My ANV Day
An experience designed to amplify the voices of the Acta Non Verba (ANV) community by providing a new medium of expression for students, in turn creating a channel for audiences to increase intentional engagement.
Who
is Acta Non Verba?
If you want to learn more/get involved, visit their website!
Acta Non Verba (ANV) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the East Oakland community.
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Their goal is to challenge oppressive dynamics that the children of this community face, offering K-12 after school and summer programs.
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These initiatives emphasize urban farming education, foster leadership through local business collaborations, and establish much-needed green spaces in an underserved area.
Who
is the team?
Team
Christie Lee, Lucia Pineda, Henry Zhu
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We were graduate students dedicated to identifying areas where our design skills could be leveraged to advance ANV's mission.
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I believe that the three of us worked evenly and equally across the board, but my strengths in this project were: communicating and managing stakeholders/partners, general project management (task delegation, team and document management), leading user interviews and testing, and design strategy.
Design
My ANV Day has a dual purpose: first, it empowers students to showcase their perspective and enhance the ANV brand; second, it allows content consumers (stakeholders, partners, parents) to connect on a personal level and encourages meaningful social media engagement.
Follow Artie and Megan as they navigate through the full My ANV Day experience!
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The video covers key experience touchpoints, addressing real-life pain points and community-identified needs.
"Theory of Change"
A holistic overview of our goals:
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What's happening now (Pain points)
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What we did
(Our Design intervention) -
What we think will happen
(Result)
Part I : Empowering Students
Part II : Meaningful Engagement
Reel
An example of #MyANVDay reel that we created with the students and program organizers at ANV!
Research
Getting to know the organization
Stakeholder Map
Our first task was to identify stakeholders and their relationships, both with each other and with the organization.
Why?
This helped us gain a holistic perspective of the organization, identify the most suitable point of contact, and formulate probing/clarifying questions to ask during interviews.
Market Research
We compared ANV's existing website and social media platforms with those of other similar non-profit organizations
Why?
By researching successful engagement strategies, we could identify ways for Acta Non Verba to improve engagement on their platforms.
On-Site Observations
We toured ANV's farms, inquiring about high-level operational logistics, values, long-term goals, and existing programs.
Why?
This deepened our understanding of ANV's mission and guided our community conversations.
Interviews
We conducted some preliminary interviews with stakeholders, parents, and students to help us identify pain points, needs, and areas for design intervention.
"I like [ANV's social media], but feel like we need more kid's perspective."
"How do we keep [the director] involved, without overwhelming her with tasks she shouldn't have to worry about?"
"Learning is very important for the kids and I believe my kid learns a lot [at ANV]."
"To see the activities from someone's point of view in a video - it makes me want to try different things too!"
"Social media is a personality at the end of the day – PUSHING THE BRAND! We need to create that for ANV."
"The farms themselves are a big motivator in marketing."
Insights
ANV is fulfilling its mission and goals via programs and community engagement, yet there's a gap in its digital connection with the audience, highlighting a demand for online interaction.
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Our design approach for this close-knit, historically underserved community needed to be rooted in authenticity, sensitivity, and humility.
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Define
The Opportunity
Based on our insights, we chose to amplify ANV students' voices on social media to strengthen the brand identity.
The Purpose
The goal was to promote ANV's program value and effectiveness, boost online engagement, and reinforce the ANV brand through community voices.
The Direction
All of this guided us in creating an engaging, community-centric experience that promotes ANV's programs and ensures long-term sustainability.
Testing
Throughout our process we continuously tested our strategies, content, and experience touch points with our target audiences and peers at various levels of fidelity.
Testing Insights
Diving Deeper : Storyboards
To explore the journeys of ANV and their partners in addition to the journeys of Artie and Megan, check out our storyboards!
Acta Non Verba's Journey
ANV Partner's Journey
Next Steps
We are in the process of finalizing our handover document. Our handover document should be:
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Easy to follow
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Detailed and phased instructions
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Resource list including free or budget-friendly alternatives to softwares and equipment
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Best practices
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Include job descriptions for future hires
ANV is currently in a transitional phase with limited resources, including staff.
This presented a challenge that we've addressed effectively with this document.
How do we measure the impact of our work?
*in progress*
Engagement numbers
Survey ("Warm Data")
Program Sign-Ups