Integration & Iteration: Building AIP 2.0 and Preparing to Test
By: Rayna Preston & Jenna Andrews
Over the past few months, we’ve been sharing our journey of building a prototype that explores aging-in-place and connection to community. In our blog, The Power of Design Challenge Questions: 3 Tips for Setting Your innovation intention we shared how this topic area became a design question for NS GovLab. In The Design Squiggle and the Route of Aging Part I and Part II we explored the Route of Aging team’s time in the Lab as they tackled this design question and began the prototyping journey. Then, in Start Somewhere and Build on an Idea: Developing the Aging in Place Portal 1.0, we explored how NS GovLab took those early ideas and developed a first version of this prototype. In Dive Into Protoyping we shared what we learned from that first prototype, how we were beginning to think about what we could change and how we could iterate. In our second to last blog of this series, we want to share what we did to build out AIP 2.0 and how we moved forward with this concept.
Taking Feedback & Iterating
When we last left folks in our Dive Into Protoyping blog, we were exploring how might we questions for our second version of the Aging-in-Place Portal prototype (AIP 2.0). For example, with our first version of the AIP prototype, we learned that the tool had a judgmental tone and was highly achievement focused. For the second iteration, we asked ourselves, how might we create a tool that prompts people to reflect on aging-in-place without imposing a single narrative of what “aging well” looks like?
Over the Winter, 2021 our team held a number of brainstorming sessions to go through all of the feedback that we had received. We also were in the midst of conducting inspiration research with the ANS and urban Indigenous community around digital equity and inclusion for seniors; something that helped shape our understanding of needs for this work as well.
A visual capture of a brainstorming session of trying to re-imagine the second iteration of this prototype
Throughout the Spring and into Summer, Lab staff then worked with our vendor, WeUsThem to build our second iteration of this prototype, AIP 2.0.
AIP 2.0
Currently, AIP 2.0 is a web-based prototype assessment tool focused on activating reflection and thinking about one’s ability to age-in-place. It also aims to provide an easy way to access information about supports, services and programs that may be offered by the government or the non-profit sector that can support older adults to age-at-home for as long as possible. Here’s how it works:
Step 1
A user visits the AIP portal and is greeted by the landing page that says, “Positive Aging. Get connected to services, supports, and programs that can help you and your loved ones age well, safely and comfortably with as much independence as you want.”
Step 2
The user answers a set of personal questions about who they are, how old they are, and any other unique characteristics such as current employment status, whether they belong to an equity-deserving group, and their geographic location within Nova Scotia.
Step 3
The user then selects which domains related to aging-in-place are most important to them and their situation at the time. Users can choose one or multiple domains and return at a later time to select other options as they see fit.
In this version, based on feedback from users and from the Lab’s own inspiration research we made sure to incorporate domains related to Physical Health, Mental Health, Transportation, Home, Safety, Financial and Legal Issues, Spiritual Wellbeing and Identity and Sense of Belonging.
Step 4
The user answers a series of questions related to the domains they have selected. These questions and the response options are focused on getting users to reflect on their lives/the lives of those whom they love. As a user makes their selections, these movements in combination with the answers they provided in their initial interview section, enable the website to filter and sort the most relevant resources for them which are presented at the end of their interaction experience.
Step 5
At the end of the experience, the user receives a “Thank-You page” with a personalized list of resources for each of the areas of focus they chose. These resources are based on the user’s unique responses. To maintain the user’s anonymity the individual is provided an option to “Share Resources” by either emailing the list to themselves or someone else.
Building A Testing Plan and Learning Framework
As you might remember from our blog on prototyping, once you have a prototype that people can use, the next step is to test with real users. NS GovLab staff find it useful before we do this, to build a testing plan and learning framework. While a testing plan and learning framework is not a step-by-step instruction manual or a “must read” script, it can be a useful guide to help us focus on what we want to learn from our prototype and identify the different areas we might explore with users. Developing this can also help you figure out what sorts of tools or methods you may need or in thinking through the types of users you might want to speak with. And, having a testing plan also helps you give important consideration to how you will engage testers and how you will protect their privacy and anonymity in the process.
At the Lab, we abide by simple principles when it comes to engaging in testing, that are guided by respect, responsibility and honesty:
- We make sure that folx understand what we are doing and what they are agreeing to participate in and we seek participant’s active and fully informed consent before we begin any user testing;
- We provide any tokens of appreciation and incentives (like gift cards) upfront and allow our testers to be in control of the process; we ensure they know that they can pause or stop the testing process at any time. And;
- We only document and collect information that we will use to improve the prototype or improve system learning.
The NS GovLab Sourcebook is a great resource for those looking to run their own prototyping process from start to finish. In particular, it has some helpful templates for creating a testing plan and script and considerations regarding proceeding ethically in section 3–3.
To build our testing plan and learning framework, the team reviewed the overarching concepts and assumptions embedded in our prototype design and then generated a number of key questions. We then brainstormed around who we would test with and what methods and tools we might use to do so.
To test the AIP 2.0 prototype the Lab focused on recruiting three key user-types:
- older adults from ANS communities in the Preston Townships and Guysborough County (for both an urban/suburban and rural perspective) and urban Indigenous communities
- family and kin who support older Nova Scotians in these communities
- people who work with organizations that help navigate older Nova Scotians
By going through this process, our team ended up identifying the following questions we hoped would help us learn:
- How likely older Nova Scotians and their families are to reach out, connect to and find programs and services online to help support aging-in-place/aging-at-home?
- Whether the content developed — both the questions and the resources provided- resonate with older Nova Scotians and whether the tool would spark personal reflection and planning while also connecting people to supports in real time?
- Where this tool might be best placed or administered from — government or in community?
- How feasible would it be to maintain a tool like this and keep it up to date?
- Whether the concept of aging-in-place or the supports we think might help resonate with older Nova Scotians living in Black and Indigenous communities
Over the summer and fall in 2021, we were able to test this prototype with African Nova Scotians and their families, and folks who are working to support older adults. Our team would like to extend our deepest gratitude to those who took time out of their lives and days to meet with us, play around on the website, and share their wisdom and feedback. Once our testing process was completed, our team moved to sense-making of all of the feedback, stories and reflections we had heard.
In our next and last blog post of this series, we hope to share our learnings and what’s next! We have a saying in the Lab that goes: “All feedback — especially the parts where folks tell us what doesn’t work, is bad or even offensive — is a gift. We need to accept what we hear with open hands, hearts and minds and honor what is offered; it’s our best chance and opportunity to learn and do better”.
What strategies do you use to prepare yourself to draw out helpful criticism from others and what do you do to ensure you are in a place where you can fully receive those gifts from others? What helps you ‘hear’ the important parts so you can take action?
