1. Contestant Centered Design:
creative approaches to designing
competitions
Crowd Sourcing Week October 2018

2. Balancing
PointOrganizational
Needs
Contestant or
Participant
Needs
Barriers to
Participation
Implementation
Time &
Resources
Risks
Others
Elements

3. User
Centered
Design

4. Contestant
Centered
Design
Contestant’s
point of view
Needs /
desires of the
contestants
Design a
solution
Implement,
assess,
document,
and validate

5. Challenge
Life Cycle

6. Context &
Examples
• Overview of recent challenges hosted by
NIST Public Safety Communications Research
Division as context
• Discuss an example of contestant centered
design within this context

7. 7
Context #1
Public Safety Code: <X>
• A public private partnership focusing
coding and software expertise on the
communications and technology challenges
facing first responders and public safety
professionals
• Includes 10 specific technology contests,
10 unique regional events, with activities
interspersed to engage and recruit
contestants
• Leads up to national final event
• Estimated launch March 2019

8. • Contestant’s point of view
• Ambiguous challenge
• Needs / desires of the contestants
• Clear, concise, approachable, broadly relatable
• Design a solution
• Expand multi disciplinary design teams to include
sample contestants or other external SMEs
• Implement, assess, document and validate
• Focus group, workshop, collecting rankings, data,
strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Contestant
Centered
Design
Example #1

9. 9
Context #2
Differential Privacy Synthetic Data Challenge
• This 2-stage challenge is designed to
create new or improve existing methods
of data de-identification, in a way that
makes de-identification of privacy-
sensitive datasets practical and useful to
the research community.
• Prizes totaling $190k for 2-stages
• Estimated stage 2 launch in October 2018

10. • Contestant’s point of view
• How would our approach benefit from a multi –
disciplinary partnership?
• Needs / desires of the contestants
• Existing community wants to partner with other
communities with complimentary skills
• Design a solution
• Purposefully connect tangential communities,
create opportunities for contestants to
coordinate and collaborate
• Implement, assess, document, and validate
• Strategic assessment of communities, outreach
and implementation approaches to encourage
partnerships
Contestant
Centered
Design
Example #2

11. Context #3 & #4
Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Time
& Payload Challenge
• This 3-stage challenge was
designed to keep wireless
communications equipment
airborne at a set location for the
longest time possible to support
first responder missions.
• 11 winners with prizes totaling
$250,000 and $38,000 travel funds
• The competition ran from 1/8/18 –
5/24/18 11

12. • Contestant’s point of view
• Am I on track?
• Needs / desires of the contestants
• Interim feedback, Q&A, etc.
• Design a solution
• Regular check ins and standardized format
• Implement assess, document, and validate
• Keep track of contestants, document issues, close
out pending requests
Contestant
Centered
Design
Example #3

13. • Contestant’s point of view
• Barrier to participation – can I afford to join this?
• Needs / desires of the contestants
• Seed funding to get started
• Design a solution
• Cash prizes and other awards provided at each
stage
• Implement, assess, document, and validate
• Steady stream of incentives, some pressure, and
information on how to redesign in the future
Contestant
Centered
Design
Example #4

14. Context #5
Virtual Reality Heads-Up Display Navigation
Challenge
• This 4-stage challenge was designed to advance
UI for first responders to complete navigational
tasks. Contestants created a prototype heads-up
display in a PSCR VR environment to evaluate the
UI/UX and navigation capabilities.
• 6 winners with prizes totaling $87,500 and
$24,000 travel funds
• The competition ran from 1/2/18 - 6/6/18
14

15. • Contestant’s point of view
• What could I have done to perform better?
• What can I do next?
• Needs / desires of the contestants
• Customized Feedback
• Design a solution
• Post challenge discussions
• Implement, assess, document, and validate
• Ideas, recommendations, etc.
Contestant
Centered
Design
Example #5

16. Craig
Connelly
Prize & Challenge
Specialist
• Reflect on your own process
• How and when is the prospective of the
contestant or participant integrated into your
approach?
• Does your process have the ability to use
feedback from contestants or participants?
• What are some ways that you are using that
feedback?
• How do you define your balancing point between
contestant and organizational needs?
• Share your experiences with us, we’re committed
to continual improvement
Conclusions