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fragLOVIS @ EdTech Hackathon
1st-time Facilitator with a Happy Ending
About fragLOVIS
fragLOVIS is a startup with the mission to provide a safe space for children & teenagers to ask questions in regard to sexuality. LOVIS, a continuously improved chatbot answers them anonymously.
My Role Facilitator & Concept Support
Length 1.5 days in May 2021
Sector #Non-Profit #Sex #Education
Team LOVIS: Antonia, Jana, Sarah, Theresa Facilitator: Helmar & Florin Design: Nora & Svitlan, Tugce
Tools Miro, Figma, Discord & WordPress
The Winning Prototype - Have a Look
The landing page briefly introduced LOVIS and their chatbot - “🌵LOVIS the flowering Cactus”. To pose a question one could open a chat with LOVIS in the bottom right corner
Fun Fact: The cactus flower became LOVIS' logo
After the “Fold” of the website, we see a more descriptive introduction to LOVIS. This was also partially aimed at the jury who should get a good idea of what LOVIS actually is
During the conceptualization, we aligned with the Team bringing the chatbot to life and we figured the SOS feature would be great to present up-front to visitors in trouble and of course the jury 😉
The Social Media integration showcases tiles illustrating the connection of LOVIS's Instagram presence intended to facilitate growth from website visitors
It started so innocently..
In UX I was as Junior as one could be: I came across the N3XTCODER Hackathon just about half a year after I graduated from my in depth UX training at CareerFoundry.
They were looking for Co-Facilitators - a role I heard to be an integral part of a UX Designer.
“A Co-Facilitator as a Junior UX Designer?! Sure, what an opportunity!” ...I thought!
The Challenge - Improvise & Have Fun!
In short, that’s what my Co-Facilitator said as I aligned with him prior to the hackathon.
At first, I was very nervous, as this was my first Co-Facilitator role and to my surprise, it turned out to be for a sole Facilitator as the team for the Social Media Strategy & the Tech Challenge was split.
What a surprise! The 2 Co-Facilitators were intended for a split team.
Preparation is Half the Victory
To ensure a good experience for my team, I studied our Hackathon challenge upfront and arranged the research and other materials on the Miro whiteboard so our team can safe time reviewing and familiarizing themselves with it.
In order to facilitate understanding for the target group - teenagers - I created an Empathy Map based on the Research the LOVIS team did up front.
Achieving a 1st Milestone: Team Alignment
At first, we reviewed the Hackathon challenge we were assigned to, prior research, mood- and storyboards among other materials, and started by collecting ideas, identifying and prioritizing the content for our challenge, and last but not least discussing what we can realize in the little time we had for this project.
Sewing together a Live Website MVP in just 1 Day
We decided to have those strong in Illustration focus on making Visuals as Demo-Content while I helped a Junior UX/UI Designer ideate on the concept with what I call Low/Mixed-Fidelity.
During the process, we iterated and collected feedback and ideas from the whole Hackathon team and refined the concept in record-breaking time.
With the Demo-Content and the Low/Mixed Fidelity Concept being read, we finally turned it into a High-Fidelity Wireframe on Figma.
As Facilitator, I helped the team to align and supported them to utilize their personal strengths to bring their best selves to this challenge.
Going the extra Mile
As the last step, we decided to take the Figma prototype and turn it into an actual live website. Unquestionably this turned out to cause us to have some overtime but we fell in love with LOVIS!
The next day's Pitch
In order to keep the pitch within the time limit, I provided a technique to help conceptualize and time-box presentations.
Yay! We Won & Secured Funding 🎉!! Now What’s Next?!
After winning the N3XTCODER Hackathon the LOVIS team was one step closer to realizing this project for teenagers across Germany. After the first follow-up call we figured that the team first needs a way to decide what to focus on as there were many ideas in the room.
In response to their need of getting aligned and start off, I proposed a Kick-Off Workshop, and I would be glad to gain more experience in facilitating workshops by doing this for LOVIS’ team.
⚡ Lightning Decision Jam as Kick-Off Workshop
I created this template for the LDJ based on the Workshopper Playbook from Jonathan Courtney
The Outcome of the workshop were a hand full of clearly defined tasks, that the LOVIS team could tackle to start growing. Also, the workshop helped to facilitate mutual understanding among the team and provided a backlog of other ideas that were not yet a priority.