General Assembly:
Social Impact Initiative
Helping GA's Social Impact team connect with minority students and make the tech industry more inclusive
Project Summary
My Role
UX Designer
Duration
5 months (Jan 2020 - May 2020)
In Fall 2019 I applied to a new graduate level course at Columbia University titled "Design for Social Innovation". My team and I helped General Assembly, a tech bootcamp company, increase their impact among marginalized students.
Our challenge was to create a stronger pathway for tech-excluded* students to become aware of General Assembly’s offerings and integrate these resources into their lives.
Our solution consisted of the "Tech is For Everyone" digital campaign and a student ambassador program in partnership with local community colleges.
Team: 1 Designer (me), 1 User Researcher, 1 Project Manager
Context
General Assembly offers tech bootcamps for individuals wanting to break into tech careers. Despite their social impact efforts, the inaccessibility of their programs ($$$) contributes to the lack of diversity in Tech.
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GA's Social Impact Team needs a better way to connect with students who are not their traditional enrollees (aka white, upper-middle class, 4-year college graduates).
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Tech-excluded students want to learn about GA's offerings and to make informed decisions about whether to pursue these opportunities.
*In this case study "Tech-excluded" refers to students who would not fit the typical archetype of a white, upper-middle class student with a bachelor degree from a 4-year college.
Image of typical class session from generalassemb.ly
Qualitative Research
We focused our efforts internally (General Assembly) and externally (Non-Traditional Students in NYC). We had two main research questions.
How do non-traditional students make education and career decisions?
We conducted interviews with community college deans, founders of similar programs, and adult learners. We wanted to know which factors affect career planning and how students find key resources at General Assembly and elsewhere.
Images taken by team members at Sunnyside Public Library, General Assembly's HQ, and LaGuardia Community College
What are General Assembly’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunity areas for impact?
Internal documents like financial reports and student surveys helped us understand our client’s resources and need areas. We saw General Assembly's offerings from management's perspective and from the student perspective.
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Left: A whiteboard SWOT analysis for General Assembly
Right: General Assembly's 'Search Engine' Wall where students can post about and find opportunities.
Insight: Non-traditional students are highly-motivated but have financial and time constraints that limit their ability to pursue novel education options.
Students do a cost-benefit analysis based on time commitment, difficulty, and potential benefits (salary and personal interest).
Work, school, and career development must all fit into their schedules.
An empathy map with insights derived from interviews with community college students.
Reframing & Ideating
We reframed our challenge slightly and arrived at the following problem statement:
How might we deliver General Assembly resources to marginalized students in a way that affirms their experiences and helps them understand the costs/benefits of GA programs?
Left: Creative visualization of the factors affecting student outcomes and where GA could fit in
Right: Brainstorm sketch of which populations could are most likely to benefit from GA resources (right)
Design Principles & Ideation
We established that our solution must:
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Be sustainable and scalable for GA's Social Impact Team
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Take advantage of both formal and informal information sharing networks
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Have a low cost of implementation
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Engage with the lived experiences of Tech Excluded minorities
I presented our clients with several preliminary ideas including collaborations with STEM professors, hosting certain courses on campus, and workshops with minority student groups.
Our clients encouraged us to continue exploring their favorite ideas: a storytelling campaign and a community outreach program led by students.
Storyboards depicting our two solutions for GA: A storytelling campaign and a Student Ambassador program for community colleges
Solutions
We had three main solutions:
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A storytelling campaign that would be featured on social media and on the General Assembly website
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New Pages for the GA website that are differentiated by learning path
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Student Ambassador Program that would leverage the informal information sharing networks at community colleges.
I designed mockups for these ideas and presented them to our clients for feedback.
Spotlight: A General Assembly Storytelling Project
This page tells the stories of non-traditional students to help community college students envision themselves in tech careers. This concept consisted of bold photography and written interviews tagged with particular experiences such as 'First-Gen' or 'Career Switcher'.
A GIF of the Spotlight Storytelling Page I designed
Mockups of promo of the storytelling campaign for social media
Tech Is For Everyone: Differentiated Paths
This page highlights one of the various paths that can lead to GA and allows students to access information tailored to their current situation. Each path has a distinct page that outlines steps in which students can access free resources and transition towards tech careers.
A new General Assembly + Community College Page with relevant resources and info
The General Assembly Student Ambassador Program
This low cost program allows GA to increase its presence on community college campuses and reach students directly. It takes advantage of the informal information sharing networks, increases student trust in the feasibility of participating in GA programs, and serves as beneficial work experience for Ambassadors.
Graphic explaining the roles and responsibilities of the GA Student Ambassador
Left: A job posting for the GA Student Ambassador Position at John Jay College
Right: A mockup of an instagram post advertising the GA Student Ambassador opportunity
Usability Tests
We recontacted some of the students who participated in our initial round of user testing to gain feedback on our mid and high fidelity prototypes.
Findings
Students were generally receptive to our solutions! They also had some suggestions to increase their likelihood of engaging with General Assembly.
"Short, informative videos help me make decisions all the time. I like hearing and seeing what I’m learning about."
LaGuardia CC Student
“We are humans. It’s always nice to reveal the human side because if it’s too staged, it feels like an ad.”
LaGuardia CC Student
Key insights for future iterations:
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Visual authenticity in the form of selfies, less polished photographs, or subjects represented at work/school makes career development information more approachable.
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The storytelling campaign would be more enticing if it prioritized the personality and took the form of video rather than text.
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General Assembly could use a social media influencer-like strategy to deliver bite sized content.
Impact & Takeaways
Our final deliverables to GA included clickable Figma prototypes, a summary of all our research, and recommendations for implementation during COVID-19.
Impact
General Assembly's Social Impact team was very grateful for the research and solutions we handed over. 6 months after our handoff, their team communicated that our work was still using being used.
I was happy to notice that after our project, GA's instagram feed included more students of color in their "Alumni Stories" and "Student Spotlight" posts.
Within the Columbia University community, our project was featured in an initiative to increase design thinking in the curriculum. Today students have more design courses and funded opportunities available to them. 🤩
Thanks to my teammates Ridley and Aleksei!
Thanks also to our course instructors and all those who participated in our research.
Takeaways
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Strategic, client-facing communication has its challenges and nuances! Sometimes less is more.
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Spending time immersed in the user's environment provides a very rich, layered understanding of their experiences.
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Visualizing assets (such as job descriptions, social media posts, etc) are really helpful in grounding conversations with stakeholders.