Professor Mikael Fuhr
Communication Project
Kayli Battel
December 2, 2022
The Lounge
Process & Development
An Introduction to DESIGN THINKING
With the huge demand in modern business for innovation, companies are striving to keep up with the user experience and satisfaction of their competitors, which has brought attention to the Design Thinking process.
Through the use of the 5 steps listed below, companies can invest time up front to understand their user base and goals in order to more successfully provide solutions - and this pays off (Combelles et al., 2020). Companies like Apple and Toyota have been thriving on their user experience, frequent updates, and consistent quality - but this type of design can extend into just about any design problem that we can come up with as a species.
For the last few months, I’ve been working with a few partners to follow the design thinking process along our own specific project. And now I’m here to share what we learned with you!
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So… what is design thinking?
"A human-centered approach to problem-solving"
(Brown, 2009)
Simply put, design thinking is a process we can follow to solve complex problems with a pre-set series of steps that in order can create a more successful, more comprehensive, and more enjoyable final product or solution.
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As demonstrated by our class and by Change by Design, the five steps of design thinking are Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, which I will explain now in context of my group project.
Where to begin?
First and foremost, we needed to select an issue that we are trying to solve. In our case, as students, we chose to address the issue of post-graduate steps. This is an important issue because almost every graduate needs to go through the process, but it is extremely opaque, stressful, and confusing.
“How might we…
… better prepare for our lives after college through personal skill sets?”
Original Problem Statement
Step 1: Empathize
The first step of the Design Thinking Process is Empathy. In this stage, the goal is to talk to the user base you have in mind and gather relevant insights from their responses and conversations.​
For us, this came in stages:
1. We sent out a general survey asking questions such as “What are your plans after college?”, “What are your biggest fears after college?”, and “What skills have you obtained that you think will help with your life after college?”. ​​This form of data collection worked in that we got a large-scale idea of our user pool needs and fears, but was not our best collection device. To begin with, the data itself was a slog to organize and group into useful collections of information; and the answers we got were broad and vague. As a starting point to inform our more in-depth interviews, though, the surveys did the trick!​​
Survey Gallery
Survey insights that helped us narrow our focus before interviews
Click the above image to view the survey or click here
2. Then, true to our goals, we completed in-person interviews with our user base. We had 2 sets of 3 interviews each. We asked more personal questions about our interviewees’ goals, hopes, expectations for their lives, skill gaps, and anxieties. We also used several successful “visual stimuli,” which incorporated a visual or physical activity to supplement speech. First, we asked what color the future made them feel. Later, we asked them each to rank 15 tokens representing skills/activities (money, cooking/food, work/life balance, proximity to home, family, social connections, network, etc.) by importance. At the end, we would once again ask the color question and document whether it changed or not and why. From this, we learned that our user base is extremely diverse in plans, goals, and needs - and that our solution would have to be flexible and personalized.
Alterations between Sets of Interviews:
The second time around, we changed some of our questions involving struggles and fears to be peer-framed rather than personal. By asking about "people your age" rather than the interviewee themselves, we found that the answers we received were more honest and open. We also narrowed down some of our questions because our first interviews sometimes diverged from our problem statement. We also added a third visual stimuli: drawing 5 physical tools they felt were important to their futures.
Interview Gallery: Visual Stimuli
"How does the future make you feel" answers:
What did we learn?
We found that asking questions in a peer context and using visual stimuli made a big difference in the quality of our insights. From this process, I learned that setting up a framework is important - but it’s equally important to balance a fluid and comfortable conversation to get honest, helpful answers. In the future, I might try recording interviews to take notes later and stretch myself to try an even more reciprocal discussion.
Step 2: Define
Once we completed general observations and assessments, we moved into the Define stage. We created a general Empathy Map demonstrating our insights into what our users would say, think, feel, and do. These questions helped us categorize the insights we found and come up with a more general understanding of what our solution should try to do for our users. The main takeaways we gained from the map was that our users felt unguided, overwhelmed, and anxious.
We struggled as a group deciding whether our solution should also focus on helping with anxiety, since it was such a prevalent portion of our Empathy phase, but after some discussion we decided that it made more sense to create a solution that addressed the professional skill gaps students had in their postgraduate path, but to make the process less scary.
As a result, we altered our “how might we” statement to address more of the problem we found that our users actually struggled with - and to make our statement more active and ourselves accountable.
Define Phase Gallery
Interview insights: quotes, comments, rankings, concerns, frustrations
Empathy map based on user insights from the Empathy phase. Split into "say," "think," "feel," and "do" categories
How might we…
…support college students to cultivate practical/professional skill sets to lift barriers to the transition after college?
