co-design report by miyayanhuang

facing the issue of “skill-mismatch” in europe,

co-design sessions with participants

are held to facilitate design discussion.

The Co-Design Report How to involve the users and stakeholders in the design ideation stage?

What kind of “creative collaboration space” we build for them?

What kind of “co-design” tools we design for them?

C NTENT Concept Brief--Sorting Hat Progra Where we last took off. Steps of the concept

2. Aim

Introductio Access information about the future of wor Self assesment and skill evaluatio Job simulation by the compan After-service

3. Tool

Introductio Environmental set-u Tool Boundary Objects

4. Performanc

Introduction of participant Session-1 User Session-2 User Session-3 User Session-4 Expert Session-5 Expert Session-6 Experts

5. Evaluation

6. Conclusio

Key learning Next steps

7. References

Concept

Brief

Sorting Hat Program

Find your direction

Where we last took of... Prepare the future workforce

Sorting Hat Program

Find your direction

#Simulation of work

#lower the cost of error

#orienting

Companies

Individuals

Re-skill the current workforce Our idea and aim is to help young people to match their skills as closely as possible to the jobs and, in order to increase the employment rate in the EU and the employment rate of young people, we propose to try out a job of the young person's choice in advance and, by means of a practical work simulation, to conclude whether it is really suitable for the job and to stick to it.

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

Access Information about the future of work

Self assesment and skill evaluation

Job simulation by the company

1. Access Information about the future of work Accessing information of the future job at the right age is important. When kids and young people are getting educated, our program provides them (or with their parents also) an overview to explore the future job trends and skill needed in a playful way.

This interactive and clear way allows anyone to access the imformation easily.

2. Self assesment and skill evaluation Having a clear self-understaning of yourself is necessary. In our program, for kids can make a self assesment by trying the skills with the help of teachers and parents. Also, some scentific assesments are offered to young to evaluate their skills so they can learn their skill map.

For young adults, before selecting their direction of study and developing their specialized skills, they can take assessment through job simulations to better understand which skills they have and what more they need to do to achieve their goals, and understand if its realistic.

3. Job simulation by the company Being able to try in a real working environment before is good for the transition from study to work.

So, in our program, the companies would provide a simulation of their work culture and future jobs required in different sectors, where young adults can come and experience the skills required in the future job market.

They don't do the real job-work as internships, but only an imitation of the situation and process.

This would not only help young people to explore various jobs and companies but also to select the direction they want to develop their skills in. This further helps us to bridge the gap between skills acquired and jobs taken.

4. After-service After our program, young will be more clear and confident about their job direction. What we offer is the guidance so they are motivated to reach their career goals by upskilling themselves.

Our program can be accessible even after work to refelct and reskill themselves.

Aims

Introduction Before designing the tools, we ask ourselves “what would we want to understand through this co-design session? ” so we take a step back to our concept steps, for each step, we wrote down the questions that we want to find our answers in the co-design sessions.

First, we wrote questions as precise as possible, so we can find the right tools to answer them.

Post-its are used to gather every questions together. Question types cover from “where” “who” “how” to “online/offline” “environment elements” “duration” “investment”.

Second, we classified the questions arrcording to who they are addressed to. (such as some deeper questions like “How is this service funded? How would it effect the quality of simulizations?” can be answered by experts)

(and some subjected questions like “what suggestions you want to learn after simulation” can be answered by users.)

Other questions needed to can be answered by both users and experts.

So our aim is to explore the ansers to different questions in different participants(users and experts).

1. ACCESS INFOrmation ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORK EXPERTS

USERS

1. When should people start to get information about the future job market?

2. Should the information about the job market be accessed once during an event or frequently from users individually? 3. Should there be different programs/ actions for different age groups? And how should they be different from one another? 4. Who should be involved in the process?

(ex: only kids, parents, teachers...) 5. What is the current knowledge of our participants about this topic and which are their whishes for the future? 6. Where should the users access the information?

(ex: in school, at home, in an outside space) 7. How should the students access the information? On-line or off-line? with an expert or an interface?

