The Carnegie Foundation

Carnegie's brand story

Carnegie advocates for the use of improvement science to accelerate how a field learns to improve. Improvement science deploys rapid tests of change to guide the development, revision and continued fine-tuning of new tools, processes, work roles and relationships. Since improvement research is an iterative process often extending over considerable periods of time, it is also referred to as continuous improvement. Carnegie believes that the most effective and efficient way to organize improvement efforts is through networked improvement communities (NICs), a colleagueship of expertise building on the hard work and creativity of many.

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Project brief

Carnegie's reach gets bigger year after year as the foundation continues to grow. As a result, there are always new users looking to stay connected to Carnegie throughout their journey in education.

Yearly, Carnegie hosts a summit which has been rapidly increasing in attendees. The question was, how do we keep these users engaged after the fact? Is there a way we can stay connected while also promoting our other events? The answer was yes, but the challenge was how? Since our foundation has programs within it, we had to factor that into our design.

For our first iteration of the app we only had the one event for users to "switch" to. Having completed our second Summit since launching the app we were able to get a full sense of the user's journey when they attend multiple events.

Research

The foundation doesn't have a designated research team that we could pull data from, so my colleague and I were responsible for collecting it ourselves. This required us to meet with each program lead to get a sense of what resources they wanted to have available to the users. Since both my colleague and I had never attended one of these events, this was also our chance to gather research on the process. This gave us insight into what other resources would need to be made available in order for the users to have a seamless experience. (i.e a map, lunch activities, etc.)

At the Summit, my colleague and I were able to see the app in action. We were also able to conduct user surveys (via SurveyMonkey) as individuals went from session to session to get instant feedback on their experience. The feedback overall was positive, with a common appreciation for being able to personalize their own schedule and network.

With our original design, the main goal was accessibility. We wanted to have everything the user would need within reach once landing into the app. Based on research gathered we determined that these resources were beneficial to the user's overall experience, especially because they would be "on the go" from session to session.

When we updated the design, our main goal was to simplify. With the Summit becoming virtual, we knew the user would have a more streamlined experience, so there was no need for excessive resources. We focused on promoting sessions and main Keynotes.

Logistics

In the main landing page you will notice a few icons, such as 'Schedule', 'Sessions by Strand', and 'Sessions by Area of Focus'. Although they all contain the same information, this provided the user with three different methods to look up, and be informed about, all of the sessions being held at the Summit. The user can then add events that interest them to their personal schedule.

In the original version you will notice an 'Attendees' icon. Here you would be able to find everyone that is registered at the chosen event (past or present). In the updated version we decided to move it to the "More" tab in order to continue with our streamlined approach. This was originally made accessible to attendees in order to promote networking and lasting connections. Individuals would be able to message each other through the app so that no personal information needs to be exchanged.

With our original design we wanted to have a centralized area for the user to access profile related items. The issue with this was, it was too busy. We were also repeating items that were already located on the landing page (such as; Summit Eval, Schedule, etc.).

For the updated version we wanted to stay true to our streamlined approach. With this in mind we decided to dedicate a tab to the user's profile. This provided better organization of resources and added to another goal of ours, which was to allow the user to fully customize their experience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we filled the need of the user by providing this application for Carnegie events. After launch we continued to iterate and improve, especially with the shift in going virtual. This provided its own challenge, but one we were able to meet and find solutions to. This app will forever be an evolving project as the foundation grows with new programs and users, so it will need to be able to fit those ever changing needs.

Next steps would include figuring out how to make the most of wasted/negative space, making sure the app is serving its purpose while also making sure we are making the most of available space. Still keeping our streamlined approach in mind, we would need to make the most of the space that is not currently being utilized (i.e landing page).