FS COMMAND
A service design for RACPD, by 91 Untold
A multi-touchpoint service design solution to create innovation within the adult education environment. A focus on behavior and attitudes to adult Functional Skills in A military charity.
Role
Service Design Lead
Project Length
9 Months
Client
RACPD
Year
2021
Proposal
A service design solution targeted at increasing student engagement, improving the behavior and expectations of learners, and promoting healthy learning behavior.
Key Objectives
Increase percentage of learners who complete pre-course study
Increase the engagement and understand of learners surrounding the Functional Skills course
Increase tutor, and learner communication
Illustrate value and reward to learners within the Functional Skills course
Deliverables
A three-part service design solution
FS COMMAND - an in-class escape room
Pre-course learning platform - New streamlined and curated learning environment
CRM - Centralised communication platform to modernise the clients’ communication process
Discovery Research
Developed Research
Ideation and iteration
Development and Prototyping
Launch and Hand-off
Design Methodology
Discovery Research
Originally this project was media based. Upon meeting the client and talking through their goals and desires, I requested a week to conduct discovery research which would help clarify our client’s need, but also provide contextual knowledge to ourselves. However, while conducting this research it was clear, that if RACPD wanted to achieve their goals, a service design would be better suited to its needs.
The discovery research consisted of a week of in-person observations, embedding myself in the student’s experience as well as the service providers. This was followed by solo and group interviews to develop a rich understanding of the stakeholder’s needs and current environment.
Challenges
The end user base is incredibly complex; a range of technical skills (Maths & English), cultural backgrounds, relationships with education, and attitude
The client has a low operational budget
Functional Skills course ran over ten working days, with a very tight schedule
a minority of RACPD tutors seemed entrenched in teaching practice and showed negative reactions to the project at the beginning, the project will have to create buy-in within the tutors.
Need to ensure tutors (service providers) have good agency and buy-in with the project if the long-term impact is to be delivered.
Ad-hoc approach to organising learner classes due to the pace and nature of the Royal Artillery
Environment
RACPD operates around 15 sites nationwide, at various locations.
Classrooms are ‘Roughly’ set into a higher and lower set, but one bottom set to the next will have a massive range in skill
RACPD is based on RA military sites, which means site-visits have to be more calculated than before
Developed Research
After the discovery research, and the subsequent pitch and bid win, we moved into developed research. This is the stage we started to identify crucial stakeholders, processes, and other elements that critically we had to have a rich knowledge of. Ontop of this, the developed research was producing rich specific insights that started to form assumptions of the correct solution.
End Users
Due to the nature of our complex end user, it was important to complete rounds of focused research techniques, and in turn, create a deeper understanding of the range of specific needs.
This was visualised through a range of personas that represented classroom archetypes
Service providers
We were focused on the service providers after highlighting the group as significantly important in consideration of the operation and long-term impact of the project. Firstly we needed to ensure that we build a project around the stakeholders, meaning that the needs of the service providers must be built into the project specification. Secondly, we understood that there was a lack of ‘Buy-in’ from a minority of service providers. To align 91 Untold on the same side as RACPD’s tutors, we brought them into periodic design workshops which provided a massive boost in the tutor’s agency of the project, but also provided 91 Untold with a great depth of further understanding.
Research methodology
A range of primary research methods were used. As we developed our understanding of the client’s culture and environment, we developed maps of the relationships and processes within RACPD. Following this, we conducted two themes of research; Focused deep-dive research and iterative workshops. The focused research sessions targeted areas that were high value, this included key stakeholders or particular niches through in-person observations, solo or group interviews, or workshops. Iterative workshops were used as part of our Agile workflow and acted as bi-weekly checks on design progress. I used a variation of SWOT analysis to quickly sort and communicate common insights and highlight high value information that was critical to the project.
Ideation and iteration
Service design solution
From the developed understanding of the range of needs of RAPCD, it was clear that a single product was unlikely to remedy the range of problems. Therefore a service design was created to allow for a hybrid of physical and digital touchpoints, tied together through a consistent user journey. It considered the end users’ experience and the functionality of the service provider’s needs.
The deliverables
Pre-course learning platform
We took the analysis of the previous learning materials which was suffering from an expectation of students completing 40 hours of pre-course study, which had a completion percentage of zero. After this, we developed a new pre-learning course of a maximum of eight hours.
Our requirements for the new pre-learning were to create a positive, uplifting experience that would be able to be completed around typical army work. On top of this, we improved the user experience by providing coaching videos, links to existing RACPD materials as well as new enhancements aimed at leading a user through a slow build-up of maths and English use.
FS COMMAND - In-class escape room
The escape room was a hybrid between physical boxes and a digital program that functioned as the point of interaction. The game took the users through a bomb disposal narrative in which users had to use their skills from the pre-learning course to solve a series of maths-based challenges. The physical boxes acted as an inviting and fun environment to play and explore with (appropriately styled military gear was used). The laptop program acted as the communication point for the experience, playing a “How-to-play” video, a narrative intro and events, and a hint system. The game was designed to be completely independent of a service provider’s input, ensuring a minimum quality of experience.
Centralised CRM platform
Through the research conducted, it was obvious that a centralised communication platform would enable the service providers.
This would enable RACPD to run ‘drip’ campaigns where a learner receives links to the pre-learning platform over six weeks prior to the course start date.
It also allowed the end users to use one platform as a line of communication to RACPD where they received their course details, further information and open communication.
Moving to an automated system also feed up several hours per week from the service providers.
Development and Prototyping
As always, there are many more things to mention about a project development but here are a few of my favorite highlights of the development and prototyping phase.
Buy-In and intergration
As previously mentioned there was an identified risk that low buy-in from service providers may lead to reduced long-term impact or reduced use of the project. To allow the service providers the ability to create agency within the project through periodic exposure to development and feedback sessions. This allowed service providers to raise concerns and have an influence on the project design. This came in the form of monthly workshops or event-style catch-ups with the whole service team.
Creating credibility with the end user
Our end users were typically British-born young adults. Generally, the end users reported having a negative sentiment and relationship to education and more so to math and English. Additionally, the diploma that was awarded for the Functional Skills course had very little impact on their immediate career and many saw the FS course as a waste of their time. To introduce credibility to our pre-learning course we brought in an ex-RA personal trainer and used them as the figurehead of the project. We filmed a series of coaching videos that guided the user through the process but also communicated the value of the learning and why it was valuable to the end user. From this, we saw an immediate change in users’ perspective of pre-learning.
Escape room facilitating a range of technical skill
One of the largest concerns with an escape room task was the length to play. Courses already have a very tight schedule so the game was designed to take around one hour.
To remedy this we designed a complex flow map that would add or remove challenges automatically. This ensure that all classes were being challenged at a rate that boosted the learner’s confidence and familiarity with maths. It also ensured that classes that typically would have completed the game early will be challenged further.
Game as diagnostic
An example of the benefits of having a strong relationship with the client’s service providers was a surprising piece of functionality that was developed by a tutor. The tutor noticed that she could spot the students that would need extra support throughout the course, but also the social hierarchy and archetypes within the class at a much earlier point in the course. From this, we developed a somewhat secret test by ensuring that the escape room challenges used a different core piece of the curriculum. We developed a short guide for other tutors that allows engaged tutors to take full advantage of the escape room experience.
Launch and Hand-off
After nine months of research, development, and prototyping, 91 Untold launched the project and handed it over to RACPD.
RACPD has rolled out the product nationwide and uses the service as their pre-course user experience to promote engagement before FS classes.
