Innovation & Performance Blog

Innovation & Performance Blog

Using data and design to creatively solve problems

Keeping youth voice at the center of our work

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Three things that Innovation & Performance focuses on is design, research, and development. Part of our model was originally drawn from the Bloomberg Innovation Team Model which centers on design.

To stay up-to-date on best practices, our whole team received training at Stanford d.school, one of the pioneers of design thinking and human-centered design.

One of our goals is to build capacity for this approach within the City in order to help us to better serve our residents.

To do that, we anchor our work on the experiences of those most affected. For example, when we were asked to help think about ways to connect youth and young adults with jobs, we centered our work on the experiences and needs of young people.

We used a collaborative design process to address our primary research question:

How might we connect young people who grew up in Seattle to good jobs and prepare them for the future of work?

Over the summer, we interviewed over 83 young people as well as parents, supervisors, and staff from 8 departments. Our interviews produced hundreds of data points, such as:

Quote from Jinji: I'm very often complimented on my speech because it's eloquent or well thought out or whatever. I'm an educated human being. When that happens, it's like, Oh, you act very white. What does that mean? What does that have to do with anything?

When we heard similar sentiments from learning experts and secondary research, it became a theme:

Soft skills are loosely defined, and as a result evaluation of them can be culturally biased towards white culture.

This theme combined with others created an insight:

Young people are aware of the importance of soft skills, but inconsistent evaluation of these skills can lead to bias influenced by race and culture.

These insights have been shared with the mayor, our colleagues around the city, and with community partners:

Poster of insight with quotes

We held four workshops (two internal, two public) to give people an opportunity to generate solutions to address these insights.

Idea generation workshop at Youngstown

By consistently, continually, anchoring our work on the experiences of those most affected, we can be certain to keep people at the center of our work.

Next Steps

Our workshops generated over 550 ideas. The next step is to prototype our top ideas to test our assumptions. Once we have our prototypes, we’ll go back out into the community to get feedback on our ideas.

If you or your organization would like to help us to test some of these ideas – Let us know!

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Are you a freelance designer who wants to make a social impact? Join us!

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Are you a skilled freelance designer? We are looking for a Seattle-based designer to help translate insights into design opportunities through prototyping and testing.

Testing prototypes with young people and case managers

This role is a 1- to 2-month, fixed-term contract with the possibility of renewal.

What is the role?

You will work closely our cross-functional team to:

  • Support facilitation of workshops that drive our understanding of human needs and priorities.
  • Take research insights and turn them into design inspiration and product strategy.
  • Create prototypes to advance our thinking and to thoughtfully engage city staff and local residents on the goals and vision of the project.
  • Design a plan for how we might conduct research and testing in-house, with partners, and with city residents.
  • Conduct and guide studies using methods such as rapid ethnography, interviewing, participatory design, and concept value testing, usability testing, and quantitative analytics.
  • Evaluate the value of design concepts. Apply rapid, iterative evaluation techniques to optimize concepts for the best possible use experience.
  • Provide deep insight and actionable recommendations to create good user experiences.
  • Review, analyze, and communicate data to generate strategic insights and actionable recommendations.

What are your qualifications?

You should have:

  • A design process that is deeply rooted in observing user needs and creatively solving problems to improve people’s lives.
  • Experience leading qualitative research such as interviews, observations, surveys, and usability tests as well as blended research or quant-based methods.
  • Expertise in prototyping and beautiful execution.
  • Experience with creating products and services that blend the digital and physical.
  • Compelling communication and storytelling skills.
  • Passion for youth development, racial equity, and improving the lives of city residents.
  • 3+ years’ experience as a user experience, product, or service designer.
  • A degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Design, or other UX-equivalent experience.

If this sounds like an interesting opportunity – send your portfolio and resume to amie.thao@seattle.gov.

No cover letter required, but do drop us a line or two and let us know why you’re interested.

Portfolios will be reviewed until Friday, September 21st 28th at 4:00 pm.

Thanks!

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Come share your ideas about economic opportunity for young people with us!

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Three sample insights from youth research

Are you interested in identifying opportunities to create or improve policies, programs, and services for Seattle’s young people?

Mayor Durkan’s administration wants to find ways to connect youth with good jobs by creating a citywide strategy for youth, economic opportunity, and the future of work. We recently completed a nearly three-month research phase.

