Design Thinking - Course-long Project

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Overview

I enrolled in a course, Design Thinking, as part of my common core modules under the College of Humanities and Sciences faculty. The Design Thinking course had us working on a course-long project, where they guided us through the different phases of design thinking.

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Empathize & Define

The topic we were given was to research users based on a chosen domestic chore, and I chose to focus on the chore of “Sweeping the floor”.

We were tasked with context mapping the chosen chore to gain a clearer idea of the stakeholders involved and the potential challenges they face.

At this stage, the “5 Times Why” technique was introduced to us as an additional tool for deepening our understanding of certain challenges or contexts.

After preparing my interview questions and getting a crash course on the Observation Framework, I then conducted my Field Study on one of my target audiences in his house. Producing the following to get a deeper understanding of my target audience and uncovering pain points.

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Ideate & Prototype

The next task given to us was to orientate us with the prototyping process based on the user needs and pain points discovered in the previous segment. The prototyping phase was split into 3 parts, Planning, Building, Reflecting.

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Testing

The course then concludes with the user testing phase after our Lo-fi prototype was made. We made plans for our user testing and were asked to choose one type of evaluation methodology. I chose the Usability Test as my prototype revolves around introducing a new feature to an existing product, hence the need for a test to assess its practicality and usability.

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Conclusion

This course has given me a brief stint into what the design thinking process it like. While this does not show the full extend of time required for a real-world design thinking process, it does give an idea on the various tasks that is required for effective design thinking.

Thank you!

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