Mid-Continent Oceanographic Institute (MOI)

nonprofit offering CReative writing help for K-12 Children

The Challenge

As an 826 National chapter in development, MOI provided numerous areas they wanted assistance with improving. I decided to focus on attracting more high school students, as well as looking into ways to instill knowledge, awareness, and a desire to utilize MOI's services among educators.

The Process

Research the problem space
Identify pain points for users
Document takeaways and suggestions
Prototype changes to MOI offerings
Present recommendations to client

The Solution

My strategy recommendations included changes in how MOI presents itself to educators, as well as an educator portal. I also proposed new programs aimed at teens and created a mockup of a web page displaying MOI's services for teens.

Research

I began the research by looking at what other 826 National chapters are doing for teens, as well as how successful those program offerings have been. This revealed the success that other chapters have had with satellite locations, which are rooms located within high schools dedicated to serving those older students, and confirmed that MOI's plan to create satellite locations of their own would be of great benefit. During this initial research, I also began reading through studies on Out-of-School Time (OST) programs. These studies covered the benefits that OST programs provide, demonstrating that there is definitely a need for MOI's services, as well as insights into how these programs are perceived by children and examples of successful tactics. Finally, after hearing that many educators don't look at the emails MOI sends to them because they are confused why a marine research institute from the coast is trying to contact them, I began looking at ways that educational startups and companies market themselves to educators.

Journey map of an educator's interaction with MOI

User Journey Maps

With all of this information in hand, I began creating journey maps to better visualize the pain points that the two user groups I was focusing on encounter during their interaction with MOI. For educators, I found that there were multiple major pain points. This starts when educators first are contacted by MOI and confused by the name. Then, when an educator goes to the MOI website to find out more, the content and call to action are not always clear. All of this hinders educators from fully interacting with and utilizing MOI's services.

Journey map of a high school student's interaction with MOI

For high school students, I discovered that the biggest obstacle was MOI's whimsical styling. While it does an excellent job of bringing in younger kids, teens might consider it too childish for them. During my reading on OST programs, one of the big takeaways was that teens typically don't want to be around younger children unless the teen can be in a position of authority, such as a mentor or tutor. The fact that MOI's main location is geared towards serving younger students further underscores that benefit that satellite locations and new programming could provide towards this older audience.

Documentation

During this time, I began creating documents to compile the key insights that I uncovered. By outlining the insights, along with including recommendations for how to use them to address some of the pain points, I was able to create a solid strategy. These strategy documents would remain instrumental throughout the process as a resource to consult if I became unsure about which direction to head or when I needed to confirm that the changes I was suggesting would fulfill their purpose.

Prototype

Now that I had identified the pain points, sorted through my key insights, and had come up with some recommendations, it was time to begin creating prototypes utilizing these ideas. To meet the needs of educators, I mocked up a version of what an educator portal on the MOI website could look like, as well as what sort content should be included to appeal to the interests and needs of the educators who would be using it. This would include lesson plans to help teachers easily discover new ways to present material to their students, as well as articles or blog posts pertaining to education.

I also created a similar page oriented toward high school students. This page highlighted the satellite locations that MOI is planning to implement in addition to the new programs I was suggesting, such as mentorship opportunities for teens. By allowing high school students to become mentors to the younger students, the mentors would be able to gain leadership experience and the younger children would have additional role models.

Presentation

This entire project culminated in a presentation that I delivered to the client stakeholders at MOI. I compiled my findings and prototypes into a deck of slides with attached appendix containing my research and documentation. Ensuring that this would cover the information that needed to be conveyed without being overwhelming, all while maintaining a clear flow and structure proved to be a very entertaining challenge. Ultimately, I was able to confidently and clearly convey the culmination of my time working with MOI.