2. SKILL EVALUATION EXPERTS

USERS

1. What is the right age for young people to start evaluating their skills?

2. How often should the skill evaluation take place?

(free access, once a month, only once…)

3. Where should the skill evaluation take place? (home, school, external place, online...)

4. Should the skill evaluation be done by a career conselour or should it be a self evaluation done individually?

5. Should the skill evaluation be done in groups or by individuals? 6. After the skill evaluation, should the career conselour suggest a future direction or remain neutral and let the person explore his/her options?

7. How much importance should people give to the results? Would this knlowledge make them try to improve or would it make them give up on the ones in which they are less good in?

3. SIMULATE THE WORK E X P E RT

SERS

1. At what age should people start the job simulation?

2. When would be the best time to do this job simulations? (regularly, during the summer...)

3. Should people go to the companies to do the simulation? or different companies come together at a place like a fair/ museum?

4. Do the companies publish their programs for users to apply or users ask the companies they are interested in to do a simulation? 5. Is company the service provider? Is the service managed by an external organization? 6. Should the simulations take place individually or in groups? 7. How long should the simulations be in order to be suitable for both company and users? 8. How many simulations are enough for one person before choosing the formal job? Should there be a limit? 9. How does this simulation process actually happen in the company? What kind of activities should the users do in the specific? 10 . How is this service funded? ( ex : by the company, an external organization , a public entity, the users... )

. How would it effect the q uality of simulizations?

4. After- service EXPERTS

USERS

1. Is the relationship with the company mantained after the job simulation is over?

2. Do people get guidance on how to reach their career goals after the program is over? Get suggestions on educational choices and possible employment?

3. Should people be able to access the service again if they change their mind on their career choices?

4. Does our service reccomend other similar companies and jobs after the job simulation?

Tools

Introduction After listing down the questions we need to answer, in order to develop our concept further, and specifying which answer we would be able to get from user or experts. We searched for tools that can be used to answer these questions. The tools were then placed on the collaborative design framework according to the style of guidance for the tools and thesubject matter.

Facilitating

Exper ts

Dairy

Users

(seperate for users and exper ts)

Warm-up

Issue

activity

Cards

(seperate for users and exper ts)

Topic

Concept

Driven

Driven Place on the map Walk

through

Emotion Card Steering The Collaborative Design Framework

7 users

3 sessions

4 experts

3 sessions

Duration

1:30 Hours each

1:45 Hours each

Environmental Set-up The co-design activities were organised to be done in presence mostly. With all the seven users it was done in three in-presence sessions of 1:30 to 1:45 hours each. For the experts we had one session online and two sessions in presence.

The activities were arranged in a sequence on a large table at Laura’s house, where the users were most comfortable to join us. Most of the work was carried in small groups of 2-3 people. The home environment gave a welcoming and comfortable environment to the users to talk and discuss their thoughts freely.

For experts, the activities in presence were arranged in a more formal environment of the University, at the open photography lab. There were two sessions with one expert at a time.

One session with two of the experts was conducted online due to some limitations of time. The content was organized on Miro and the meeting took place through the Webex. Although one expert was time bound, but she was enjoying the session that she extended her time limit to complete the session.

Tools Although few of the tools we used were same for both the categories of participants, there were few tools which had different information on them for users and experts. One of the tools of issue cards was specifically designed for experts.

Dairy

This tool was made to send to the participants with the invites before the codesign session. It constituted of few simple questions related to the participants and also related to the topic of skills. There were different dairies for users and experts, asking them seperate questions.

Warm-Up Activity

The warm-up activity for “users” was designed in a way to make the participants comprehend the topic about skill mis-match, by putting themselves in the situation of matching soft and hard skills with the jobs of the future.

While for the “experts”, we created four avatars based on personalities which the participants had to select and talk a little about the diary they filled based on the avatar. The color code was also further used in other activities.

Tools Place on the Map

The questions about “where” and “who” were answered through this tool. A map, with buildings showing different environments arranged over it, was spread on a table. At first, the participants had to use the small cards which displayed the different steps of the concept. The cards had to be placed near the buildings where they think that step should take place at. Next the 3D figures, representing the people who can be involved in those steps and places, were to be placed on the map. They could use multiple cards and figures for each step. Simply moving figures around the map and making a dialogue about it, allowed the participants to quickly test and explore the alternatives.

