CASE STUDY
Building an Impact Framework
Defining a shared data storytelling framework to align regional workforce partners and surface measurable impact.
The Goal
Enable workforce organizations to articulate meaningful, comparable impact despite fragmented data systems, varying levels of data maturity, and limited aggregation opportunities.
My Role
UX researcher and strategist responsible for discovery, framework design, and co-leading the development of a shared data storytelling model used to surface cross-regional insights.
Key Insights
Comparable impact could not be achieved through data standardization alone. Shared understanding and narrative structure were equally critical.
While workforce boards collected similar categories of data, differences in systems, processes, and data literacy limited aggregation. Designing a data storytelling framework allowed the team to identify meaningful intersections across disparate data sets and surface insights without forcing false equivalence.
Impact
Enabled multi-regional insight generation despite partial and uneven data
Provided workforce boards with a shared language for articulating impact
Informed a set of strategic themes and questions used to query aggregated data
Shifted the project from “normalizing data” to “designing for interpretation and meaning”
My Challenge
Work with small cohorts of regional workforce boards to identify shared value across highly variable data systems—and design a framework that could surface cross-regional outcomes without compromising data integrity or governance constraints.
Users
Primary users: Regional workforce boards participating in cohort pilots.
Secondary audiences: Policymakers, funders, and community stakeholders via public-facing data stories.
Scope and Constraints
Two-year pilot with a small, evolving team
Data governance agreements limiting access and aggregation
Significant variation in tools, processes, and data literacy across cohorts
Limited availability and capacity of participating organizations
My Process
Conducted discovery sessions and interviews with cohort participants to understand data systems, practices, and constraints
Co-led qualitative interviews with a BI Analyst to assess data maturity and comparability
Identified and proposed a unified set of metrics and measures, refining them collaboratively with cohorts
Co-created a data storytelling framework to define meaningful intersections across metrics
Led development of a data story grid that translated shared data into strategic questions and narratives
Organizations
JFFLabs, Brighthive, Google.org (funder)
My Role
UX Researcher and Strategist
Date / Duration
Sept 2020 - July 2022
