Design
thinking process
Problems are an integral part of our lives. Very often
when they sneak up, we review it keeping the past experiences in mind and offer
solutions only to realize later that either the problem has deepened or doors
to new problems have opened. We find ourselves wandering the same cycle again
and again with no benefits. So, let’s now give ourselves an opportunity to
unlearn and learn new processes of resolving our problems at any level or field.
The design thinking process designed by Stanford
University helped me define the problem
instead of just looking for solutions keeping the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development. At the core of this process is a bias towards empathy where you feel in sync with the
user's needs; creating and testing prototypes, testing and continuing to learn and
improving upon your initial ideas.
It is based on the following steps which may not be
linear at all times.
To understand the steps better, we will take an incident
which occurred in my school and common to most.
We have educational excursions every year and students
had willingly given their names for the same. Two months before the trip, 2
girls of a secondary class dropped out of a school educational trip
unexpectedly. On questioning by the class teacher, they mentioned it as a
personal decision and not being very comfortable on the trip without their
friends. Thus the money was refunded and the chapter closed for the teacher.
Nevertheless, I felt like exploring the problem further
as the students who opted out had not missed any excursion in the past so I
took the design thinking approach where the first step is:
1. Empathize
mode – the work you do to understand people, the effort to understand the way
they do things and why, their physical and emotional needs, how they think of
the world and what is meaningful to them.
To empathize we need to assume a
beginner’s mindset and leave side our experiences, understanding and expertise.
Thus a few pointers in mind would work like:
a. Don’t
judge – Be low on the ladder of inference
b. Question
everything – even the things you already know – Make sure the questions elicit
stories like ‘Tell me why’ types.
c. Be
curious – especially in circumstances that seem too familiar or uncomfortable
d. Find
patterns – interesting threads and themes that emerge.
e. Listen
– Absorb what your users want to tell you.
Keeping the issue at hand I conducted the empathy
interview with my students and teachers and ensured that I refrained from
binary questions and was prepared to capture. Recording the interview would
help me visit it many times to note down minute non verbal language and
nuances.
My questions for
students were all focused on eliciting stories like:
Tell me why you opted out of the trip?
Tell me why you feel you would be uncomfortable with the
other students on the trip?
Tell me why you feel your teacher will not be a friend?
For
teachers:
Tell me why the students opted out of the trip?
Tell me why you feel the class climate is questionable?
Tell me why the girls and boys are uncomfortable with
each other?
Based on the responses an Empathy Map was created where a four quadrant
layout on paper is created.
SAY: What are some
quotes and defining words my user said?
DO: What actions
and behaviours did I notice?
THINK: What might
my user be thinking? What does this tell me about his or her beliefs?
FEEL: What emotions might my subject
be feeling?
Caution: You remain low on the
ladder of inference at all times and not jump to any judgments or conclusions
but only focus on the user.
My empathy map of the student mentions that the user
feels that she and other classmates will not jell. She believes that only girls
can be her friends.
The empathy map of the teacher shows that she feels that
the class climate is not ideal; the student dropping out of trip was a personal
choice which did not need much probing. She also felt that students are missing
their old friends and therefore taking time to adjust to new friends.
Based on the empathy Map and what the user is truly
feeling you move on the second step of the design thinking process and that is:
2. Defining your problem as
per your user’s needs. For that you must re frame the challenge based on new
insights we have gained through the design work. Thus your question pattern now
moves to ‘How might? pattern which helps to sow the seeds for ideation.
To achieve this small actionable questions have to be created which retain our
unique and specific perspective.
All questions should be brainstormed and
begin with ‘How might we...’? Also we need to consider the POV [Points of view]
to help define the problem deeply.
Challenge: Redesign the class experience
to get a good class climate.
POV - Students opting out of trip. Students
are happy with class teacher. Classmates are not comfortable with each other.
Boys and girls acknowledge each other but are not friendly with each other.
