May 2, 2023 - Reference Group Meeting

 

 Date

May 2, 2023

Agenda

Presenter

Time

Notes

Product Update on Research Findings & Next Steps by Unfold Stories

Unfold Stories Team:

Savena Surana

Davinia Vincent

20 min

Presentation deck

Overview

  • Unfold Stories - hired to address user research gaps and improve the UX of the Digital Impact Exchange. Putting together wireframes and integrating a user centered approach in the design of the website and marketplace features.

  • In April, as part of the user research, they interviewed a cross section of users - product owners, SIs, government advisors, INGO professionals, procurement experts - from different backgrounds and countries.

    • Interview questions/discussions focused on acquiring feedback on the Exchange website and the new marketplace features wireframes/figma files being developed (RFP radar, vendor storefront, and product comparison tool).

  • Feedback received from interviewees:

    • Strong positive reactions on the purpose and aim of the Exchange - seeing it as a one stop shop for digital solutions and services.

    • Website looks clean and modern, however important to ensure easy accessibility that isn’t the 4th front:

      • Users felt information on the Exchange was quite dense, and required time and effort to filter through it manually to be able to find what they needed.

      • Not all of the users were sure exactly what the recommendation wizard was actually trying to achieve.

      • Confusion on terminologies and what they mean i.e., building blocks, workflows etc.

      • Feedback from the procurement side - the Exchange still heavily focuses on digital products.

    • RfP radar: overall reaction to this page was very positive. Everybody understood exactly what the purpose of it.

      • Suggestion to also display budgets of RfP opportunities, and for users to be able to personalize their experience on this features by being able to shortlist or save RFP's they are interested in.

    • Comparison tool: like the idea of being able to compare the different products or the different organizations. However users were generally confused on how to use this feature

      • Questions raised on the comparison categories and not understanding the language/terminologies being used i.e, for the scoring on maturity, people questioned what this would mean and how it would be calculated.

  • Next steps - phase 2:

    • Focusing on the navigation component on the Exchange - ensuring it is intuitive and easy to do:

      • consolidating the number of tabs and filters, having a very clear landing page

      • recommendation wizard - work on making it more streamlined and using its purpose is understood and easy to use by all range of users coming from different backgrounds.

      • Taking into account internet connectivity issues and bandwidth to access all features and functions on the Exchange - i.e., display of maps etc.

      • Utilize icons and ensuring that accessibility standards are met.

    • Developing information architecture: hierarchy of content and the tabs - ensuring a simple framework of how we want people to move through the site.

  • Questions/Feedback

    • How diverse in terms of pre knowledge/understanding of the terminologies and technical concepts were the interviewees?

      • Response: Some of the users interviewed had never been on the Exchange website before. They were asking questions on what workflows and building blocks are.

    • Great to see feedback that users wanted a way to connect with suppliers. This is a great feature that the Exchange has to offer and it's nice to see that people have positive feedback of it.

Member Spotlight - NewLogic

Greg Martel, Co-founder & COO

20 min

Presentation deck

Overview

  • Newlogic - an impact driven consulting firm working mainly in the fields of digital identity, social protection and biometrics:

    • Based in Southeast Asia with multiple offices (Thailand, Philippines etc), team of 70 - coming from various backgrounds and nationalities.

    • Core clients: UN agencies, government agencies - ministries, humanitarian organizations etc.

    • Have done a lot of work in the open source space.

  • They have done a lot of work in the open source space:

    • ID pass - smart scanner ID: a library that is used to read national ID documents.

    • Open SPP - open source social protection platform: a platform they developed for one of their clients to allow several ministries to operate the platform.

    • Have collaborated with Mojaloop.

  • Considering creating a foundation that host open source projects that are taking place in this space and open to joining forces with others interested in this. Anyone interested can reach out to Greg - his contact details are in the deck above.

Questions/Feedback

  • Would the Foundation have more of a regional focus in Southeast Asia or other regions as well?

    • Response: Though Newlogic’s main offices are based in Southeast Asia, the solutions they build - the open source ones, are used globally. The client projects they have developed are used in over 50 countries in all continents. So the idea of the Foundation is to have global reach i.e., n create something in Asia, that can also be used in Africa, the Middle East etc,.

  • Feedback: The Foundation would be a great way to support sustainability of DPGs and open source projects. However if you're setting up a Foundation, where is that going to be headquartered? If the Foundation will have a global scope then it is important to consider the local laws and regulations that are required per country/region.

Member Spotlight - Superbloom (formerly known as Simply Secure)

Eriol Fox, Senior Designer & OSS Product Manager

20 min

Presentation deck

Overview

  • Have worked on open source tools that were specifically a government funded open source tool for funders to manage their funds.

  • Superbloom (former name was Simply Secure) has been going through a rebranding process for about two years.

    • Involved their community in the early stage of the rebranding process, in a open source community participatory way - invited their funders, community stakeholders, etc to collaborate on this.

  • Eriol is also a PhD researcher - looks at how design is done in human, humanitarian and human rights related organizations. She has done design in humanitarian in human rights related organizations for a number of years.

  • Superbloom is committed to changing who technology serves and addressing power dynamics - they are all about including the people that don't typically get included in the design and development processes of digital tools.

    • Concerted effort to include as many people as possible that may get pushed to the fringes in this process.

    • A lot of the tools they work on are tools that human rights activists and people that are at risk would like to use or do use.

      • From people doing advocacy work on the ground in different kinds of communities, to working with whistleblowers.

    • They onboard nontechnical users into decentralized applications - they’ve done work on how decentralized tools are designed, and the process of building decentralized applications. Also provide coaching support.

    • Working with different funders across different kinds of software tools from open source scientific research software to critical open source infrastructure about how to best support sustainable critical digital infrastructure.

    • Usability is critical infrastructure for Superbloom and they believe it should be funded.

      • They do a lot of work to help open source teams better understand their users and improve usability of the tools being utilized. They do this in partnership with few different funders - open technology fund through the secure Usability Accessibility Lab, the UX fund, and the prototype fund.

    • They help lots of digital democracy tools with user research i.e., a mapping app for indigenous communities called Mapeo.

Questions/Feedback

  • How necessary do you believe it is to have open source communities within multiple organizations and individual contributors?

    • Response: It depends on the open source itself and the funding component. When multiple organizations are collaborating on the same tool/solution it can get tricky. However community sharing and collaboration is important.

DDX – Digital Donors Exchange Community

Sainabou Jallow

5 min

Presentation deck

Overview

  • DDX is a community of practice hosted by DIAL. It is a group of global digital development funders called, the Digital Donors Exchange, or DDX.

  • DIAL originally created DDX as a space for peers to help each other navigate the complex choices they are faced with across funding, project design, governance, and most importantly, how digital technology can build a more equitable world.

  • The DDX community is very interested in learning more about the work of systems integrators and the general Reference Group.

  • A DDX event will be organized in the coming months and SIs in the Reference Group are welcome to participate and engage with this donor community.

Next Steps - Agenda Items

Sainabou Jallow

5 min

Overview

  • Next Reference Group meeting to take place in Q/3 or Q4. Doodle poll will be shared with all to select availability.

  • Members are welcome to share agenda items and/or volunteer to participate in a member spotlight session.

 Participants