We use the power of design to transform how we learn + work.
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THE POWER OF DESIGN
Since 2013, the Lab and hundreds of college, employer, and community partners have used human-centered design to understand the barriers that New Majority Learners face in pursuit of economic opportunity. We use that understanding to inform, build, and scale more equitable designs.
Our work starts by identifying a critical problem and collaborating with the people closest to that problem.
OUR APPROACH
Human-Centered Design to Systems-Level Change
The Lab doesn’t just design for the people closest to the problem. We design with them. By bringing learners into the room with employers and educators, we use human-centered design to ensure that solutions are not just efficient, but deeply responsive to the lived experiences of those the system has traditionally left behind. Through our design process, we test big ideas, scale what works, and shape how systems behave.
DESIGN MODES
The Lab’s design approach guides us to address problems and make decisions intentionally by calling on three modes of design: Understand, Ideate, Prototype.
We structure the design process for each project based on how we want to move between these three modes of design and then leverage different tools throughout the process based on our objectives.
Understand
We’re actively defining problems, learning about the experiences of people closest to these problems, and reflecting on how systems and environments have been designed to shape these experiences. Reflecting on our own relationship to these problems is critical. Understand means that we’re asking questions, reflecting, listening, and learning.
Ideate
We’re opening our minds to new possible futures as we brainstorm and build on ideas and inspiration from others with different experiences, perspectives, and contexts. It is critical that we lead with solutions that those most deeply impacted by the problem have found or created for themselves. Ideation means that we’re imagining, visioning, playing, and pushing beyond what exists today.
Prototype
We’re creating testable versions of ideas and gathering feedback on these from key stakeholders, especially those most deeply impacted by the problem. This enables ongoing iteration toward innovation and transformation. Prototyping means we’re creating, building, implementing, and iterating toward impact.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
The way we operate within each of these three design modes is shaped by our core design principles:
- Growth, belonging, and agency asks us to support people’s engagement and well-being, and requires us to center the fulfillment of these engagement drivers in the experiences, programs, and products we create.
- Process as product asks us to see equity as the process, and not merely an end point.
- Historical and systemic context asks us to understand the history of how a problem came to be and how it has shaped people’s lived experiences.
- Inclusive collaboration asks us to engage in deep, consistent, empowering collaboration with people closest to the problem in decision-making.
OUR IMPACT
College, system and K-12 district partners
Community college partners
Workforce-aligned pathways
States where we’ve done work with colleges
We don’t just design programs — we design for system-level impact
We change systems by centering New Majority Learners in a collaborative process that results in a ripple effect of transformation across multiple levels, from individual programs and colleges, to regions and state systems.
We measure progress through four elements of change that signal system transformation:
Strengthen cross-sector partnerships to better align education, workforce, and employer needs — creating clearer, more supported pathways for learners
Shift policies and practices to remove barriers and support more flexible, skills-based, learner-centered pathways.
Strengthen the capacity of institutions and partners to design with learners, using data and human-centered approaches to continuously improve.
Change mindsets about learners, skills, and success — challenging outdated assumptions and redefining how systems create opportunity.
“A gallery walk is such a powerful tool – Education Design Lab’s work at its finest. It’s so powerful. It always has been.”
Dr. Tamika Duplessis
who participated in our Single Moms Success Design Challenge as an executive dean at Delgado Community College (Louisiana)
FEATURED DESIGN TOOLS
The following is just a sampling of tools we use throughout the human-centered design process.
Designing micro-pathways with the T-Profile
The T-Profile is a tool and visual construct that gets employers to be honest and precise about the mix of skills needed for hard-to-fill job roles. By prioritizing top three durable skills, and noting the requirements and importance of each credential and technical skills, we shift employer mindsets to focus on priority skills and rethink what might be important for that particular role.
Personas
Research-grounded profiles of fictional individuals who are close to the problem at hand. In creating these personas, we focus on outlining who is at the margins of this problem, which can be based on a variety of factors, such as specific needs, scenarios, or demographics.
Gallery Walk
A facilitation method where design teams display data points, quotes, or ideas around a room and participants move through them, leaving feedback, questions, and reactions. It’s designed to quickly surface diverse perspectives, strengthen concepts, and turn individual work into shared learning through structured, interactive critique.
Photovoice
A participatory research method that invites learners to talk about their lived experiences through photography and guided reflection.
Problem with Problems
We guide teams through problem definition and articulation, culminating in problem statements that serve as north stars to guide all of our work in a project, keeping us grounded in both the lived experience of people most proximate to the problem and the systemic and historical context of the problem.
Ecosystem Maps
A visual representation of the people, roles, and systems involved in or impacted by the problem at hand. We use ecosystem maps to give us an idea of who to invite into the design process and what we need to learn more about to move forward in tackling the problem at hand.
Interviews
One-on-one interviews, surveys, and focus groups with people closest to the problem help us build a deep understanding of their experiences, how they define the problem at hand, and ideas that they think could have an impact in the context of this problem.
Journey Maps
Team members map out 1) the current experience over time that a persona may have today and 2) the experience that they hope this person will have in the future once the ideas under consideration come to life.
In our world, it takes two kinds of people to make the magic: Intra-preneurs at institutions and education designers to support and facilitate empathy, experimentation, and transformation.
Kathleen deLaski
Education Design Lab Founder and Board Chair
