DT Badges & Certificates
Design Log . Entry #4 . 30 April 2021
Welcome to Design Log Entry #4! April was all about design thinking certification - researching, designing, testing, and developing membership badges and course completion certificates for DT Dojo (check out the new DT Badges & Certificates page!).
Concurrently, I set up a few A/B site traffic & engagement experiments to start getting behavior data as a complement to feedback data from my testing conversations.
The first experiment is testing positioning and prose for the DT certificates (here’s the modified home page, which is being tested in parallel with the original home page). And the second experiment (offering a free DT Guide as a welcome gift for mailing list signups) is testing a few of my need-finding and lead-finding assumptions.
As with prior updates, I share design and development highlights below, along with key observations and insights, and my favorite tools & techniques used this last month.
Design & development highlights for April:
Researched the emerging field of digital badges and (micro-) credentialing and defined a point of view for how certificates and badges could work for DT Dojo.
Designed & prototyped an initial set of “Membership Badges” and “Course Completion Certificates”, leveraging a design-thinking-style, hand-crafted aesthetic.
Ran two rounds of testing conversations with members/collaborators (first with initial sketches & mockups, then with more detailed prototypes) to refine and validate the certificate & badge designs.
Evaluated leading digital credentialing platforms and selected one to start with (Accredible), with the intent of being able to issue the first DT certificates in May!
Crafted a new homepage and a new certificates page to introduce (and test!) the notion of credentialing on the site.
Set up A/B traffic tests to see how visitors (organic & CPC) interact with and respond to the idea of DT certification (this is one of my first digital CX experiments!).
And as part of the traffic tests, I created a new (general) mailing list for DT Dojo and figured out a way to offer a free “DT Guide” as a welcome gift for anyone who joins.
Key observations & insights from the last few weeks:
Even though I’ve been planning my sprints on a weekly basis, I’ve noticed that for more involved efforts (like designing & developing digital certificates!), it takes about two full weeks to run a full design cycle — week 1 is about research, early sketches, and initial testing, and week 2 is about more detailed development, more testing, and delivery. I recall that in my last startup, after experimenting with different sprint-durations, two week cycles turned out to be the most effective and sustainable design & development pace for our teams. While I had imagined a faster work metabolism would make sense as a solo-preneur, I find myself wondering if perhaps there is something “natural” about a two-week design cycle. For the next couple of months, I’ll keep planning weekly sprints, but I’ll also anticipate 2-week design & development cycles (for larger efforts) to see if that settles in as a more natural rhythm.
Another thing that stood out to me this month is the benefit of scheduling testing conversations well before I feel ready to have them. Even with a lot of experience practicing design thinking, I still find it’s so easy to get caught up in design details and decisions when working on something new (there are so many questions and things to consider). But, what really helps surface the details that matter most is knowing that I’ll be sharing and testing my work with someone very soon — like later today, or tomorrow! And, in this case, I believe it’s more than the “deadline” that creates focus. Having a testing conversation already scheduled, forces me to think about my work from the perspective of who I’ll be testing with and quickly answer the questions, “what do I really need to test now”, and “what details are most relevant to their needs and experience?”. I find that preparing to test well before I feel ready not only keeps my work velocity up, but also keeps my designs human-centered.
Favorite design tools & techniques used this last month:
Noteshelf - for concept sketching and for finished design work. Still at the top of my list of favorite design tools, Noteshelf was indispensable this month as I worked through the certification design process (note the subtle hand-drawn elements on the final certificate designs!).
Keynote - for rapid prototyping & testing. I really leveraged keynote this month to quickly visualize certificate and badge designs and to simplify sharing the mockups during testing conversations.
Accredible - for issuing digital badges & certificates. While there are a handful of leading platforms to consider, I greatly appreciated Accredible’s simple give-it-a-try and get-started experiences & easy-to-use tooling.
Squarespace Automated Campaigns - for powering my new mailing list signup welcome gift (the DT Guide)! I’ve been looking for an excuse to try out SQS’s automated email campaigns capability, and it worked beautifully for wiring up the welcome gift experience.