Service Walk-Through

The questions about “when” and “how” were answered using this tool. A series of statements, in sequence of the steps of the concept, were arranged. The participants were walked through each of them. They voted using colorcoded cards. If they didn’t agree, we provided them with further options for the situation and they could also add their own opinions. Each situation was discussed one after the another. One activity within the walk-through was about visualizing the job simulation situation. Participants had to place random job/ work related objects on the image of an empty office space.

Tools Issue Cards

Issue cards are used to promote discussion, to suggest new avenues of exploration, to structure thinking, and to spark ideas (Issue Cards | Service Design Tools, n.d.). Due to the complexity, issue cards were particularly designed for the experts. The idea behind issue cards was to have a discussion on each topic with the drinks and snacks, so that the participants don’t feel pressurised and have a relaxed ejoyable mood.

Emotion Cards

This tool is about the attitude and expections of the participants towards the concept. How do they feel about the idea of providing job simulations to young people and students doing skill evaluations from a younger age!

Feedback Diary

Thi feedback diary was sent to the participants after the co-design sessions for getting their critique and opinions about the whole codesign session, to help us know what could have been improved.

Boundary Objects A boundary object is a 'thing' that is both defined enough that several communities can recognise it as the same thing, yet flexible enough that each community can use it according to their own needs (Cooper-Wright, 2018). They help people from different communities build a shared understanding. In the “warm-up” activity, we had small cards with hard skills and soft skills written on them, in both English an Italian languages to make it more inclusive for everyone. The cards were also color coded to make them stand out visually.

For the “place on the map” activity, the buildings representing the environments and figures representing the people involved were used as the boundary objects. There were also small cards representing each step of the concept.

For the “walk-through” activity, small voting cards color-coded for each participant were made. To visualise simulation part of the activity, images of various random objects related to jobs/ work were kept for participants to place on the image.

Performance

Introduction of Participants For users, we want to invite young generations who are in the time of skill confusion or facing direction choice.

So we found 4 high school students who are in their last year of high school, facing application for university and 3 girls in their first year of bachelor. Name:Beatrice

Age:20

High school type:Liceo Artistico

University: Lenguages and literature at “Università Statale di Milano” Name:Sara

Age:20

High school type:Liceo Scientifico

University: Lenguages and literature at “Università Statale di Milano” Name:Aurora

Age:20

High school type:Liceo Artistico

University: Lenguages and literature at “Università Statale di Milano” Name:Davide

Age:18

High school type:Liceo Scientifico Name:Brian

Age:18

High school type:Liceo Scientifico Name:Vittoria

Age:18

High school type:Liceo Classico Name:Matilde

Age:18

High school type:Liceo Classico

Introduction of Participants For experts, we tried to connect experienced workers and field specialists also focusing on the area of “young generation skill mismatch”.

Also we connected with some organizations working on “better transition from study to work for young”, like JA italia and Fawlts. Name:Tia Finn

Working years:40

Job tittle:Career and Life Coach

The role for young generation: Guide

Name:Elena Felicioli

Working years:2.5

Job tittle:High school educator with special educational needs kids

The role for young generation: Supporter

Name:Martina Rossi

Working years:6

Job tittle:Service designer and HR specialist

The role for young generation: Supporter

Name:Sabrina Lipari

Working years:5

Job tittle：Programme Manager at JA Italia

The role for young generation: Supporter

Session-1 USERS The first session was done in-presence face-to-face with three girls who are in their First Year of the University. The language used for the conversation was mostly English. Date: 15.11.2021 Place: Laura’s House

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Participants:

Beatrice Porro

Sara Mazzilli

Aurora

Role of the team:

Laura

Yan

Niyati

Jingbin

Dairy

As the first year student in bachelor, most of them have general thinkings of career plan.

All of them agree that online job and social media is the job trend.

They are not satisfied with the previous consultation experience.

Warm-up Activity

mins

--“it's difficult to understand jobs for us (in warm-up activity), so it would be so much difficult for the kids and parents”

Insight

At first they were little confused about the jobs since they didn’t know much about them. After a minute of discussion they could match the skills. The activity helped to break the ice between all the team and started a discussion related to skill mis-match.

Session-1 USERS 30

Place on the Map

mins

3 girls showed great enthusiasm in this part, especially Beatrice.They all chose places they thought is appropriate and in this steps, they were inspired and some new roles were created to involve.