We are now hosting several public events in mid-September to share the stories we heard and for you to contribute your ideas on ways that the City of Seattle can better serve our young people. These events will be interactive and fun! If you are a young person or have a young person in your life that you care about – we want to hear from you!

Join us to:

  • Share your career journey
  • Cultivate a deeper understanding about youth and young adult experiences
  • Learn about and use human-centered design to move from insights to opportunities

Let’s harness our collective wisdom to facilitate creative breakthroughs that will result in a set of ideas that will make a difference for Seattle’s residents.

No previous design or innovation experience is required. All you need is an optimistic mindset.

These are drop-in events. Plan to spend at least 30 minutes with us. Refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP below. This list will be updated as events are added.

Monday, September 10th
3 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Douglass-Truth Branch Library
2300 E Yesler Way
Seattle, WA 98122
RSVP

Tuesday, September 11th
3 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Youngstown Cultural Arts Center
4408 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106
RSVP

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Researching Youth Economic Opportunity

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Mayor Durkan’s administration wants to find ways to connect youth with good jobs by creating a citywide strategy for youth, economic opportunity, and the future of work.

We have just completed a nearly three-month research phase focused on understanding the opportunities and challenges facing youth and young adults when considering their future – particularly when taken into consideration with the implications of changing employer expectations and forces like automation.

Our deliverable for this research phase of this project is an interactive report of all our findings including qualitative research, quantitative analyses, and supporting secondary research.

To view, go to bit.ly/youthofseattle

Research Process

To scope our project, we created a research plan and carried out literature reviews and landscape analyses. We conducted organizational research by interviewing directors and staff from departments that serve young people.

Then we hit the streets to hear directly from residents.

Interviewing Young People

Staff members and interns volunteered to interview young people at different locations around Seattle. Research activities included hour-long scheduled interviews as well as pop-up photo booths.

The photo booths elicited interest from people passing by, who–in exchange for a short interview–would receive a free photo for professional or personal use. We created several pop-up photo booths to capture people’s stories.

One location was at Seattle Central.

Free Youth Photo Booth at Seattle Central

Another location was inside The Armory at Seattle Center.

Pop Up Photo Booth

Free Youth Photo Booth at the Armory

Between our 1-hour scheduled interviews and our quick intercept-style interviews, we had over 25 hours of tape. We transcribed the the audio and pulled out interesting quotes.

Transcribing Interviews

In ten weeks, we were able to talk to over a hundred young people, parents, and employers.

Interviews

Our interviews produced hundreds of data points and to make sense of it – we externalized it all by putting individual notes on the wall.

Synthesizing Research

We interpreted each data point by asking ourselves, What does this mean? Why does it matter? We organized the notes based on inferred likeness. We started seeing patterns across people.

For example, a theme emerged around the need for young people to have support from caring adults.

Sample Data Point

Our core project team of two collected, processed, and synthesized the data, but we invited other staff to join us at every step of the process.

This served to create a shared sense of what happened in the research and helped us to make meaning out of data and come up with actionable insights.

Discussing Insights

Our research generated hundreds of data points and dozens of themes.

Data Points in Spreadsheet

Ultimately we ended up with 16 insights to refine. We used flow diagramming and combined insights and used other methods to find new ideas.

Research Insights

We shared our work with our partners as we went.

City Partners

We facilitated activities to have staff learn human-centered design tools and have the opportunity to contribute their own observations and insights.

Insight Worksheets

Through our research, city staff cultivated a deeper understanding of youth and young adult experiences and how to better support their needs on their journey to careers.

David & Litzy

Our work took a human-centered approach to shift the conversation towards designing ideas, policies and initiatives to address our young residents’ strengths and needs.

Next Steps

The insights generated from our research will be used to inform a series of public workshops on the week of September 10th.

If you are interested in identify opportunities to create or improve policies, programs, and services – join us!

This work will ultimately contribute to informing Mayor Durkan’s portfolio of youth initiatives. We’d love to hear from you.

Kaylyn, Matthew, Ana

Thank you!

Thank you to all our participants and research partners! Special thanks to Seattle Center for hosting a photo booth and to our photographer, Olli Tumelius.

Susan & River

Stay tuned to hear more about our research activities in our next post.

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