The brief
The Young Person's Insight (YPi) project was developed in response to changes across the digital landscape - changes that presented the opportunity to engage with young people in a whole new way. The DCSF wanted to put young people at the heart of their approach and deliver information, advice and guidance to them in the most effective way.
Our challenge was to encourage young people to make positive choices on important issues affecting their lives, and to provide an engaging online journey for young people aged 13-19, in addition to delivering content in the virtual destinations that young people frequently occupied.
As the DCSF's digital partners, we were tasked to provide fresh insight and define a strategic approach that would enable the Department to deliver credible, useful, relevant, and engaging online information.
The approach
We adopted a three stage approach; from Discovery, through Refinement, to the culmination of a Blueprint, which documented strategic guidelines for how the new information service would be delivered.
Discovery
We undertook detailed research with young people on and offline to identify key insights and opportunities. Our insight team employed a wide variety of research methods to reach these 'digital natives'. The main method was an innovative immersion panel of young people aged 13-19: over a period of 12 months the team learned about the their lives and the challenges they faced through interviews, group activities, accompanied web surfing tasks and regular blogs. The team also organised desk research, Facebook polls, 3D virtual focus groups, video diaries, vox pops and online surveys to guide the project
Refinement
From these multiple inputs, the team identified key insights and opportunities, and developed a strategic approach based around the theory of 'Content Everywhere', where content is dispersed quickly to wherever young people are in the digital world, thereby increasing the number of ways they can access support.
To test our theory, we developed a Content Everywhere prototype in the form of a video story that was tested across various locations and formats including: mobile, virtual spaces, blogs, games, social media and video search, which allowed us to fully evaluate the strategy. This was well received by the youth panel and feedback confirmed we were on the right track.
Blueprint
To consolidate all our insight and findings from the prototype work, we documented the strategic approach and laid down the guidelines for the delivery of the new service.
To demonstrate the longevity of the strategy, we outlined a process for an ongoing review of the digital landscape to ensure the approach remains flexible, allowing it to adapt to reflect future trends and changes.
The result
It is hoped that the 'Content Everywhere' strategy will form the cornerstone of the Department for Education's future approach to engaging with young people online.