--“I don't trust external ideas…cuz they might have difficult understanding on future job”

--“…So I feel like it's my decision first and then they (family)can accept it, they can understand what I'm doing.”

--“Professional will be useful to understand it better when I search."“

Insight 1:

The youngs prefer to search info about job online on their own but also with professional guidance, and family should keep separate while youngs are making their choices.

--“…because when we were talking about the idea of like an interactive, exposition then that would make sense."

--“I feel like it (co-work space)should be a controlled environment where you can stay focused. ”

Insight 2:

An interactive and expositive museum with professional workers can be suitable for access info and simulation.

Program should start from school and other process outside school.

Co-work space is good place to be concentrated, good for being in group or individually for skill evaluation and info access, also same for Expo/ fair.

Session-1 USERS

--“I'm thinking that maybe there could be useful to work with people your age but not your friends or classmates and other people, you don't know. ”

--“……because like on your own you're more concentrated. You're not so focused on just being with your friends so you have to venture on your new things.…… new version of you…”

Insight 3:

It will be useful to work with people at their age that they don't know, so they feel more concentrated to explore new version of you . also new people is who they will work with in the future.

Also teachers might be a pressure for them.

--“…for classmates who are you're gonna leave when you're work. So it's not useful to to me to interact with them, to have a, to get a decision. " --"I wanna meet people who having knowledge ……and they are knowledged so I would learn more than searching and having objective informations.It's better to have information from people that have experience them.……”

Insight 4:

job simulation will be great with guidance (such as career counselor, teachers or some people who are experienced) in some collabrated spaces

Also some explicative lesson beforehand.

Session-1 USERS Walk-through

mins

While voting, their answers are not always the same, which created more conversations on different point s of view.

--“…then 10 years later when you actually get into the industry, it will change.”

--“if you could do it(evaluation) every day that could become an obsession

--“…so it should be clear to the students why they're doing it. Otherwise They would just feel like a force…”

Insight 5:

Info of job market is changing so it is not so necessary to know them so early. “wild dream in kid, realistic choices when older”.

Accurate skill evaluation is better at late teenager age (12-15), and it doesn't need to be done very often otherwise it can be addictive and confusing.

If the job simulation is mandatory, it should not being feel like a forced upon the students.

--“… kind of game but in long run would be better to try if the job is for you, That's not gonna work for a while."

--“No(real clients), because they were just put too much pressure, and that could make like scared of the work that's gonna happen, more than just make them excited about it.”

Insight 6:

In the job simulation environment: real job tasks; but no real clients; keep them excited rather than put much pressure on them.

Session-1 USERS

--"maybe it (VR techonology) will be good for some medicial simulation, like surgery work, right?"

--" …but in an office setting, I don't see the except for this technology, that could become but not super useful. "

--"I don't know if it could be distracting.… "

Insight 7:

Some job like medical professional maybe VR technology can be useful,

but this high technology thing is more impressive than useful.

--“maybe someone was like a carpenter the whole life and they get to 50 and like I really like computers and they want to reinvent themselves.”

--“ I feel like anyone should be given the opportunity to do so,"”

Insight 8:

Generally job simulation in 5 working days is enough but it should depend on the job types. and unlimited times simulations which should be accessible for all ages.

Emotion Cards All of them strongly agree to have job simulation and skill evaluations, and less interested in accessing information about job market.

mins

Session-2 USERS The second session was done in-presence, face-to-face with two boys who are in the last year of their High School. The language of this session was Italian. Date: 15.11.2021 Place: Laura’s House

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Participants:

Davide

Brian

Role of the team:

Laura

Niyati

Yan

Jingbin

Dairy

From the diary we understood that the two guys were the ones who had a more clear understanding of what they wish to do in their future. Both of them had quite realistic expectations: Brian would like to become a doctor and Davide an Engineer.

Warm-up Activity --“I don’t know what most of these jobs are, I can only guess it”

mins

Insight

They had a lot of troubles matching the skills to the jobs, even for the most simple ones. After the warm-up activity they made some interesting reflection on how school teaches them how to study, but doesn’t give them any real information about what comes after university.