POV
Arm
up the good: HMW use the bonding between student and
teacher to increase student interaction?
Remove
the bad: HMW get classmates to get over being uncomfortable with
each other?
Explore
the opposite: HMW get boys and girls to be friendlier
with each other?
Question
an assumption: HMW remove sexism from class interactions?
ID
unexpected resources: HMW guide parents to help students interact
more?
Create
an analogy from need or context: HMW train teachers to be
more aware of the inequities present in class?
Play
against the challenge: HMW make the trip very exciting?
Change
status quo: HMW make students discomfort level less?
Break
POV into pieces: HMW remove discomfort among classmates? HMW
train teachers? HMW get boys and girls to be friendlier?
Looking at the POV and the HMW, the problem
was finally defined as:
How might we train
teachers to build awareness of the inequities like sexism, class-ism, and
groupism within the classroom, recognizing and addressing them and determine
its impact on student interaction among them?
As the problem is a broader goal, we focussed only on one inequity at
present to resolve so sexism was undertaken.
How might we train teachers to build awareness of the sexism within the
classroom, addressing it and determining its impact on the student’s
interaction among them?
Once the problem is well defined we moved on 3rd step and
that is Ideate.
Ideate :
Ideate is the mode of
your design process in which you aim to generate radical design alternatives.
Mentally it represents a process of “going wide” in terms of concepts and
outcomes—it is a mode of “flaring”
rather than “focus.” The goal of ideation is to explore a wide solution
space – both a large quantity of ideas and diversity among those ideas. From
this vast depository of ideas you can build prototypes to test with users.
Why ideate?
You ideate in order to
transition from identifying problems into exploring solutions for your users.
Various forms of ideation are leveraged to:
• Step beyond obvious
solutions and thus increase the innovation potential of your solution set
• Harness the collective
perspectives and strengths of your teams
• Uncover unexpected
areas of exploration
• Create fluency
(volume) and flexibility (variety) in your innovation options
• Get obvious solutions
out of your heads, and drive your team beyond them
Thus in my case the
ideation was creation of role play where both boys and girls would play a
strong female character and be interviewed by their classmates on the journey,
ambitions, hardships, support from community and so on. We could also monitor
classroom interaction, interview students and teachers to develop awareness and
sensitivity towards gender issues. To
achieve this I moved on to creating prototypes.
Prototypes
Prototyping is getting your
ideas and explorations out of your head and into the physical world. It could
be a questionnaire, a post it, a role playing activity, a poster or even a
storyboard.
Why prototype?
Whatever you have
ideated and created should be functional and based on user’s needs.
It should help in the
following:
1.
Gaining empathy: The tool helps to deepen your understanding of
the user and their needs. Example the questionnaire created to check classroom
interactions would give insights into both teacher and student’s academic
identities.
2.
Exploration: Promotes thinking and develop multiple options
3.
Inspires: It inspires others to share your vision. When you test
your prototype with other users you offer a platform to open up communication
and collaboration towards achieving a solution.
Examples
of prototypes created:
Prototype: 1
Questionnaire
on classroom interactions
Name of Observer: Name
of Observed:
Grade: Subject:
Number of boys: Number
of girls:
Classroom
Seating:
1. Boys
are seated separately from girls during classes Yes/No
2. Boys
are seated separately from girls during group work Yes/No
3. Boys
and girls are appropriately distributed during group work Yes/No
Classroom
discussion
How many times did the teacher call on boys’ vs. girls? _______
How much wait time did the teacher afford to give boys
vs. girls? _______
How many responses were appreciated by teacher of boys’
vs. girls? _______
Instructional
materials:
Instructional materials are free from specific
stereotyped sex roles [example woman in kitchen, men in office] Yes/No
Any further observations
[specific and descriptive]:
Prototype: 2- Interview questions
For student:
1.
Tell
me how comfortable you are with the opposite sex?
2.
Tell
me how the teachers interact with boys vs. girls?
