Problem Space

For this project, Harled Inc. was partnered with Anishnabeg Outreach (AO), a non-profit that strives towards reconciliation through healing, connecting Indigenous people with their culture, and providing resources for employment and education. AO believes that a key to reconciliation is to make Indigenous people self-sufficient by providing pathways to overcome the many education and employment barriers Indigenous people face. 

Situation of Concern

Anishnabeg Outreach, strives toward reconciliation through healing, reconnecting with culture, and providing resources for employment and education. AO believes that a key to reconciliation is to make Indigenous people self-sufficient by providing ways to overcome the education and employment barriers. 

For this project, the goals are to combat the lack of resources and relevancy by building a platform that serves as a centralized repository of knowledge and educational content for Indigenous people that can be accessed anytime and anywhere. The two identified user groups for this platform are assumed to be: people who are 18 years of age and older with low to intermediate technical skills, defined as learners, and people who are 20 years of age and older with experienced technical skills, identified as admins. 

Validation

As of the end of the co-op term, there were 64 Indigenous learners signed up to the AO Nest. 24 of whom enrolled in a beading course as part of AO's Beading Initiative. Five users had completed all five lessons, six had completed 80% of the lessons, two had completed 60%, and the rest had completed below 50%, meaning roughly 19% of the users enrolled in the course had completed the course. The low completion rates may be attributed to the fact that beading can take time to master before learners feel comfortable moving on to following lessons. Looking at the total number of users as well as course completions, it’s clear to see that the reach of the AO Nest is still very small so more time is needed to observe the impacts of the platform as it grows. 

Unfortunately, we were not able to perform much validation of our platform with our primary user group of Indigenous people. The findings of unmarked graves in residential schools across Canada caused AO’s priorities to shift and limited their resources, making it difficult for AO to reach out and onboard new users throughout the term. In a user interview conducted by Harled, it was reported that the platform was very straightforward and easy to use. The user was able to sign up, enroll in a course, and take lessons with ease, leading us to believe that the platform is generally intuitive to medium tech users. On a scale of 1-10 regarding the ease of use, with 1 being very difficult to 10 being very easy, the user responded with a 10. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being not fun and engaging, to 10 being very fun and engaging, the user responded with a 10, noting that they “loved the assets and images” and found the interactions with the platform engaging. 

Limitations of the Solution

A limitation of the designed solution is that there is a lack of motivators for users to complete courses. Other platforms for self guided learning such as Khanacademy provide a gamified learning experience by awarding learners with badges and points based on different metrics such as the time spent on lessons, or courses finished. Adding such an element to the AO Nest would likely drive engagement with the platform and increase the number of course enrollments and completions. Despite the lack of gamification, the programs on the AO Nest can motivate learners in other manners through different forms of rewards. The Beading Initiative encourages users to complete the courses through the monetary and cultural incentives it presents, or JavaScript or Python courses can new opportunities to learn competitive skills and access to jobs in the future. 

Another limitation of the platform is the amount of courses and content, as well as the structure of the courses. Currently, the platform only has one fully fleshed-out course, which is the Beading Initiative. In some user interviews, the users expressed the desire to see more courses, particularly courses that would be helpful for their future such as advanced programming or mental well-being.

Final Thoughts and Looking to the Future

Overall, the execution of the design and development portion of the project went very well. The assigned tasks for each sprint were accomplished ahead of schedule, and the basic platform was completed in roughly 2.5 months, which was 2 weeks ahead of schedule, allowing us to focus time on additional features.

The ease of use and look of the platform was also very well received. In interviews, our client and users were very happy with the look and functionality of the AO Nest. AO was even able to create new partnerships with other organizations such as the Blue Jays because of the platform.

Unfortunately when comparing results to the original situation of concern, the project did not perform very well. The reach of the AO Nest is still very small. The total of 64 Indigenous learners on the AO Nest is still a far cry from the initial goal of 1000 users and even further from the total Indigenous population in Canada. While the AO Nest had the capacity to support over1000 users, the execution of onboarding and planning out comprehensive curriculums for the platform was insufficient to actually onboard so many users. Since the platform has all the necessities of a learning platform, in the future, the Nest has the potential to reach the original goal and likely scale to the KW region if there is more action towards platform content. 

Moving forward, AO and Harled should strive to address the feedback gained from users. I would recommend adding more content and structured courses to provide a reason for new users to sign up.