Revised Problem Statement
Step 3: Ideate
With our problem clearly defined and our user needs sufficiently understood, we were ready to begin ideating. In this phase, our goal was to begin as broad and wild as possible and slowly narrow our focus down to 2-3 good ideas that we believed could actually work. We did this first by using “quantity over quality” techniques, including timed brainstorming with a goal of 15 ideas in 5 minutes and ‘Crazy 8s’, which involves sketching 8 ideas for 1 minute each on a sectioned paper. Using these tactics, we asked each group member what our wildest and best ideas were. Generally, I think our “wildest” ideas weren’t that wild, and our request may have improved if we had asked for the “worst” instead.
At this point, we landed on 3 ideas that we thought had some merit: organized workshops for students, an app, and a social space with professional development tools. Our favorite idea was the space because it felt so all-encompassing and inviting for students who already had access to career centers and the internet. However, it was too early for us to commit too fully; and maintaining open minds proved to be difficult for us.
Group Ideating
A few of our group's sticky note brainstorming ideas (developed quickly with no judgement)
Initial co-creation for the space and app
Initial co-creation for workshops and classes
We then invited 2 groups of guests into our ‘office’ and held some group idea development sessions.
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We began with a timed brainstorming session, moved into co-creation using sticky notes, introduced our preexisting ideas, did another brainstorming session, and finished with one more co-creation session. Unfortunately, some of our guests were quiet so we sometimes had trouble inviting them in, which may have been solved if we had spent a bit more time breaking the ice. We did, however, have success with our guests building off each other and our ideas without offering too many criticisms, which is something we aimed for. These guests also contributed important, fresh ideas to the concept of our final solution, the space.
Guest Thinking Sessions
Guest co-creation ideas
Guests organizing their brainstorming ideas based on category
Step 4: Prototype
Our project had generally four different prototypes. The first was a set of hand-drawn floor plans on whiteboards, which included every possible idea we could come up with for rooms and activities at the time. At this point, our goals were messy and visual - just barely enough to get our ideas across to each other.
Prototype 1:
The second narrowed us down a bit more with rooms that we felt could be beneficial, and was presented more cleanly with digitized floor plans.
Prototype 2:
Potential floor plan for the space. This floor includes a cafe, mentors on duty, a conversation pit, a workshop room, and some group work spaces.
Potential floor plan for the space. This floor includes a bar, a dance floor, standing tables, a professional headshot station for the daytime, and a cinema.
Potential floor plan for the space. This floor includes group study rooms, a portfolio development/art room, meditation and nap spaces, a comfortable homework area, and a lecture/workshop room.
The third used the digital floor plans and stock photos to share more of a mood board to help guests and users understand the intention of the space and how each room might be used.
Prototype 3:
And our final prototype is represented in the video below - through the use of storytelling, we aimed to help outsiders feel and appreciate the atmosphere and intention of The Lounge.
Step 5: Test
This video, created after a brief storyboarding session and review, represents our final prototype, which would now go into the “Testing” phase. Based on feedback, we would go back to prototyping (or even ideating!), adjust to fit the responses, and repeat until we’re satisfied.
Music by:
bensound.com
fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-music
Logo by:
looka.com
Final Comments:
Based on our experiences
In general, design thinking can be used by just about anyone trying to solve a problem. The steps are dynamic and useful, and at the beginning can be treated as a toolbox with a series of steps to follow to address issues. The process is so flexible that it can be used on a tiny scale (say… solving the problem of an itchy forehead when wearing a beanie) or on a huge scale (designing a solution to draw users toward more environmentally friendly transportation). Design thinking is a critical mindset that can be used in any context and makes solutions, simply, better - and can even be very effective as an educational tool as well (Barrett-Zahn, 2022). Through the process of creating The Lounge, our team learned valuable lessons about user experience, thinking techniques, interview tactics, user research, and much more.
There truly is no equal for the design thinking process to so consistently promote innovation, creativity, and productivity.
And who knows - if you use design thinking and play your cards right, you might even change the world.
References
Barrett-Zahn, E. (2022). Design thinking. Science and Children, 59(3), 6. Retrieved from https://login.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/design-thinking/docview/2629098429/se-2
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Brown, T. (2009). Change by design. HARPER COLLINS.
Combelles, Ebert, C., & Lucena, P. (2020). Design Thinking. IEEE Software, 37(2), 21–24. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2019.2959328
"Lounge" project completed alongside Honor Williams, Madeline Mayr, and Sophie Ruan for Professor Mikael Fuhr's Innovation Through Design Thinking course, Fall 2022.