Building a Team
Taking on a project that integrates co-design, VR, and mental health requires a team of library staff and potentially outside partners. As you plan your project keep in mind the following roles and how they will be supported by library staff, community partners, and contractors.
Teen Relationship Builders
Takes the lead in building and maintaining relationships with teens involved in the project.
Co-design Session Planners
Takes the lead in organizing and planning co-design sessions.
Co-design Session Material Developers
Supports co-design session planning by building materials to be used in the sessions.
Co-design Session Facilitators
Works with the planners to facilitate co-design sessions.
Technology/Equipment “Masters”
Ordering, setting up, distributing equipment.
VR Developers/Interns
Responsible for building the VR experience, iterating the experience, presenting VR builds, and receiving feedback from co-designers.
Working with Interns/VR Developers
The interns are the teens’ connectors to the VR development process.
- When building the VR experience launches, the interns will take the ideas of the teens and put them into a VR build.
- Teens will then provide feedback on that build, the interns will make revisions, and bring back the new build to the teens for more feedback.
- As the teens and the interns work together, it’s important for the teens to understand why some ideas are and are not possible to implement. The interns can help in explaining that and in overcoming tension between teen ideas and actual implementation.
- It may take five to seven sessions following the design sprint to build the final VR experience.
The intern relationship with the project facilitators and the teens is key to success.
Keep in mind:
When the project facilitators begin work with the interns, spending time getting to know each other is valuable.
- Instead of just jumping into the project, have a meeting or two in which the adults and the interns learn a bit about each other and begin to build trust.
The value of building in opportunities for the interns to spend time with teens in building the relationships.
- Offer sessions where teens and interns work together to learn something without the adults in the room.
- Interns may explore VR apps with the teens, or work on building technology skills as a way to cement their relationships
Give interns a chance to work with different sets of teens along the way.
- When in design sessions with the teens and the interns, vary the small groups.