Captain 7 (2022) - Case Study

INTRODUCTION

Captain 7 (C7) is an Australian ed-tech startup that aims to prepare students for future challenges through Design Thinking incursions. During the Covid-19 climate, direct reach outs to educators and institutions to generate new leads were severely limited.

In response, we led a product pivot that is accompannied by a brand refresh and expanded our customer reach through an online website presence.

MY ROLE

Product Designer.
Research, branding, design, workshopping, prototyping.

THE TEAM

4 Designers, 1 Product Manager, 2 Stakeholders.

TIMELINE

12 Weeks

1. Project Requirement Scope

Working with founders defined the project goal of repositioning Captain 7 for better customer alignment.

Business Objectives

- Better align product offerings with demand
- Generate new leads / reach-outs
- Increase service conversion rate

Customer Goals

- Find the right solution to supplement their missing classroom learnings
- Engage the said solution easily

Constraints

- Existing brand guidelines
- Restricted launch timelines
- COVID environment

My Responsibilities

- Leading design efforts (wireframing, visual, prototyping, layouts, etc.)
- Facilitating design workshops

2. Research Plan

Mapping our early assumptions revealed focus areas to zoom into when validating through research.

What is the education sector’s current perception and reception of Design Thinking?

How to best position and communicate C7’s offerings to resonate best with audiences?

What are the current industry best practices in design thinking and curriculum building?

3. Validating with users and industry

Interviews with principals, teachers, and curriculum builders revealed the gap in learnings for our opportunity.

‘Life-ready' skills are still absent in classroom teachings.

Teachers and parents agree that students are learning, but not the ‘life skills’ they need for the future. They often lack processes to problem solve and therefore lack resilience when faced with problems outside classrooms.

‘Design Thinking’ contains a lot of sought after learnings.

Audiences were not familiar with the term directly, but are familiar and receptive towards teaching sub-learnings of Design Thinking such as Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving in classrooms.

Most schools are still essentially businesses.

Schools place high priority on meeting curriculum requirements and quantify outcomes first before the actual learning processes. This often leaves teachers with no capacity to try anything new in their everyday teaching.

4. Defining target audiences

The needs of 3 personas informed the direction of Captain 7’s new product focus towards curriculums building.

Mary

Front-line teachers

about

Educators directly interacting with students. They represent the biggest audience in the industry.

needs

Provided the right support and resources to equip students with “life-ready” skills.

Elena

Decision makers

about

They sit higher in the school hierarchical chain and deal directly with teachers more than students.

needs

Ensure that various school requirements and expectations are met. .

Simon

Burnt-out veterans

about

Years of teaching experience. They are exhausted with their own workload to want to try something new.

needs

To integrate new curriculums into their existing lesson plans as easily as possible.

10. User Feedback

Establishing up front C7’s alignment to key school requirements were effective in sustaining visitors’ interests.

Hero Section

Addressing customer’s core criteria #1

Benefits of Captain 7

Addressing customer’s core criteria #2

Brand Credibility #1

How it works #1

How it works #2

How it works #3

CTA Section

Brand Credibility #2

Contact Form

Final Call-to-Action

Footer

Project Outcomes

Delivering key deliverables, meeting objectives and celebrating a successful pilot launch.

90% increase in leads within first months of soft launch.

C7’s saw a direct increase in schools and institutions inquiring further about their offerings through the website’s contact forms.

85% less inquiries, more direct service conversions.

New leads were considerably less about general questions and more about actual engagements and purchasing processes.

Greater brand awareness and discoverability

C7’s reach-outs saw a wider variety of demographics from schools, to parent groups, and also local educational communities.

Personal Reflection

When in doubt, look to research

While brainstorming for the right product offerings, there was difficulty navigating through everyone’s ideas and coming to an agreement. By referring back to research, it ensured that the final solution is well supported, and there’s no hard feelings between everyone.

Next Steps

Given less Covid-imposed restrictions, the project could be further refined by utilising a bigger testing group.

Set up additional metrics to further track post implementation improvements.

Expand to different types of schools and institutions that may have specific requirements.

Conduct more rounds of testing to further iterate and refine the structure, content and visuals.