Interactive data collection Participatory data collection methods are a grab bag of ways to engage people in research and evaluation. When you use participatory methods you change the dynamic of the interaction from Collector and Respondent to Let’s do this activity together—it feels different and it yields different results. We use participatory methods because they…
INSPIRE Adaptation and Scale-up Guide, Syntegral for INSPIRE Client: Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children Location: Global / multi-country The challenge The Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children wanted to provide guidance on how to scale and adapt their seven evidence-based strategies for any INSPIRE country worldwide. Scaling programs without a holistic systems…
IGNITE Gender and Nutrition Training Compendium, Tanager, Subsaharan Africa Client: Tanager International Location: Subsaharan Africa The challenge IGNITE provides Technical Assistance (TA) to agribusinesses across Africa supporting meaningful integration of gender and nutrition within agriculture and organizational practice. TA coaches were frequently asked to cover basics of gender and nutrition and wanted a set of…
Outcome Harvesting Year 3 Review (Changing the Way We Care, global) Client: Changing the Way We Care, global Location: Guatemala, Kenya, Moldova The challenge Changing the Way We Care is a global initiative to address care reform worldwide. The moving parts are many—demonstration projects in Kenya, Guatemala, and Moldova; synergistic partnerships in India and Haiti;…
Coming from a company of some serious (and not so serious) game players, we’d like to share our passion for games and how they can be an excellent tool for working with complexity, specifically with behavior change and human development. We build core life skills through play such as social navigation, negotiation, creativity, confidence, and…
Let’s chat about Cognitive Load Theory** and how we can use it to design experiences, interactions, and communications that are better in tune with how our brains work. A person’s cognitive load is the total mental effort it takes to process information. Everything comes into our working memory and only some things pass on into our mid- or…
Working with illustrators to make real complex ideas is one of the most fulfilling things we do. Change is possible when we can see ourselves taking new actions and living into a new vision of our future. People learn well through pictures and the quality of those pictures matters. Working with an illustrator, we can…
What Does Design Offer Us Today? Despite the ubiquity of gamification in our lives and our marketplaces, games are often overlooked as a serious social change tool. However, emerging research is showing games, and gamification, to be more effective at driving learning outcomes, and gamification and game design are emerging as more accepted strategies for…
Some of our best work is done through design partnerships—a long-term agreement to provide evaluation and design services alongside a project. A design partnership results in custom tools, processes, and user-centered solutions that arise out of the collaboration rather than as items that are discreetly procured. Worlds of possibility are opened when pre-defined outcomes and…
