Peeling back the curtain from the earliest experiments

Before Mastery Tower had a name, we each researched different aspects of game experiments and pitched out ideas and processes.

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Going deep into ideas pushed us to approach the earliest days of a ‘classroom engagement experience’ with casting a wide net for thinking anything gamelike before putting the overlay of Khan Academy design, budget, and capacity constraints.

It was refreshing and fun to step into Wild West territory with that lens of experimental play and discovery on, something I'd like to build into more regular practice as an alternate Ways of Seeing.

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Problem / Brief

Khan Academy Kids is an award-winning app with a die-hard audience of parent and kid stans who are unique from typical (older) Khan Academy users.

From schools to independent learners, incorporating new languages and SEL (social-emotional learning) books into their library is always in high demand coupled with the challenge of political debates incorporating diverse voices, story themes, and topics into early children literacy.

Guided by Inquiry

How might we understand users' needs (parents and teachers first, then learners) around second-language literacy, social-emotional learning, and diverse representation in the Khan Kids universe?

We talked to parents and teachers across the country. This research study included interviews with mockups and prototypes as well as surveys for teachers and students. With Khan Kids, our users are parents, teachers and learners, typically ages 2-8.

We rely on input from parents and teachers who share very different user experiences - parents see Khan Kids as a reliable app for learning and tune out, while teachers use it as an early literacy tool to support individual student growth.

With the Khan Kids team, we workshopped actions based on insights and recommendations to ensure next steps reflect insights uncovered from research.

Problem / Brief

Khanmigo is an AI tutor developed using Open AI's GPT-4 multimodal large language model to support teachers (in making their lives easier as teachers through essay grading, curricular suggestions, and lesson plan co-editing) and students (through conversational tutoring assistance, guidance through tricky questions, and helping them unlock learning).

There are multiple problems to solve here. In a fast-emerging world of AI, how do we lead with trust and distinguish Khanmigo as a friendly tutor while making it clear that it is AI, and not a human? How do we ensure our loyal audience of district administrators, teachers, homeschoolers, and learners of all ages worldwide that Khanmigo is safe to use?

Using inquiry as our guide

Do we assign a gender to a genderless robot? How do we brand an inclusive AI tutor while not alienating certain international populations who are avid Khan Academy users? How does color, shape, placement, expression, and naming impact the users' experience of Khanmigo?

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Introducing a new brand means lots of feedback and user sentiment in a complex web of expressions - we captured it, shared it, and used this knowledge to make changes as well as iterate on brand expression.

fun with early exploration - we spend lots of time sketching and being silly. our brand's goal is to exude trust while ‘delivering wow’ and ‘spreading joy’.

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WIP and sharing WIPs is a big part of our working culture → we have a lot of trust in one another and communicate well, which allows us to have fun in the Figma.

Through research, the brand team can make sound decisions as they riff on ideas.

Khanmigo is an AI tutor developed using Open AI's GPT-4 multimodal large language model to support teachers (in making their lives easier as teachers through essay grading, curricular suggestions, and lesson plan co-editing) and students (through conversational tutoring assistance, guidance through tricky questions, and helping them unlock learning).

Through multiple experiences of observing, interviewing, and surveying teachers and students in their natural habitats, we were able to learn about their needs by immersing ourselves in classrooms and schools. Supporting students and teachers in low-income and low-resourced communities is a priority for us, so we made sure to include dense urban school districts with large class sizes in addition to hearing from rural environments, home schoolers, and independent school learners as well.

Well before Khanmigo.ai formally existed, we tasked ourselves with the question,

"How might Khanmigo serve as an empowering learning tool in a classroom setting for struggling learners?"

We visited a number of classrooms with the intent to observe and learn from students. Observations and interviews with students require great care - for confidentiality and understanding how to enter a classroom with listening and empathy. Connecting with our core users directly is always a powerful experience that requires keen observation of how they use our product with understanding of their context, environment, challenges, successes, needs and wants.

A classroom is a live, variable space with constant change and need for adjustment as a researcher - by getting in and getting in often, we learn so much in ways that surveys, usability tests, and remote interviews can't always uncover.

In-school visits are always exciting - students do not hold back on their feedback and always have refreshing ideas on how to improve a product. They are truly the masters of their own experience and we gain a lot by listening to them.

When seeing an early version of Khanmigo in a classroom we also learned quickly that things don't always go as planned. We were in the classroom when a student and I experienced and error together, and frustrated, they said, “It’s pretty slow and would be much better if quicker."

This research continues to be an ongoing part of how we are always learning how to improve the Khanmigo experience for students and teachers. We have additional methods for gathering data and feedback in real time to inform us.

Problem / Brief

Mastery Tower is a unexpected experimental game-like experience designed for live classroom use for students grades 3-12. While teachers and students have long expressed needs for wanting more classroom engagement tools within the Khan Academy suite, we knew wanted to build a game-like experience that would keep students focused on their work in the classroom.

Guided by Inquiry

How might we understand users' needs (parents and teachers first, then learners) around second-language literacy, social-emotional learning, and diverse representation in the Khan Kids universe?

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As a product, Mastery Tower lies so far outside a regular brand offering. Its raw b&w aesthetic has both a unique appeal (and evokes strong feelings, making it ripe for feedback across users) and speaks to the more experimental approach this game-like experience has. We launched it as an alpha pilot with select schools, followed with an MVE release after learning from feedback from alpha usage.

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The design process of Mastery Tower involved multiple sprints - this was our most experimental project to date.

Our sprint design team was made up of research, brand, and product who worked very intensely together to brainstorm wildly on what a game-like experience can be, what gamification vs. games are, and the implications of entering a game-like experience in the edtech market for a brand like Khan Academy. The original alpha included no sound and barebones animation.

The motion and sound guide was a team effort to understand the competitive market of classroom engagement experiences like games, and we spent considerable time considering how animation and sound would impact the experience and the levels that we would need to consider (how much sound is too distracting, how much animation is too much?) - some of this was outsourced to agencies and external partners, so creating guidelines was key.

Branding + branding explorations for an emerging, sustainable clothing label based in Oakland, CA

The year is 2020. Or is it 2021? Or 2022? Honestly, it's all a blur. One thing my community of music heads and creative nerds did was spend a lot of time on Twitch raiding each other's streams and listening to a lot a lot a lot of music.

My friend Jon Reyes had an incredible plot twist to the Twitch streamer life: a M-F daily morning DJ stream. No talking, camera off, nearly the same image every day. Yet day after day, month after month, even year after year we kept tuning in. It was our morning ritual, our place to check emails, check the chat, and drink coffee.

So it was a no brainer to collab on a mug that captured the Shrimps in Space (my Twitch name) and the PMLE™ Per My Last Email stream community.

My heart!

What we/they do: OKF empowers youth leaders with the skills needed to organize to positively transform their school system, while providing services and supports for students to navigate existing learning conditions and access postsecondary success.

This is hands-on, urgent work in the schools that need it most. I can talk about the future of Oakland all day, please inquire 😊.