Designing a Personal and Meaningful Gift

Concept Overview

Prime Digital Academy is a premier bootcamp program for Full Stack Engineering and User Experience Design. As each new Full Stack Engineering class, or cohort, begins their intensive twenty-week program, they receive a welcome package with a Prime t-shirt, text books and a welcome gift. In light of the learning environment shifting to remote due to the pandemic, Prime was in need of a review of their current welcome gift to determine if it was appropriate and meaningful, or if a new gift needed to be designed. If it was determined that a new gift was needed, a new design concept was requested.

Research

Our team completed an heuristic analysis of the current water bottle gift with the goal of ascertaining how well it fulfilled essential tasks using Jakob’s 10 Usability Heuristics. The bottle was found to be not of high quality, inconvenient to use and clean, and an impersonal gift.

User Observations

I began by trying to understand what the experience of a full stack student completing this demanding program in the isolation of their own home would be. Participant observations of past full stack students were conducted through surveys and user videos of their home workspaces. Common themes arose, such as many students had makeshift desks or shared spaces with spouses. Some students had spartan surroundings, however my research also showed me that other full stack students chose to personalize their work spaces with art, plants, lamps, toys and action figures. This inspired me to create an item that could be displayed in common on every student’s desk. Something that would connect them and remind them of the importance of play in their stressful days.

Concept Design

Once heuristic analysis and user observations were complete, I determined that a new welcome gift should be designed. A custom “Super Coder” figure would be a meaningful gift for students who are currently learning from home. It would help to make them feel like a welcomed part of a community. The figure would allow them to personalize their workspace while also serving as an icebreaker in new groups to unite them with their cohort.

The small figure would be customized with a Prime t-shirt and cape and would be holding items that coders use in their work, such as a laptop and colored pens. It would be just the right size to stand next to a computer and remind a student that they are capable and powerful–a  super coder!

Students could be invited to photograph their figure in different areas of their workspace and share it with their cohort in Slack as an icebreaker, or even throughout their weeks at Prime as part of a stress relieving cohort game. 

Testing

Once I had a rough prototype of this figure I was able to test it with students, I conducted three, fifteen-minute video interviews with current full stack students to understand if this design concept could be successful. View the evaluation plan here.

Testing Goals

• Understand the degree to which this concept would be valued by full stack students

• Learn more about ways in which improvements could be made to make it a more meaningful gift 

• Understand alternative accessories that could be added to the figure to make it more personal

• Understand the ways in which this item might be leveraged by users to build relationships at Prime

Findings

My earlier research had shown that building relationships with other students was a vital part of their experience at Prime.  Students also told me that it was difficult to build those relationships early on. Because of the nature of online learning, current full stack students have little connection to each other at the beginning of their program, yet they eventually come to rely on each other for support through this intense experience. This figure could help them create those connections sooner, adding strength to those relationships.

• 2 out of 3 students strongly agreed that they would enjoy receiving this figure as a gift and would use it throughout their weeks in the program. They would even keep it afterward as a memento of their time at Prime. 

• One student while hesitant to commit to keeping the figure on his desk, admitted that he would keep it for a little while: the same student also added that while he wasn’t really a “toy guy” he thought the other members of his cohort would like it and were more “into action figures.”

• One student thought the figure would remind him and his classmates that life, and work, should be fun, and would make him think of Prime as a fun place.

• 3 out of 3 students agreed that sharing pictures of their coder figure from home during Tier 1 would help to connect them with their classmates.

• 3 out of 3 students agreed that the design of the figure seemed personalized to a Full Stack student.

• 3 out of 3 students agreed that they, and their cohorts, would find the figure a meaningful gift, whether it was just a fun toy that would give them a laugh for a few days, or could be a useful tool to process their thoughts and bond them with their cohorts.

An unexpected finding

Students told me about a problem solving method they were encouraged to use by their instructors and mentors called Rubber Ducking. Rubber Ducking involves telling an inanimate object on your desk about a problem that you’re having, and through the process of verbalizing the problem, arrive at possible solutions. This figure is ideally suited to Rubber Ducking.

Presenting to stakeholders

Finally, all these findings were compiled into a design proposal presentation for the client. I created a slide deck and presented my findings and recommendations to stakeholders at Prime.

Project Outcome

Through analysis, concept development and testing I was able to determine the need for, and present a gift design that was found to be valued, meaningful, personal and useful. I was able to confidently recommend that Prime include this figure in future welcome packets for full stack students.