3.
Tell
me if you find a difference in lieu of benefits handed to students? If yes,
share examples highlighting the situation.
4.
Tell
me how your friends behave with you when you are comfortable and friendly with
the opposite sex?
a.
How
do you feel?
b.
Are
you comfortable with the feeling?
c.
What
should change and why?
5.
Tell
me how your parents encourage you to be friendly with all classmates?
6.
Tell
me how you visualize your equation with all your classmates in college? Why?
7.
Tell
me how can school help you improve your relationship with your friends?
For teachers
1.
Tell
me how is the interaction between the boys and girls?
2.
Tell
me what you would like to see the relationship between boys and girls?
3.
Tell
me why you feel boys are smarter than girls or girls are smarter than boys?
4.
Tell
me if the students also feel the same way. Share some incidents.
5.
Tell
me any incident if you could have used comments favoring boys/girls in class
knowingly or unknowingly.
6.
Tell
me how we can make our teaching sexist free?
7.
Tell
me how we inculcate ‘No gender bias’ value in our students?
Test
Mode:
Testing is the chance to
get feedback on your solutions, refine solutions to make them better, and
continue to learn about your users. The test mode is an iterative mode in which
you place your low-resolution artifacts in the appropriate context of the
user’s life. One should prototype as if you know you’re right, but test as if
you know you’re wrong.
Why test?
To
refine your prototypes and solutions – By
putting your prototype in front of users you allow yourself to get 360
degree feedback which helps you refine your prototype to suit the need of the
users more deeply.
The first time I created the questionnaire and tested it, I
realized there were so many lacunae. For a simple classroom monitoring of 40
minutes there were too many areas of observation which would not be feasible.
Thus the areas were narrowed to make it more concise and focused. Sometimes
this means going back to the drawing board and redoing things.
To
learn more about your user - Testing is another opportunity
to build empathy through observation and engagement—it often yields unexpected
insights.
For example my interview with teachers and students showcased that
there was no sexism prevalent in class. The classroom interaction was minimal
as the timetable and classes did not offer them much opportunity to interact.
The focus on academics was more from our end.
To test
and refine your POV. Sometimes testing reveals that not only did you not get the
solution right, but also that you have failed to frame the problem correctly.
Thus in my case the problem had to be redefined keeping the timetable and
academics at hand.
HOW to test with users
Testing with users is a
fundamental part of a human-centred design approach. You test with users to refine
your solution and also to refine your understanding of the people for whom you
are designing. When you test prototypes you should consider both their feedback
on your solution and use the opportunity to gain more empathy. You are back in a learning and empathy mode
when you engage users with a prototype.
There are multiple
aspects to be aware of when you test with users. One is your prototype,
two is the context and scenario in which you are testing, three is how
you interact with the user during testing and four is how you observe
and capture the feedback.
Procedure
Use a deliberate
procedure when you test.
Let
your user experience the prototype. Show don’t tell. Put your
prototype in the user’s hands (or your user in the prototype) and give just the
minimum context so they understand what to do. Don’t explain you’re thinking or
reasoning for your prototype.
2. Have them talk through their experience. For
example, when appropriate, as the host, ask “Tell me what you are thinking as
you are doing this.”
3. Actively
observe. Watch how they use (and misuse!) what you have given them. Don’t
immediately “correct” what your user tester is doing.
Follow up with questions. This is important; often this is the most
valuable part of testing. “Show me why this would [not] work for you.” “Can you
tell me more about how this made you feel?” “Why?”
Answer questions with
questions (i.e. “well, what you think that questionnaire does”).
At the end of the design
thinking process the journey amazes you. You started with something so basic
but the empathy cycle helped you arrive at the core of the problem which if
undressed for a long time would definitely flare up. It showcased a completely new area of concern which we would have never guessed.
So take time to address
your problem using the design thinking process and you will have a creative
solution based on your user’s need.
References and bibliography:
