Prototype Discovery
Kristine Angell, Connecting People
Testing Prototypes
Exposures Academy,
New Options Initiative
Client: WK Kellogg Foundation
Team: Kristine Angell, Seth Kutnick, Jonghee Lee, Lin Lin, Shivani Mohan
Project Goal: The NOI project goal was to explore options to help out-of-school youths, specifically those who did not finish high school, find a life track, career path and/or future goals as research showed that youths who drop out go through many more jobs before finding a career path than their counterparts.
Methods
• Business and youth recruitment, preparation, and debriefing
• Exposure’s model prototype
• Business network model prototype
• Direct and indirect observations
• Group and individual interviews
• Findings analysis and synthesis
Objectives
• To see if exposure to something unknown triggers interest
• To test the assumption that “interest” brings into focus “key strengths”
• To test the assumption that OSYs respond positively to responsibility
• To evaluate and understand any transformation
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•To learn about employer’s experience
Prototype
Four exposure events to a total of twelve businesses took place. Each exposure, either over the course of one or two days out of school youth (OSY) visited two businesses a day. The youth were interviewed several times individually and as a group by the NOI team. Additional interviews were conducted with participating businesses, non-participating businesses, community based organizations and business organizations. Elements within the prototype included various youth recruitment styles (craigslist.com, testimonial or self recruitment, web, relationship building, recommendation); business preparation (amount of prep needed); visit elements (hands on, tour, discussion); and event introduction and location. Additionally, youth mentoring youth was approached as a possible model for ensuring successful youth visualization and goal creation.
