American Dream Come True Team Pre-BrunchTam Le, Jamie Lin, Whitney Mapes, Stan Grinapol New York, USAApril 2015

How might we improve educational experiences for new immigrants?

Our ProcessThis is a huge challenge to tackle so we broke the design process into 3 phases:1. Inspiration

Planned and conducted researchSynthesized research to create insight statements Formed “How Might We” questions

2. IdeationBrainstormed solutionsCreated storyboards and prototypes Tested prototypes to receive feedback

3. ImplementationCreated an action plan and pitch

Inspiration Phase

“I didn’t really speak English and was self-conscious of speaking it...

I would just not talk.”

Who we interviewedThe great part about human-centered design is that we get to know the humans we’re designing solutions for. We broke the people we interviewed into the following 3 categories:1. People who have immigrated to

AmericaCu and Trang Le from VietnamAndrei Coso from MexicoMrs. Grinapol from Russia

2. Experts working with education for immigrantsPhyllis Berman, Director of the Riverside Language Program

3. People who have had analogous experiencesMelinda Kilner from America, lived in Italy for 3 years

We kept hearing...

“I liked to hang out with mish-mash people. Those who also didn’t fully belong.”

“I would not leave the house because I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”

OurInsights

Immigrants relate to and surround themselves with others who are

“outsiders” like themselves, such as other immigrants who aren’t necessarily from the

same cultural background.

Immigrants will withdraw themselves from social opportunities or avoid

speaking English out of self-consciousness or fear of making mistakes.

Our questionFrom those insights, we generated several “How Might We” questions to turn our existing challenges into opportunities for design. From there, we chose a single question to serve as the jumping off point for the upcoming Ideation phase:

How might we reduce or eliminate the feeling of self-consciousness and fear that holds immigrants back from attempts at social integration?

Ideation Phase

What we brainstormedFrom there we brainstormed several ideas and converged on a game night specifically for immigrants learning English.The event would be held at a place that serves drinks, like a bar, to make it squarely an adult event as well as to make people less self-conscious. We hope that additionally, after playing these team games, individuals would also build friendships outside of their classes that would encourage them to form a larger, local network.

Our storyboard

Hom is a mother of two teenage boys. They came over to America 6 months ago. She is learning English to pick up her old job as an accountant.

Her ESOL teacher tells the class about an evening program called ESOLympics that meets every other week to socially drink and play.

Now that our team’s selected an idea to prototype, we wanted

to break the concept into pieces that can be easily tested. We’ve done this through a storyboard that visualizes a hypothetical end-to-end experience that a person may have with our idea.

Our storyboard

Hom arrives and is assigned to a partner. She then spots her friend Wendy by the bar. Hom buys herself a drink and starts chatting with Wendy.

The announcer calls for partners to gather by their assigned game areas. Tonight they are playing Pictionary. Hom meets her partner Boris.

The event is held at a bar in a central location for students. Hom arrives by herself. Her husband is looking after the kids for her night off.

Our storyboard

An hour later, the games come to a close and the winners are announced. Hom and Boris win 2nd place!

Hom and Boris make plans to attend the next game night, and until then, they make plans to grab a burger next week.

Hom and Boris make a spectacular team. Turns out Boris is a fantastic artist and they regularly beat their opponents.

PrototypingAn important step in the design thinking process is prototyping—from low-fidelity to high-fidelity, prototypes allow us to quickly and cheaply test aspects of our idea and iterate and build upon them.

For our idea, we felt like role playing in an analogous situation would yield the most insights.

How we prototypedWe went to West 3rd Commons, a local bar in Greenwich Village stocked with board games.

There we attempted to teach each other the following:

Cards Against Humanity— American, culture and humor-based game

Durak— Russian, strategy-based card game

“This was difficult even though all of us spoke English.”

What we learned from prototyping

The loud music hampered communication. → We need to control the music on premise. This could mean choosing a quiet bar or having enough clout to affect music volume.

