous about the task coming our way. Even from what little we know so far, all of us can tell that the issue at hand is not easily solved (or else it would have been solved already!) But in spite of my apparent anxiety, we're all very excited to see what we'll find out through our research and what ensuing solutions we'll see through!

During the kickoff, we conducted an activity where we asked everyone at the meeting to ask themselves, “what does success look like?”

We posed this question in reference to our four project stakeholder groups: to a low-income family, to a community organization, to a financial institution, and to 'you'. This ended up being a great way to understand the different perspectives all of us had coming into the project. 

"To me, the success of this project means deliverables that are a testament to the value of the design process on hard, systemic problems" "To a low-income family, the success of this project means having enough to send my child to school"

- Some thoughts we heard through the activity

Above all, I think this activity became a channel for everyone to align our hopes and goals for this project. And for me? The success of this project means finding a sustainable, holistic method of saving for our children's education, collaboratively found and collaboratively sustained. 

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Your 2014 designership interns are finally making their way through the murky waters that are Tumblr.

Research. Plan. Regroup. Plan. Kick-off!

That's what this past week has looked like for us, stepping into our summer project: RESP service design with Prosper Canada and Peel Children and Youth Initiative. Two-and-a-half weeks into our designership, (and after bootcamp, we didn't know what to expect), we had heard bits and pieces about the project, but hadn't had the chance to fully explore the topic and its implications. So we picked up, did a 180 away from bootcamp, and dug right into the who, what, where's, and why's of RESP service design.

Here's what we found:

1. “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

We were lucky to have Spencer's help and the resources from last year's FoodShare project in setting out our game plan for the next two weeks of interviews. This was a huge learning experience for me - how to frame questions for our research. Keeping in mind how to ask questions sensitively toward our subject and still getting at the answers we needed meant - and still means - a lot of revision on our interview guides!

2. This blog post by John Stapleton

"Uncertainty – and uncertainty can cost another day of transit and another day of childcare."

...is just one quote from the powerfully written account of the course of six women's days trying to open an RESP account. He summarizes the barriers these women face and the problem at hand.

3. Acronyms

RESP, RBC, TD, CIBC, BMO, CESG, ACESG, CLB, GIC, NCBS, EAP, PSE, AIP, PCYI, RRHC, OPO, ESDC, HRSDC, ESCO (and we're only one week in)

And of course, 4. Tons of other resources we were able to get a hold of in preparation for kick-off. All in all, it definitely felt like a lot of information to put together in a short period of time, but we got plenty out of it!

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The Launch!

Tumblr world!

We just finished the Field to Table Catering official launch and we could not be more pleased with the outcome.

After 109 days of being a part of the Bridgeable team, we shared the new Field to Table Catering brand with the world. About 40 people joined us for lunch and a quick mixer. Then we offered samples of the new menu to workers of the Toronto Carpet Factory and all we can say was "WOW". The turn-out was overwhelmingly successful and I'd say well over 150 showed up.

We took this time to tell people about the work we did this summer, designing a new brand, working out systems, making financial models, and what we hoped most for Field to Table Catering: a catering operation as a thriving social enterprise.

People were thrilled about the work we achieved and many guests took away story cards (which were a part of our marketing strategy). They also commented on how great the food tasted. 

We could not have asked for a more successful launch. 

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Process, Collaboration, and Empathy

We were asked to write a few things to reflect on our summer, so here are mine!

  Process

Every designer knows of process. It’s the 20 pages of mindmaps, doodles, and brain goo the teacher asks for at the end of every project and is the difference between a mediocre outcome and a brilliant one. It is common to have an initial concept that informs the rest of the design but then it becomes easy to fall victim to fixation. That is, attaching oneself to a single idea and closing off opportunities to others.

How Bridgeable approaches process is a different story. It begins with nothing. Trust the process, they said. But as a lowly intern, being asked to fall backwards into uncertainty with nothing to grasp onto except the gentle coos of our project manager was a scary thing. Of course, once we fell, we landed in a pool of research data that could have backed our wildest designs. As the summer chugged along, the more people we talked to and the more potential solutions we threw out, the less ambiguity shielded the project, unveiling designs that made sense.

Collaboration

Bridgeable has been the most pleasant in that collaborative work is a major theme in the office. It is something many businesses humblebrag about, upselling teamwork and opportunities to work with others, but Bridgeable achieves it naturally. For someone who has worked on few group projects, the ease of transitioning into an environment where I was never working alone was surprising.

Yet, even with collaboration, there was very much a feeling of ownership over the project. Help was always happily given when asked, but there was never a push to drastically change what had already been settled on.

Empathy

Much of our project was about immersing ourselves into an organization that had established a very prominent structure. Our job was to see and understand the needs and wants of the kitchen staff, communication team, and FoodShare leadership to orchestrate their voices and bring them to a place of harmony.

There were moments when it would not be possible to please everyone but in that situation, we had the opportunity to really advise and recommend according to the things we had heard.

Finally...

Ampersands are strongly frowned upon. :(

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Ice cream sandwiches were had.

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This week I built a financial model and assisted on a photography shoot. Just saying. This is the best learning experience ever. 

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Quickie on Branding Process

I’m very pleased to present to you the Field to Table Catering logo!

For me and at Bridgeable, design is very much about creating something for the end user. For this project, the end user is both the client and the customer base the client is trying to reach. Listening to the needs of these groups of people, the messages they hoped the brand would evoke, would inform every facet of our brand design.

As you may have read from previous tumblr posts, we conducted interviews with both Field to Table Catering staff and catering customers. For the staff, their desire was to stay true to their current authentic and homestyle food. On top of that, it was very clear that colours representing fresh, healthy vegetables was a large part of their identity. For customers, they needed to see that a caterer was reliable and trustworthy while also being delightful. With these things in mind, we sorted through certain styles of typography and imagery to design towards a suitable logo and identity.

There is no single solution in design so experimentation is often necessary. The best way to do this is probably just to hand-sketch all your ideas. Below are some early doodles of possible paths we could have taken.

In the end though, we decided a hand-rendered logo would be most fitting as all of Field to Table Catering’s food is made from scratch, with love. The word “field” was done in cursive, reminiscent of freely growing vines and the word “table” has more structure to it, representing an actual table. The logo was made to be bold, to communicate confidence, but also very personal, much like the relationships Field to Table Catering have developed.

Happy designing!