Social Sphere

Client:
Municipality of Eindhoven, Dynamo, Pitstop

Type:
University project

Process:
Research, Ideation, Design, Test

Overview:
During my 6th semester of university, I had the opportunity to participate in a project from a company collaborator. I worked in a team with 4 more people on an assignment related to youth work. On this project, my group and I worked in the span of 18 weeks where we had to research, design and come up with a concept that can help our stakeholders - Garage2020 and the Municipality of Eindhoven.

Research Question

"How can social workers from Eindhoven relate and connect to the online world of youth while countering the cons of online media?"

Main problem
Currently, a very small percentage of youth organisations and workers in Eindhoven practise online youth work, which has formed the problem of them not being able to connect with their target group. Although activities over the internet such as gaming tournaments and workshops have already been established in the sector, not a lot of progress has been seen when it comes with connecting to the youth.

Goal
With this assignment we want to find a way to help youth workers from Dynamo and Pitstop (youth centres in Eindhoven) get in touch with the youth more easily online, building a safe and reliable space for those in need. We must take into account the different mindset, knowledge and learning style of the workers, depending on their age, background and previous experience with social media. At the end, our aim is to guide users in their journey of exploring the online world and reaching out to more people.

For this project, our group made use of the Waterfall method and we worked in 4 main phases - Research, Ideation, Design and Testing. In order to make sure we were on the right path, we decided to conduct a testing after each stage of our process. This way of working benefited us, as we managed to reach all of our set goals for each step before going to the next one.

The Solution

Social Sphere - the educational platform for youth workers, where they can learn how to reach out to young people with the help of social media. Social Sphere offers lessons on various platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Discord.

Users have the option to choose one of the sites and focus entirely on it. If a youth worker wants to explore a specific part of social media or is not sure with which platform to start, they can receive an Archetype. Each Archetype takes a different direction of learning, such as content creation, community building, and danger prevention.

The grading process on the platform consists of quizzes after each chapter and lesson. When the youth worker has finished a course, they will receive a Certificate of Mastery.

Prototype

The youth worker opens Social Sphere in their browser and creates an account.

The youth worker chooses to learn only one social media - Instagram. They navigate to the Home Page.

The youth worker starts the first lesson for Instagram - "Creating a post".

After they finish the lesson, the youth worker takes the quiz.

The youth worker wants to explore their awards and certificates, so they visit they Account page.

The youth worker gets more familiar with the different social media platforms offered on Social Sphere.

The youth worker explores the other way of learning on the platform - through the Archetypes.

Further Development

While our group was successful in developing a good idea that will allow social workers to easily connect with youth online, there is still room for improvement. More extensive research on the topics of youth work internationally, current trends within youth and social media, design iterations, focusing on the right structure and user flow, and developing the concept into a real product are some of the things that can be looked into further.