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 3^rd 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:

https://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/BootcampBootleg2010v2SLIM.pdf

http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/