Published 2/12/2024
Have you ever wondered how a product idea becomes a reality? Or where a great idea comes from? Last year, the AAOS Education Council sent a survey inquiring about AAOS’ online educational offerings and discovered that:
- AAOS has premier educational content but needs to improve ease of access, engagement, interactivity, and alignment of content to individual needs.
- Educational events can be smaller in scale with an improved digital experience. This approach leverages innovative, novel technologies, and new modalities to build improved user experiences and more accessible content.
- Ideas for new products and solutions need to be drawn from multiple channels to meet members’ diverse needs.
- New product types and a focus on refining ideas to key points would support more iterations and increased agility in the education content development process, allowing for a faster time to market for products and solutions.
From these findings, the Learning Innovation Lab was born. The Learning Innovation Lab team is a collaborative group comprised of AAOS staff, the Education Council multimedia chair, other members of the Education Council, and subject-matter experts. This team is focused on the development of new educational products and experiences that are intuitive, desirable, and impactful.
To achieve its goal of developing innovative educational content, the Learning Innovation Lab team leverages best practices in human-centered design. This iterative approach to problem-solving places the needs, behaviors, and experiences of members at the core of the design process. This approach includes:
- inclusive ideation: involving a diverse range of individuals with varied perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences in the generation and development of ideas
- intentional communication: actively planning and facilitating communication to support and enhance the process, fostering awareness, alignment, and effective decision making
- intensive collaboration: emphasizing the active involvement, engagement, and collective effort of diverse stakeholders throughout an idea’s journey through the process
- process transparency: creating an environment where participants feel informed, involved, and empowered to actively contribute to the innovation effort
- rapid iteration: utilizing a fast-paced and agile methodology that allows for continuous learning, adaptation, and refinement based on real-world insights and user feedback
Experience the Learning Innovation Lab at AAOS 2024
This week, you can experience the creative process first-hand. Come to the Learning Innovation Lab in the AAOS Learning & Practice Store, located in South, Esplanade Lobby, to discover what happens when an idea is submitted to the lab and how ideas are received, assessed, and developed by the Learning Innovation Lab team.
From 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. each day, join your peers for interactive innovation sessions. Your idea could become the next AAOS education product that helps to advance orthopaedic education.