Session-2 USERS

Place on the Map

mins

--“…learning online individually can be the right direction, expecially through videos. But you need to feel that the person talking about it is passionate”

Insight 1:

In this case Davide and Brian would like to have their parents involved in the process, because they care about their opinion and trust them, but they also value the presence of a specialist. They didn’t know what co-working spaces were, but they found that

Walk-through

--“Choosing a University now is already hard enough... I don’t know if it will match my expectations. I can’t even start to immagine how a real job environment will be”

mins

Insight 2:

They are very critical about the “Alternanza scuola-lavoro” program since they feel that it’s not teaching them anything valuable. But they also agree with the idea behind it that the school should push students towards work experiences at the age of 18, right before finishing highschool.

Emotion Cards

--“I think that the information about the job market shold be accessible when you need to make your university choice or before choosing a technical school, before that I wouldn’t know how to use that information”

mins

Session-3 USERS The third session was done in-presence, face-to-face with two girls who are in the last year of their High School. The language of this session was mixed English and Italian. Date: 17.11.2021 Place: Laura’s House

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Participants:

Vittoria

Matilde

Role of the team:

Laura

Yan

Niyati

Jingbin

Dairy

Vittoria and Matilde are at the end of their highschool in which they focused on humanistic and classical subjects. Choice that they regretted since they feel that is not the field they would like to build a career in. Vittoria wants to become a vet, while Matilde is still exploring possibilities.

Warm-up Activity

mins

--“it's interesting to see which are the most requested soft skills, I think I can improve some of them.”

Insight 1

They were really partecipating in the activities and gave many isight about the current guidance that they receive at school. They would like this program to be connected to school in order to be able to coordinate with the homework and all the other activities.

Session-3 USERS Place on the Map

--”if you have updates(on job market info), you see them without searching ”

--“……18 to 19 because it's the last years of high school and maybe the first year of university… then you should learn how to do your future job .”

mins

Insight 2:

Job simulation should around 18-19 which is the exact age after high school.

Insight 3:

Online features are not very appealing, They would like to experience everything first hand because it could be much more valuable.

Walk-through

--“……I like it more groups with some people i dont know instead of with friends, cuz you would use this a person that you know like shield. “

--”……(simulation) in full-time. So it's like a real experience. ”

mins

Insight 4 :

Get off of the comfort zone and work with people you dont know even with the o ffi ce groups.

One week routine in full-time job is more like a real experience .

Emotion Cards

mins

3 steps are important for them, they recognited the necessity of simulation and access job market onfo.

Session-4 EXPERTS The fourth session was done online with two experts. Tia Flin, one of the experts, is a career and life coach and is working since 40years in the feild. Elena Felicioli is a high school educator and works with children with special needs. The language used for the conversations was English. Date: 18.11.2021

Place: Online (webex and miro)

Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

Participants: Tia Fin Elena Felicioli Role of the team:

( l e f t to r i g h t )

Yan

Niyati

Laura

Jingbin

Dairy

In Tia’s opinion, the people who will succeed will embrace constant change, be flexible in their roles and seek to continually learn as the world changes. As per Elena, Decision making, Service orientation, Mental Flexability are the skills needed for the future.

Warm-up Activity To start we introduced our project background and concept steps. Then based on their personalities, they chose thier avatar. Tia Finn selected the “creative” and Elena was the “sweet” one.

mins

Insight 1:

The small activity of just choosing your avatar, helped in breaking the ice as this built a dialogue about themselves.

Session-4 EXPERTS Place on the Map

mins

After explaining about the concept, the experts took 10 mins to do the place on the map activity after which we discussed their decisions about selecting the place and also people for doing the steps. --“...we did simulations in primary school, where they see how the real world jobs is and not only what is on the kid’s mind” -Tia

Tia thinks, for the job simulations, anenvironment must be created along with the comapny volunteers and it can be done anywhere, also online.

--”…information can be accessed in public spaces like museum/expo, where they can talk to someone experienced.” -Elena

Insight 2:

Accessing information from experts in the feild would be more effective.

With the levels of uncertainity, all the service steps even the job simulations, should be provided also online for everyone to access.

Walk-through

mins

For the service walk-through, the experts had to vote their answers using the color-coded voting dots.

