Fwd: Member feedback on badging process
Ashley Zdeb
From: Kate Cebik <kate....@makehaven.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 10:37 AM
Subject: Member feedback on badging process
To: Staff <st...@makehaven.org>
Onboarding & Navigation
Information Overload: New members feel overwhelmed trying to identify which specific badges they actually need to start their projects. Better highlight a non-badging appointment as the best place to start for a project.
Poor Website Organization: The current digital layout makes it difficult to navigate the available badge options. We talked about doing some badge groupings, eg metal shop starter pack, squaring a board, etc. Think that would be helpful
Lack of Contextual Grouping: Tools are listed individually rather than by project type (e.g., "Fine Carpentry" vs. "CNC"), making it hard for beginners to understand tool relationships. Don't suggest changing to this system since so many projects can result from tools -- again suggest highlighting a non-project appointment as a starting point
Scheduling & Logistics
Inefficient Scheduling: The current process for booking multiple badge sessions is described as a "chore."
Fragmented Sessions: Because facilitators are assigned to specific tools rather than cohesive groups, members have to attend more sessions than should be necessary. Being able to filter the facilitator schedule by area could help with this.
Training Content (Videos)
Excessive Length: Videos are "pretty long" and contain too much "dead time" (e.g., watching a presenter move stock or walk around a machine). Asked for specific examples of videos to re-edit/add summaries to. Maybe facilitators could help with this task. (True for all 3 points)
Poor Pacing: Because videos are shot in a single take, they lack the succinctness of an edited presentation.
Difficult to Follow: The lack of a structured format (like slides or clear diagrams) makes it harder to absorb essential safety and maintenance information.
Member Experience
High Barrier for Beginners: The system assumes a level of "hobby knowledge" that new members don't yet have.
Friction in the "First Mile": The combined weight of these issues makes the initial experience of joining the space feel burdensome rather than welcoming.
I think if the badges were better organized on the website, and the videos were edited differently, the onboarding process would be a lot nicer and easier to navigate, and would probably save you all some headache as well. I have been thinking about my experience getting badged and how I think it could have worked for me better.
My first frustration was that I, as a person new to this kind of hobby, was not really sure what tools I needed to badge on to start. I think that they should be organized based on what kind of project they help you do. E.g. the woodshop could have Rough Carpentry Tools, Fine Carpentry Tools, General Purpose Tools, Speciality Tools (e.g. CNC) as groups, with each group containing the badges that anyone interested in that type of task might need.
I think that you could, at the same time, re-organize your facilitators based on this system - each facilitator could teach all of the tools in a given group, so that users will need less overall badging sessions, and the session as a whole can be more 'cohesive' around a work process. This would let each facilitator be more efficient, and would in turn allow you to better ensure that you have facilitators covering the right skills and offering badging sessions at the right times.
Secondly, I think that the videos themselves are kind of painful to get through. Because they're done in one take, they are pretty long and have a lot of 'dead time' where the presenter is moving around the machine, preparing their stock, etc. I think these videos could be more succinct if you followed a different format. What comes to mind is to present slides based on the essential things people need to know about a given tool (how to use it right, how to (not) break it, how to know when it needs service, how to not hurt yourself, etc.), using photos and diagrams as needed, and using video for a brief live demonstration and to show any details or processes that are difficult to show with photos or explain with just slides/narration.
Thanks for reading! If you want to follow up feel free! I am making this suggestion because I believe it's better to speak up than to not, this isn't meant to be a particularly harsh criticism. I understand that the video revision suggestion is pretty burdensome to do, but maybe it can be a phased rollout or those are kept as 'legacy' and updated as it makes sense to?