Exploring The Design Thinking Process

Week #2- “Design Challenge”

In the first part of this process, although the three projects differed from each other with their topics, all of the designers of the projects seemed to accomplish the same goal when framing their design challenge. They all were able to simply put down on paper the problem that they are attempting to solve. Adam’s, Eva’s, and Kristi’s design challenge all begin by using statements that clarify what they are trying to achieve for this project. I believe that this step of the project is probably one of the most essential parts regarding the process of design thinking. Framing one’s challenge is important because I feel that this step assists in directing where you would like your project to go in the future by acknowledging the problem that you are striving to solve. In the textbook, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, it suggests a question that someone should ask themselves when beginning this process. “Does my challenge drive toward ultimate impact, allow for a variety of solutions, and take into account context?” Specifically, in Adam’s and Eva’s “Frame Your Design Challenge” worksheet, I could tell that they really thought about those questions which then led to a more specific question than the one they originally created in the beginning. For example, Adam’s original question was “How might we improve student mental health @ NCSSU?” He then continued with stating the ultimate impact and identified possible solutions and constraints, where he then came up with “How can we help ensure student self-care in an accelerated, competitive learning environment like the North Carolina School of Science and Math?” I believe that all of the questions of these 3 projects declaring the challenge make sense because the questions are not too specific but are also not too broad. Each are focused on the specific topic that they mentioned in the beginning, but they took it another step further in declaring what they are trying to accomplish through design thinking. Being able to create a plan and develop a team so early on in this process is essential because it allows you to think through the details and strategies involving the project. Getting a diverse team together to start thinking through ideas can assist in the flow of generating as many unique solutions as possible.

Week #3- “The Interview”

The method of interviewing when using the design thinking approach is very crucial for this whole project because it allows us to be able to ask questions and hear stories that will provide us with information to better understand the user’s needs. Each of the designers of these projects conducted interviews for this step differently, but they all successfully took away valuable information they were able to use for their project in the attempt of finding a solution to their design challenge that they created in the previous step. I noticed that Adam’s, Eva’s, and Kristi’s approaches to the interviews varied in multiple ways. Adam first decided to conduct an expert interview with a therapist talking about self-care before he spoke with college students about their specific experiences involving self-care. It seemed like his interviews with the students were managed as group interviews. He was able to take some of the information that he had received from his expert interview and apply that to the questions he asked the students during his interview with them. For Eva’s project, she decided to interview the single parent individually, and wanted to make sure the individual was as comfortable as possible. She came up with a wide range of different questions that would allow her to get to know her interviewee’s stories, hardships, and feelings toward being a single parent. The compelling stories were very powerful, and I felt that they gave a vulnerable side and glimpse of the single parents that were interviewed. Kristi’s interview method was different from both Eva’s and Adam’s because she decided to construct a survey for the people that she decided to interview for her project. The survey was a way for her to get to know her interviewees history involving buying local produce. Kristi also focused on specific stories from the interviews that she conducted with different people in her community. I believe that a “good” interview in design thinking refers to being able to ask the “RIGHT” insightful questions that will allow you to better understand the user’s needs containing your design challenge. In the textbook it states, “Human-centered design isn’t just about talking to a lot of people, it’s about talking to the right people” (pg. 36). Being able to talk to a wide range of people will allow you to hear and gather unique input. Such as Adam decided to interview alumni as well to compare their insight on the subject of self-care to current students’ insight. The inspiring stories can be very beneficial for a project because using those compelling stories can help someone connect with your project specifically in the implementation stage. The other methods involving Collage, Card Sort, and Immersion are a great way to gain understanding and connect with the users you are getting to know for your project. I believe this method can create a deeper connection in understanding one’s values and beliefs regarding your subject. Immersion is a method that uses observation skills. Eva was the closest to using this method because she is a single parent, so she could have included ideas and input into her own project.

Evaluation and Reflections

This stage of evaluation and reflection seems to be the most prolonged stage of the project because it requires you to go through all of the information you received from your interviews and make sense of it. First, for the “insight” statements, those seemed to be developed from the reoccurring themes that one may notice when reviewing the information collected from their interviews. I have learned that the “insight” statements are very important and helpful for later when creating “how might we” statements and design frameworks. From Adam’s, Eva’s, and Kristi’s projects, all of their statements correlate to their design challenge that they constructed in the beginning of the entire project. I understand that these statements are not going to be perfect the first time I write them, and that I will probably need to edit the statements a couple of times. Then from the “insight” statements, I noticed that the “how might we” questions were then created. These statements seem to be a little tricky because you don’t want them to be too broad, but also not too specific. “How might we” statements need to be broad enough to allow you to examine multiple possibilities of solutions to your challenge. Finally, from the two statements from earlier, the design framework is then created. The frameworks seemed to be the most confusing to me at first when looking at the examples of other projects. However, after reading about it in the textbook, I began to understand that this step is basically a “road map” for you to connect the ideas and patterns you have noticed from the information that you collected in the Inspiration phase. Eva and Adam created versions of a relational map, whereas, Kristi created her own version of a 2x2. Both the relational map and the 2x2 make the most sense to me, but once I get to this point in my project I will choose the best framework that will work the best for me when organizing my ideas for my project.

Final Phases of Ideation and Implementation

The brainstorming and bundling methods in the ideation phase were very interesting concepts for me to read about in the textbook, and also see as an example in others’ projects. Your creativity is clearly going to show during this part because brainstorming and bundling consists of thinking and reflecting on many, many ideas that you see as potential solutions to your design challenge. The brainstorming rules mentioned in the textbook were great tips to being able to have a productive and efficient brainstorming session. I believe that the post-its are a great idea. Writing down the ideas when brainstorming makes it easier when you move on to bundling. You are able to look at the ideas you have come up with and group them together to form even more thorough ideas working towards a solution. In Adam’s and Eva’s projects, I really enjoyed their visuals involving the process of brainstorming and bundling. It showed that there was a ton of time and thoughts that went into using these methods. At first, I struggled to really understand the prototyping method. However, after reading and seeing the different examples of prototypes I perceive it as a method that helps to further a simple idea into a complete concept. Just from studying the examples of prototyping in the projects, I see that this method is more of a visual way to thinking through your ideas that could involve drawing pictures, role playing, or “rapid prototyping”. Ultimately, the goal of this method is to assist in thinking through an idea. The final phase, the implementation stage is summing up everything you have researched about your challenge, and finally carrying out your solution in the real world. This is a time when you can assess if it is successful or not and making a difference. Adam and Kristi conducted their own version of the implementation phase by pitching their final solution that they have created regarding their design challenge.