Design Thinking
Activity 1: This _______ was made especially for ___________.
(10 minutes)
Ever wondered how people design successful toys, apps, beauty products, tools, websites, meals, and everything else?
Well designed things are made with the user in mind. Makes sense, right? A good school should be designed with real students in mind. A good game should be designed with real players in mind. A good dog toy should be designed with real dogs in mind. You get the idea. When things are designed especially for the user, they are more personal and more useful.
Step into the shoes of a designer with this crash course on design thinking. In this activity, you’ll be designing something for an actual person, so find your person! Grab a friend who will walk through this module with you.
Now that you have your person, you need a design challenge. For this project, your design challenge is to design the perfect bag (it could be a backpack, purse, wallet or anything else) for your partner.
If you really enjoy designing, you could try the design thinking process to design anything you like -- an ideal school, a better teen center, the next mobile tech device, a website.... Design Thinking can be used to design anything. We’re just starting with “the perfect bag” because it’s nice to start with a simple example
Activity 2: Empathize
(10 minutes)
Before you can design the perfect bag for your partner, you need to understand your partner’s needs, interests and preferences. You’re only going to have three minutes to ask your partner as many questions as you can in order to design the perfect bag. What types of questions might be useful for you as a designer?
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Choose one person to go first as the question-asker.
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Set a timer or stopwatch for three minutes. If you don’t have a watch on, you could use this Online Stopwatch
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Ready, Set…. Ask your partner all about his or her bag preferences. You might start by asking things like…
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Tell me about your favorite bag. What do you like about it?
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What is not-so-perfect about it? What do you wish were different?
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What would you like to use your perfect bag for? What do you need to carry around every day? Where would you take your bag?
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Does your bag need to have any special qualities like being waterproof, glowing in the dark, separating into smaller bags, having hidden speakers for your music….
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What are your favorite colors or designs?
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Take a few minutes to jot down your notes and then get ready to switch roles and start over with the other person asking the questions.
Activity 3: Define the goal with a "How Might We" Question
(10 minutes)
Do you have an idea of what your partner is looking for in a bag? As an example, let’s imagine that we interviewed Joshua and found out that he wants a bag for his school books. He walks to school and it sometimes rains, so he wants the bag to protect his books in all kinds of weather. He also carries a camera to school, and it’s pretty fragile. Joshua says he always loses his keys in his backpack, and that frustrates him. His favorite colors are red and black, and he hates bags that roll on wheels.
Our “How Might We…” question for Joshua might be…
How Might We design a rainproof backpack that will protect a fragile camera and make it easy for Joshua to find his keys?
Can you define your partner’s needs and desires for a bag? Try to summarize what your partner needs with a “How Might We…” design question. Write it down, share it with your partner, and then adjust your wording if your partner thinks of something else that you should include.
Activity 4: Ideate
(10 minutes)
Defining your partner’s needs and interests gives you some constraints. While some people like the idea of designing with no limits, rules and limitations can actually help people be more creative.
Set your stopwatch for 5 minutes. You and your partner can both ideate at the same time (separately -- no peeking!)/
When you ideate, you come up with as many ideas as possible. Think simple. Think complex. Think funny. Think practical. Think outside the box. Think inside the box. Think of something that isn’t a “bag” but meets all of your partner’s needs for a bag.
As you think of each idea, try to draw it or write it down on a separate sticky note, note card, or section of a sheet of paper. Right now, your ideas don’t need to all be good ideas. Just get your ideas on paper.
Ready? Ideate!
Activity 7: Submit your work!
(5 minutes)
Snap a photo of your prototype and write the Statement from your “Define” step which explains what your partner needs. Send the photo and definition to @BGCAmediamaking to work toward your design badge
Still Interested? Take a look at these resources:
Design Thinking Agency: https://www.ideo.com/
Toolkit: http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/
Want to learn Design Thinking from the Pros? Take this one hour course from the Stanford Design School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FzFk3E5nxM
What You'll Need:
Think like a designer and create a prototype
Activity 5: Prototype
(15 minutes)
If you’re going to paint a mural, you might want to sketch out your idea first.
In the same way, if you’re going to build a product, you might want to build a prototype first.
A prototype is like a 3D sketch of something you want to design. The prototypes below of a plane, car, and backpack are all made of much cheaper materials than the real thing, and they won’t exactly work like the real thing, but they give you an idea of what the real plane, car, or backpack will be like.
Choose your favorite of the ideas you came up with when you were ideating. Using simple materials like paper, tape, markers, rubber bands, pipe cleaners, or other craft supplies, can you build a prototype of the bag you want to design for your partner?
Activity 6: Test
(5 minutes)
One really important part of user centered design is testing your design with the actual user. Present the prototype you made to your partner. Explain some of the features and how your design choices will fit his or her needs, interests, and desires. Ask for his or her thoughts. Would your partner use a real life version of your prototype? Why or why not?
If you have a little more time, make a few changes based on the feedback you get (that process is called iterating).
What else could you design-think? Can you use any of these practices when you design something else (like a website or app)? Great inventions are born out of this process -- yours could be next!
Try doing these modules in order:
Design Thinking > Brainstorming > WireFraming > Design a Webpage