“Hey Zack, I want to start an after school program where I teach students about financial literacy, but how could I prototype something like that?”
Good question! Situations like this are quite common. Students want to launch mentoring programs, after school programs, classes, or other long term initiatives.
The first thing to understand is that just because you want to create a three month course, doesn’t mean your prototype has to be that long. In fact, your first prototype should take about 3 minutes.
Here’s how it could work:
Prototype 1: Make a vague flyer about your topic. Example “New financial literacy class for sophomores and juniors at ABC High School.” Show people the flyer. See what questions they have. They will probably ask what the course covers. The key element of this prototype is to flip that question right back on them, the user. Here’s how that might play out:
You: “Hey, are you interested in my new financial literacy program?”
User: “Maybe. What would I get out of it?”
You: “What would you want to learn in a financial literacy course?”
User: *Great ideas about what you should include in the course* !
Alright, now that you’ve run that prototype once. Find some more users and do it a few more times to keep gathering feedback. From those conversations you’re going to pick one mini lesson inside the broader topic of financial literacy.
Prototype 2: 30 minute workshop. From your conversations, you’ve identified that many students are curious about how car loans work. It makes sense because many students are exploring the possibility of buying a car but aren’t sure exactly how things like credit, interest rates, insurance and more can all affect the buying process.
For your 30 minute session you will invite a small group 6-10 people, to test out your material. You’ll prepare a few activities, some discussion and a few key takeaways for participants. It should be interactive, but also informative.
If people don’t like the 30 minute session, there’s no use in starting a three month program. If people DO like the session, great! Now you have some testimonials and people who can give feedback on how to improve for the next time around.
Prototype 3: This could be a series of 60 minute workshops perhaps. This could even be the pilot of your actual program. Say you run a four workshop series in the spring in order to prepare for a ten workshop series in the summer or fall.
This framework works for a wide range of teachable topics. From mental health awareness, financial literacy, computer science, creativity, and more, you could follow a similar process. Gather feedback, start small, gather more feedback and grow.
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I think this marks the end of the prototyping series! I hope to put together all these posts to create a useful, comprehensive guide about different ways to prototype things.
Ps. Dual School photos from our Discovery Day are live on Facebook now!