Character Lab
Overview
Contributed to the design and development of a digital platform that enables leading scientists to conduct socio-emotional learning research with over 70,000 students across the country, in a way that centers the socio-emotional needs of students and protects their data privacy.
Oversaw user research, ideation, and prototyping of all projects in the organization, and managed a system to prioritize team projects based on the needs of core stakeholder groups.
Role
UX Strategist
Major Contributions
Algorithm
Developed an algorithm in Python to match research studies to students based on students’ socio-emotional needs, school context and research study design.
This has allowed the organization to deliver 70+ research studies to over 60,000 students across the country.
Equitable Design Guidelines
Inspired by the principles of Design Justice and Equity-Centered Community Design, I developed a strategy to ensure that the organization’s design processes are equitable.
Goals
1. Meaningfully involve and give decision-making power to those most affected by the design outcome.
2. Shift advantages of the solution to those who are most often systematically disadvantaged.
3. Use non-extractive processes to engage with stakeholders.
Why I picked these goals
1. So that the team’s projects meet the real needs of core stakeholders, particularly those who are often forgotten/ignored in design decision making.
2. So that the team begins to counter the systematic disadvantages faced by underinvested communities.
3. So that, in the process of designing equitable solutions, the team practices the kinds of equitable processes we wished to create.
Tactics I developed
1. Regular Equity in Design trainings
Trainings for all staff on topics such as: Why and how to practice equity centered design, how to reflect on biases before starting a project, how to engage external stakeholders in the design process, and how to interpret user research with an equity lens.
2. Equity-centered project planning
Worksheet that helps the team think through who the solution should be designed for, who should be involved in the design process and how, what the scope of the solution should be, and what success for the solution looks like, with an emphasis on equity.
3. End-of-project evaluation
Worksheet that includes questions such as: Who participated in the design process? Who benefited from the design? Who might have been disadvantaged/negatively impacted by the design?
4. Compensation process
Process for compensating all external stakeholders who participate in the design process, to ensure that Character Lab uses non-extractive user research processes, and also enables historically under-invested stakeholders to more fully participate in design processes.
5. Demographic questions
Demographic questions are asked in all user research surveys, to ensure that the organization is hearing from a diverse group of stakeholders in user research, and is developing projects that meet the needs of traditionally under-resourced communities.
6. Equitable design metrics
Metrics are established so the organization has objective accountability mechanisms to measure (at least partially) whether the team is using equitable design practices, and measure progress over time.