Session-4 EXPERTS As per Tia, accessing information about the future jobs should take place at an earlier age. and at later ages they get more technical and focused.

Both of them agreed thatit should be avaiable online and anytime.

--“...8 year olds today are more advanced and think more freely” -Tia

For whether the simulations should be done in groups or individual, Elena said that it depends on the age. Kids would like to do in groups and young adults would like to do it individually. Also, they should get to do what the real person does in that job. --“...cultural fit is very important, it should accurately reflect the environment of real jobs.” -Tia

Both Tia and Elena think that job simulations should be short although they depend on the type of job, but it shouldn’t be more than 2 or 3 days long. As they can learn about the type of job and company in that much time.

There should also be a legitimate process. --“...as for my experience, often after 3 days people let their gaurd down.” -Tia

Insight 3:

There should not be a limitation on how many times people can do the job simulations, but there must be a legitimate process to do that to avoid misuse of the service.

After the skill evaluation the service should also recommend people where to get these skills, this is where the universities come in.

Session-4 EXPERTS Emotion Cards --“...the idea is realistic and very useful fir kids and youngsters.” -Tia

Issue Cards

mins

--“...job information depends on age, because it shows you the difference between fantasy and reality ” -Elena

mins

After a short break of 10 minutes, we discussed the issue cards. After knowing everything about the service and also designing few points with us, the experts could easily get deeper into the topic and talk about the issues.

--“...we can also provide access points to people in mid-career. you should have something for everybody. talking about only high school is narrowing down the scope.” -Elena

--“...networking and personal branding are critical because of digital recruiting and because we start at a young age and if they show themselves wrong, their relationship with the company would be effected.” -Tia

Insight 4:

We should avoid users to pay, even people with no money should be able to use the service, since its for their betterment and future. Its in the best interest of the government and companies, so the funding should be done by them

Service should be provided from an external organization, it would be more unbiased, so that companies are not sugarcoating and promoting themselves in an unethical way. The companies are only an important stakeholder.

Session-5 EXPERTS The fifth session was done in-presence, face-to-face with Martina Rossi. She is a service designer and a Human Resource Specialist. The language used for conversations was English. Date: 19.11.2021

Place: Polimi, Edificio B2

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Participants:

Martina Rossi

Role of the team:

Niyati

Yan

Laura

Jingbin

Diary & Warm-Up Activity

Martina works as a service designer and HR specialist both in school and company context, coordinats the team issue among young generations.

Place on the Map --”online is like being given in informal situation like some planned talking…… ”

--”senior classmates who has work a little bit can be involoved……cuz still the students look at you as a appear by someone who can give a real advice on the job market.“

--”in a co-work space, different companies in there and you see and you have different recruiters there……”

mins

Insight 1:

Accessing info can happen in some collabrative spaces, physical

Some job simulation can launch in the counselor office(outside company)

Senior classmates can be a bridge between students and job market.

Session-5 EXPERTS

Walk-through

mins

According to Martina, access to information should be at a later stage than evaluating skills and having job simulations which can rather be done at earlier ages. --”for me, creating the physical environment of the job simulation scenario was the best part of this session…… ”

Emotion Card

After a long session of walk-through, we had a little break and also did the emotion card simultaneously to save on time. She strongle feels that young people should take job simulations before choosing their career paths.

mins

Issue Cards

Martina feels that for funding, users shouldn’t be made to pay, because then only some people with money would do it. --”people who don’t have money and are struggling with their careers would be excluded…… ”

--”there can be a platform, where all companies have their data and users can maintain relation there…… ”

mins

--”your target users should be young adults and new workers, or people working for 4-5 years…… ”

Insight 2:

Keep the service free to use for the users, money wise as well as for accessibilty. Since young adults are so active online, their should be a platform through which they can access the information anytime and also maintain their progress and relaionship with the companies they simulate with.

Session-6 EXPERTS The sixth session was done in-presence, face-to-face with another expert from JA Italia who is the program manager for entrepreneurial and finance literacy school programs. The language used for conversations was English. Date: 19.11.2021

Place: Polimi, Edificio B2

Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

Participants:

Sabrina Lipari

Role of the team:

Yan

Niyati

Laura

Jingbin

Dairy

Sabrina described her as a supporter to ensure that the program is delivered in the schools in time, primarily dedicated to the elementary and middle schools.

