The Rhythms of Africa
A digital learning platform with the goal to invite, create and inspire.
The Rhythms of Africa is an interactive platform which offers an online expedition to northern Ghana. It provides inspiring content and participants who are interested in coaching sessions and other support, can join the platform and become part of a community. It is a platform where content and life lessons of Ghanaian culture are shared through imagery, exercises and group sessions.
PART OF
HvA / Creators 4 Humanity
TOOLS / TECHNIQUE
Figma, Adobe CC
YEAR
2021
Problem statement & intention
The goal is to invite the target groups to become part of The Rhythms of Africa. To ensure that they continue to feel involved during the expedition and then also want to stay involved in any future expeditions. At the moment this does not work well since there is no central place for users to come together. At the moment there are too many different mediums used for the development journey (weekly content is sent via e-mail and Youtube, meetings are held via Zoom, and practical information is shared via WhatsApp). These factors make the threshold higher for participants to participate.
The aim is to create a digital interactive platform containing information and content from expedition and course of The Rhythms of Africa. The intention is to inspire participants, to let them experience the expedition online through content and provide an opportunity to join the expedition and its courses through a digital learning environment.
Stakeholders
The Creators 4 Humanity is a community of young leaders of transformation in northern Ghana that the client has been mentoring since 2010 in increasing their inner creative power. Through living their individual dreams, they are successful. Moreover, they are role models, and a source of inspiration for local youth.
Target audience
The creator has joined the development journey The Creator in You of expedition. They receive weekly content and interact with and within the community.
The potential participant uses the platform, but have not yet joined the expedition / course. They are interested in participating and potentially are doing so in the future.
Design challenge
How can an overarching digital interactive platform ensure that potential participants feel invited to become part of the expedition and that Creators then feel involved and connected during the duration of the expedition, so that they have the desire to stay involved in possible future expeditions?
Research & exploration
With the use of a requirements list, job stories, brainstorming sessions and a morphological card I explored different possibilities, situations and conceptualizations of the digital platform. Defining three layers within the structure of the platform which is seen in the (MVP) sitemap above.
The front of the platform is for the potential participants to experience the content only. The middle, or insides of the platform are made fro the creators where they can not only view but participate and engage with the content. Lastly there is an admin side, which made for the client where they can manage, regulate and upload content.
From there on the process continued by sketching, iterations, peer reviews, visual research and usability testing.
Process & iterations
Throughout the design process there have been many iterations based on usability tests, of which the following where the most important.
Chapters. The order of the chapter is highlighted by numbers. In addition, participants can keep track of they progress. Through checkmarks and received feedback motivation gains to continue with the next chapters.
Input. There was a need to engage more with the weekly content from participants. This resulted from peer reviews and an expert interview. The option to provide input and share thoughts and opinions have been added to the flow, including patters of social proof motivating participants to engage more. |
CMS. Adding a content management system has been crucial for this project. Findings have shown confusion by participants of being able to distinguish between free content and paid content. There was a clear need to separate the layers of content and explain what the layers of the platform to the user beforehand.
Next steps & learnings
This is still an unfinished platform and several branches have yet to be developed. However it was a pleasure to kick of the design process, perform different kinds of research, ideate and conceptualize a innovative digital platform.
This product biography (NL) contains all research and findings within the project. Please contact me if there is an interest in reviewing the design rationale (EN).