Instructions are difficult to give all at once. → We need to provide the basic necessary instructions to a game at the beginning to everyone, and from there have volunteers in each group disseminate further instructions as necessary.

Humor games, such as Cards Against Humanity, are extremely difficult to grasp in a foreign language, and strategic games, such as Durak, contain an additional layer of complexity beyond language. → We should have games that scale in level of difficulty. For example, ESOL participants could start with simpler games like Pictionary and progress to Catchphrase, Scrabble, and finally Cards Against Humanity.

“This sounds interesting! I do like the

idea of games... I am only hesitant about the location.”

FeedbackWe then shared our ideas with a couple of experts—Phyllis Berman, Director of the Riverside Language Program and Tiffany Hsiau, ESOL teacher—and received the following feedback and builds:

Similar events have been conducted and were met with success.Volunteers from colleges are helpful for running these events.Adapting games for English levels is a great idea. Another build could be having the more advanced students teach

others about the games from their own culture.Drinking may not be culturally appropriate for everyone.Some students are on a strict budget or have children at home

which could prevent them from attending an event held at a bar; a coffee shop may be more inviting to a larger population.

Despite the feedback, we feel holding the event at a bar is imperative in creating a

low-pressure atmosphere of fun that will allow students to let their guard down and

lose self-consciousness.

Implementation Phase

Our action planDevising an innovative solution and putting it into practice are two different propositions. Our action plan for implementation helps us understand what is required to get ESOLympics out in the world and where we’ll have to seek help.

We have broken this down into 3 phases:1. Staffing our project

with the people needed to make this happen

2. Building partnershipswith the partners needed to support the idea

3. Developing a funding strategyfor the money needed to get this out in the real world and to eventually scale

Staffing our projectOnce it is up and running, ESOLympics will require a few hours each week of the following staff’s time.

Program Coordinator— acts as a point of contact for bars and participants. Handles advertising and awareness (e.g. printing flyers, maintaining a social media presence, etc.)

Host/Emcee— announces the evening’s events and gets everything moving

Volunteers— understands the the games and is able to work on a more individual basis with the teams to explain rules. The volunteers could potentially be graduates of ESOL programs/former ESOLympics participants or ESOL teachers.

Building partnershipsFor our idea, partnerships are essential for recruiting the recent immigrants that will benefit from ESOLympics.

ESOL programs— these programs and their teachers are key in raising awareness and recruiting recent immigrants to attend ESOLympics

Local bars and/or event spaces— working with them and building a good relationship will be critical to the success of our idea

Other programs for recent immigrants— these can also serve as an important recruitment source

Developing a funding strategyAlthough our idea doesn’t require much start-up or maintenance capital, some funding will still be required to get ESOLympics into the real world.

Initial grant— to get our idea off the ground or anytime we need to enter a new city/market

% of bar tab profits— we could strike a deal with the bars to give us a certain % of the profits once we hit a $ minimum

Multiple game night passes— after an initial free event, we could sell passes for 5 or 10 game nights

Sell board games or raffles— these small incremental sales could add up

PitchingIn order to get staff members, partners, and financial backers on board, we will need to pitch them our idea either face-to-face or via phone and email.

Our pitchNew immigrants hesitate to learn English and engage in American culture because they feel embarrassed, self-conscious, and constantly fear making mistakes. So much so, that they sometimes choose not to speak English at all.By taking these individuals out of the classroom and into a relaxed social environment, they’ll lower their guard and allow themselves to have fun. Our program—ESOLympics—combines board games and a low-pressure bar setting to create a social environment where new immigrants can practice English, socialize with others going through the same experience, and generally have a good time.Liquid courage optional.

Moving forward...

What we learntOver the past 11 weeks, after going through the Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation phases, we have a clear understanding of the process and a more solid footing in the overall experience.

Thanks to the Design Kit Course for Human-Centered Design, IDEO.org, and +Acumen, we are all now stronger design thinkers .

Thank you from Team Pre-Brunch!