She will remodule the program with new variables based on different needs and priorities in different local contexts.

Warm-up Activity

mins

Before start, we introduced our project background and concept steps, and she gave us some suggestions about it as an uexpected discussion.

Insight 1:

There should be a monitoring process after service, which keeps tracking the users and the project will evolve based on generation’s feedback.

Then we asked her to choose the avatar based on her personality, Sabrina choosed the “CR EATI V E ” one !

Session-6 EXPERTS Place on the Map

mins

Sabrina chose the places and combined the stakeholders quickly, she also mentioned some new spaces like non-profit organization, new people like company volunteers.

--“I would like to see an association with nonprofit organization”

--“I think it (skill evaluation)is better individual for me.”

--”…but in the high school, you don't have the counselor office. and I think it should happen in two different moments of your life.”

Insight 2:

Non-profit organization should be accessible to every children.

Skill evaluation in individual is better and carrer counselor, who is important both in high school and university, is not so common in italy.

--“During job simulation, you can do these things with manager voluntary help you like some employees.”

--“cuz they(employee) live in the reality of the job, so they can really some help you to understand it's how can you work in this field or what are the skills required?”

--“access information with some employees cuz they are more closer to the real market. ”

Insight 3:

During simulation, job shadowing session with experienced employee volunteers who can bring real market info close to young genneration.

Session-6 EXPERTS

--“you can do like a workshop in the library with the children or the kids. or like a laboratory?And also in the museum makes make sense. ”

--“…the major or the municipality institution, because they can help to do some events in the city open to all the citizens, so you can open it also into the family because they have a lot of contact with the family. ”

--”They can use also they Facebook page, their social media to to sponsor these events makes sense.”

Insight 4:

Some spaces like lab/library/museum (even more public spaces in cities) where government can launch some educational events (such as access Info) for citizens (even with families or local communities).

Take advantage of the power of the community and the social media.

Walk-through

--”I think that is important to have it (info)online, but you can also have some live session, ”

--”… to set a a correct time liner timeline evaluation, every 6 months, … you can do self assessment that is changing every time.”

--“(job simulation) in middle school is too earlier for them, maybe after the high school… related to their choice.”

mins

Insight 5:

Accessing info can be flexible online as some live discussion;

It should be time liner skill evaluation that you can assess yourself regularly.

Job simulation around 18 so they can make decision of university. 2 options to book, “calendar in the summer by group” and “other free time individually”

Session-6 EXPERTS --”…maybe in the first 2 days, a whole view of their jobs and later let you know the others people in the staff and their tasks…also company can observe youngs at the same time, so not too short.”

Insight 6:

Job simulation in 5 working days (first overview and details other days) with real tasks.

Emotion Card

skill evaluation and simulation are important to you learn yourself and choose career.

Info accessibility should not be too much otherwise it will distracte youngs.

mins 10 mins

Issue Cards

30 mins

--”……education ministry, they can help to develop …you need to have a multicycle.They can use as their corporate social responsibility.”

--“Some people are not engaged with a company, like freelance”

--”So I think it's important to have this opportunity, and I can change my mind of my career choice in every time keep on scaling……”

Insight 6:

Multi stakeholders with corporate social responsibility can support.

Program can scale into life long learning and should adjust according to ages.

Evaluation

Introduction At the end of all the six co-design sessions done with a total of eleven participants, seven users and four experts, we got sufficient amount of insights to answer the main questions which would help us to further develop the project concept.

With every session we learnt new things and also understood our shortcomings in desiging the co-design session. We tried to rectify them and kept on improving the sessions every time, taking inspirations from the insights from users and experts.

Interaction with participants

All the eleven participants in both user and expert co-design session were very responsive and open-minded. They made an attempt to analyze the project concept and discuss their perception. The users being in the last year of high scool and the first year of university, were able to relate to the problem of skills and jobs. The experts are already working in the field related to jobs & education and therefore the interactions with them were very insightfull. As per there feedbacks this is a really important topic and should come out as a good concept when developed further. “I had a lot of fun but it was also inspiring and reflecting at the same time – it doesn’t happen too much that we have time to reflect we’re always in a hurry.”

