Two months ago, we had announced at Youth Ki Awaaz our move to civic data. Since then, we’ve had a chance to work on some of the most interesting studies – from active citizenship and data protection to climate change and mental health. And while it has meant that our ability to partner with businesses and non-profits has grown significantly, it has also meant that our community needs a special focus to reignite their participation on the platform.
We noticed that as we moved to conducting more surveys as a way of self-expression, more people participated in surveys in a matter of weeks. But we also noticed that other qualifiers of community engagement, such as writing and publishing did not grow as much.
So today, we’re deploying our biggest learning from the last two months back on to the platform. We’ve launched a new experience, a more integrated approach to data and storytelling on YKA. Our goal has always been to make it easier for a young person to express themselves and feel represented.
The new YKA website encapsulates this perfectly, while rewarding people for their participation.
1. We’ve done away with the idea of a homepage that highlights some voices over others. A “newsfeed” instead helps our users curate content and data basis their topical and location preferences.
2. A dedicated state news feed helps them find out what people who live in their states are talking about – and add their voice to it as well. And to add to this, every topic and location on YKA has now been turned into a community of its own.
3. We also realised that our community wants to be rewarded for their growth. Listening to them, we’ve launched a point based system rewards people for their interaction and engagement on the platform – with options to redeem such points in the future. This is not just a simple point system, but a way for our community to track their active citizenship streak.
Our goal has been to never complicate what our core offering to our community is. And while this mini-transition helps us reel back on some and double down on other features, we’re excited for what the next few months of learning will look like for us.