Please describe your proposed solution.
Where are we now?
The current funding rounds are stressful for proposers because it keeps them from doing their work efficently. Every three months they need to switch or disrupt their activities because there is a funding round coming up.
The linear and competition-based Catalyst process of proposal writing, assessment, and voting, silos people in the Catalyst ecosystem [1], making it even harder for groups to collaborate.
“For years, the application of user-centered and human-centered design advocated by so many has often separated people from ecosystems. Now, designers must start to address people as part of an ecosystem rather than at the center of everything. This means designing for two sets of values: personal and collective.” — Fjord Trends 2020 (Fjord, 2020) [1]
Ideascale has no built-in collaboration tools. This forces proposers to use tools like google docs and other collaborative text editors, creating a lot of extra overhead.
The outcome of this silo-ed design approach is that we separate people into groups (proposers, assessors, and voters) blocking our potential to boost collaboration between stakeholder groups. The user-centered and human-centered design doesn’t work for this kind of system, we must see people as part of the ecosystem, and not the center of everything.
“A full 80% of respondents believe systems will interact seamlessly with humans, and 78% think these systems will embrace the way humans work.” — Accenture’s Future Systems (Burden, et al., 2019) [2]
This is the main reason why we will use System Design for the Proposal Assistant, as it connects Catalyst members in meaningful ways.
Where do we want to go?
Imagine a gamified Proposal Assistant that allows you to do meaningful sessions that last 5-10min instead of weeks to progress towards a quality proposal.
UX Storyline Example - Input for an iterative design session
- You open up the Proposal Assistant app and see that 5 people have graded your problem statement.
- You swipe right to open up the results and see an overview of feedback.
- You see 4 text replies and 1 audio message.
- You spend ‘x’ amount of time with 1 friend and 3 anonymous community members to improve the problem statement. (you bounce your problem statement through the network)
- You rate the feedback you received and the support received by the anonymous community members.
- You move on to work on the next section of your proposal with the same steps.
Note: Above is an example of input for iterative design work. By using this input to show visual design iterations to all actors in the network, we slowly progress towards a quality system.
A new Iterative Design process makes people part of the system design.
The above-mentioned process is called an Iterative Design process and it results in a proposal writing and assessment system with an interactive workflow that benefits all stakeholders at the same time. After a session, the work is done, and no artificial work, tools, or external systems need to be used to progress.
The Iterative design process tracks and rewards collaborative efforts of all actors, and combines writing, assessing & voting into one seamless experience.
The result - A stress-free safe and collaborative environment where all actors (proposer, assessor, and voters) come together, raising the participation of all stakeholder groups and driving adoption of the Cardano ecosystem.
Catalyst is in serious need of System Thinking while introducing serious play for better results.
New Incentive Models
Another important factor in creating a collaborative environment is finding proper incentive solutions. For creating an incentive structure, one or more elements in the value pyramid will be taken into consideration.
Based on the live class findings, we iterate the UI designs.
We will research the following topics for our iterative design approach using:
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IDENTIFY PRODUCT SEGMENTS - To be able to design effectively we need to identify the different segments that make up our application, this is ongoing work during the iterative design process. (Eg. Homescreens, Proposal Modules, Grading modules, …)
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INCENTIVE RESEARCH - In our live classes we will conduct incentive brainstorms that meet the demands of the participants. We will use the value pyramid to channel the thought process.
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WRITING RESEARCH - We take the current Ideascale proposal templates and break them down into proposal modules that support your writing effort.
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GRADING RESEARCH- We link specific grading modules to proposal modules (Simple -5|+5, open feedback, quality sliders for example), by doing rubric desk research for proposal segments.
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INSIGHT DOCUMENTATION - We take the output of the research work as input for the next iteration of our UI design. We document insights gathered in social design sessions and create a visual progression of our UI design on a Miro board and in Invision, a visual collaboration tool link: http://invision.com
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Potential Proposal Assistant Features:
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Setup your team (Preselect co-writers)
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Build-in grant writing tips
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Focus on quality not deadline
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Dynamic 'continuous feedback’ on specific proposal building blocks (eg. feedback based on impact, feasibility & auditability), so everybody can help teams write better proposals.
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Export into IdeaScale with 1-click
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Create social collaborations around proposal writing through the proposal Assistant app in the Social AppStore
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
We believe that we can improve the user experience in the Catalyst ecosystem in the following areas:
- Increase adoption by introducing new incentive models, and 5-10 minute sessions.
- Reducing stress by increasing quality feedback loops that can be picked up by people in downtime periods.
- Reimaging collaborative proposal writing
- Inviting experts into the Proposal Assistant
- New incentive structures that attract users to the ecosystem
- Seamless, fluid, stress-free interactions
- Combing reason & play for better outcomes
Our research findings and our iterative design approach will play a key role in innovating the way we work as groups, how we collect feedback, and accelerate ecosystem maturity.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
One of the risks that most research projects face is a lack of research subjects.
Social Design attracts curious people that want to learn and participate, therefore we have access to a lot of cognitive diversity, helping us create better software that drives adoption.
To have access to more professional proposal assessors we plan on creating a reward system to participate in research classes.
Through this reward system, we will not only be attracting research subjects from the community but also understand how dynamic reward systems play a part in the process of proposal creation and evaluation.