--Sabrina, JA italia, (expert)

Effectiveness of tools With the progress in each session we realised some problems within the tools and kept on amending them. In the first session, we had planned same warmup activities for both users and experts. But after the session we got to know the time each activity is taking up and how we should mold them for the users so as to indulge them in more verbal discussions. So, we reduced the warmup activity for the experts and used issue cards for them as a discussion promt. Since the issue cards were introduced in the end, after a short break with apperitivo, experts were able to relax and we had a dialogue regarding the issue which gave a lot of good insights.

“All the activities were well differentiated from each other, so each one did its task well！” --Sara Mazzilli, (User)

Aims acheived Our main aim for this co-design session was find solutions for questions related to the age, where the service should be provided and how can it take place. We also wanted to understand the feasibility of the project with the experts, to which they agreed and also made us understand about the limitations that we can face in future.

“Remember sometimes to maintain a multi-stakeholder approach- where the idea of product is directly create and deliver by the real users - can make everything more efficient and more "productive" (even in the social and cultural life of the local community in which you live).

--Sabrina, JA italia, (expert)

What could be changed Although during the sessions we made some changes and refined the tools we would like to improve more if we had to redo the sessions. For warm up activity with users, we would like to take it longer to make a discussion with users because we experienced that they were interested in the jobs and didnt know about it well.

We want to give more blank options to the participants (other than post-its) so they can express themselves better. Improve the usability of the online session, because we created the it in the last moment because of change plans. We would like to work better with time management, it would be better to agree with people to have more time and not have the session in a rush.

Conclusion

Key learnings As per the feedbacks from our co-designers, we analyzed that the main idea of our concept seems to be working. Both users and experts liked it a lot and said that they would definitely take part in it. They appreciated that it's a service that combines the job simulations with, the previous steps. Thus putting the various steps together can help people and it's never been done before.

With the experts, we had a better understanding of some steps that could be done starting from the younger age. But in general, we want to start getting the Information in a more official way when they are in middle school ie starting from 13 year olds. We dont want the service to influence the dreams of kids, so the skill evaluation should start during the high school when they have better understanding. So, our target users are students from middle school to early years of university, but anyone who changes their mind and wants to access the program again can do it, its open for all.

We learned that the Information about the job market should be accessible, mostly online, because it's easy to access all the time, but there should be some in presence, opportunities and information about the future of the job market.

There is a need for a guidance of someone like a career counselor or a psychologist, or someone who knows or experience professionals.

For young parents should be involved, but just in later stages, first leave the kid to be able to choose also individually.

The relationship with the company should not be influenced by our service, but it should be encouraged like, there should be a possibility for the user to maintain a relationship with the company.

The simulation should happen in a real space scenario and environment for example a co-working space or learning laboratories.

The simulations should be offered both in groups or individual depends on the job and company, but only with strangers, to get people out of their comfort zones and be themselves.

The duration of simulation depends on the job, but around 2-5 days would be the perfect in order to be accessible to both user and company.

Users should not pay for the service and the simulation should happen during anytime of the year. The time can be managed and proposed by the companies, and users can apply accordingly.

Next steps With our key learnings and insights from these co-design sessions, we would go deeper into putting together the details of each step and develop the project further.

One really interesting thing is when we were talking with people from “Fawlts” regarding their participation for our co-design sessions, they found the project promising and were interested with a two-way collaboration with us.

FAWLTS is an organization which is working towards reducing the gap between school education and the world of work. “It is a community of +1500 professionals, organized in +40 hubs in +10 regions, who have decided to commit themselves to help the new generations in orientation to the world of work and in the acquisition of fundamental skills to reduce the number of NEETs in Italy.” (FAWLTS - from Alumni, with Love, to Students, n.d.)

We are looking forward to have a meeting with them and discussing our project with them in detail.

Resources

Tools Issue Cards | Service Design Tools. (n.d.). Service Design Tools. https:// servicedesigntools.org/tools/issue-cards Cooper-Wright, M. (2018, April 17). Prototyping and Boundary Objects - Matt CooperWright. Medium. https://medium.com/@matt_speaks/prototyping-and-boundaryobjects-b469b63d5115

Conclusion FAWLTS - from alumni, with love, to students. (n.d.). FAWLTS. https://www.fawlts.com/