Design Goal
- Target customers in this case are the teens of BGC. We have learned that out of those that attend regularly, there is an overall positive outlook on the experience, fellow members and staff.
- There is a desire to bring others into the club, but many friends of members are not interested, because of the lack of the “cool” factor.
- There are social and psychological ends that need to be fulfilled for the target customers with our specific case. Social in terms of making the club a place that is not only beneficial for their safety, but also their social lives. Psychologically, it is important for them to see consistency in a place like this, because it is shown in research that a majority of members experience some lack of structure in at least one aspect of their lives outside the club.
User Perceptions
- I think bringing more members in and providing a more robust option list of activities is important to the well being of our customer, but not necessary. The club has managed to get along well enough before, so this would just be something to enhance it.
- I think perception is very important to our users, because as teenagers, that means a lot to them. There could be an aesthetic attribute to our solutions in new technology or activities we introduce to the club, as if they are good and up to date, it would help up the “cool” factor we discussed earlier.
- Similar to the aesthetic aspects, reputational aspects are extremely important in this case, because a big issue of attracting new members to the club is the reputation it has of being “boring” or “uncool”. Working on building up the positive reputation of BGC would have a positive domino effect.
- Key insights from our research are that once members are there, they tend to stay loyal, but it is a challenge to recruit new members for a variety of reasons (money, other commitments, etc.). Also was insightful to realize the lack of active promotion of the club, which could be a reason the issue of transportation has not been brought up before.
Problems/Needs/Opportunities
- The current members want more from the club. They want to take more field trips and have better technology programs.
- The BGC offers activities such as crafts and gym time. The users get bored with doing the same thing everyday.
- Field trips and other experiences could allow students to get out of their comfort zone and learn new skills. In addition, it will challenge them to be leaders and better communicators, which are attributes BGC strives to instill in the students.
Functional Attributes
- It would be necessary to be mindful of the members and their schedules. So for transportation, we would need to assure that it could be coordinated to fit a wide variety of high school’s end time of the day. Also, if we would look into rides back after the afternoon, we would have to do our best to find a time that would work for the most members (if we were to implement an extended hours option).
- As per everything at BGC, any new implementation would need to live up to the standards they have set and consequently followed as a club for decades. We would want our solutions to only enhance a member’s experience at BGC in a positive way, so therefore would be extremely thoughtful when creating anything new.
Constraints
- BGC faces financial constraints. They do not have the money to get buses for field trips, or better technology.
- BGC also lacks a sufficient number of quality workers. They only have 8 part time volunteers and one full time volunteer.