Design Thinking Activity
Design for Living: An Introduction to Design Thinking
In our second day of class, we partnered up with someone we had not previously known and conducted a design thinking activity. By filling out our design thinking packets, we asked our partner questions to get a deeper understanding of who they are and what drives them as a person.
By starting rather simple we chose to examine a personal item of our partner, such as a bag, purse or wallet. By having our partner share what items they carry in such bag or wallet, we learned more about the persons likes, needs and wants. My partner Chengming showed me what she carries in her tote bag. By being empathetic and listening to her problems with her current tote bag, it was my job to listen carefully and extract important information to help design a better bag for Chengming.
By moving forward we then dove deeper asking questions about vivid ways to describe one's self, things they are trying to do, and ways they want to feel. By moving away from the simple questions about how to improve one personal item, too much deeper questions about one's self, we can find certain aspects of design that will help solve a problem and find the perfect solution.
With a few more rounds of revision, we then came to sketching where we quickly through some thumbnail sketches down, trying to convey our newly developed ideas. By reviewing with my partner I found that by trying to go above and beyond, I accidentally disregarded a feature my partner wanted. This was a great learning experience as a design idea I thought would be liked was not due to my lack of understanding importance of a certain feature. With our last round of critiques to each others ideas, it was time to sketch the final idea.
With the final ideas and storyboards drawn out, it was time to rapid prototype these ideas into a physical model. We had 10 minutes and a cart of random craft supplies, it was time to get started. With such little time, there was no time to question anything, only time to execute the idea you had drawn on paper. With less than ideal tools and craft supplies, I let my imagination fly and scrapped together a cardboard tote bag.
From the information, I received from my partner I designed a tote bag with two internal pockets for storage and organization. I through a laptop compartment inside the tote bag for her laptop, and finished it off with thicker more comfortable straps and an outside zipper to keep important items from falling out.
This exercise really showed me the importance of listening to the fullest ability when a client is talking about what features they would like in a design. It also confirmed that sometimes simplicity is key and the need to go over the top is not always what the client wants. Asking questions that may seem off-topic or unrelated also can give you a deeper look into the clients and can sometimes reveal there true wants and needs.
In our second day of class, we partnered up with someone we had not previously known and conducted a design thinking activity. By filling out our design thinking packets, we asked our partner questions to get a deeper understanding of who they are and what drives them as a person.
By starting rather simple we chose to examine a personal item of our partner, such as a bag, purse or wallet. By having our partner share what items they carry in such bag or wallet, we learned more about the persons likes, needs and wants. My partner Chengming showed me what she carries in her tote bag. By being empathetic and listening to her problems with her current tote bag, it was my job to listen carefully and extract important information to help design a better bag for Chengming.
By moving forward we then dove deeper asking questions about vivid ways to describe one's self, things they are trying to do, and ways they want to feel. By moving away from the simple questions about how to improve one personal item, too much deeper questions about one's self, we can find certain aspects of design that will help solve a problem and find the perfect solution.
With a few more rounds of revision, we then came to sketching where we quickly through some thumbnail sketches down, trying to convey our newly developed ideas. By reviewing with my partner I found that by trying to go above and beyond, I accidentally disregarded a feature my partner wanted. This was a great learning experience as a design idea I thought would be liked was not due to my lack of understanding importance of a certain feature. With our last round of critiques to each others ideas, it was time to sketch the final idea.
With the final ideas and storyboards drawn out, it was time to rapid prototype these ideas into a physical model. We had 10 minutes and a cart of random craft supplies, it was time to get started. With such little time, there was no time to question anything, only time to execute the idea you had drawn on paper. With less than ideal tools and craft supplies, I let my imagination fly and scrapped together a cardboard tote bag.
From the information, I received from my partner I designed a tote bag with two internal pockets for storage and organization. I through a laptop compartment inside the tote bag for her laptop, and finished it off with thicker more comfortable straps and an outside zipper to keep important items from falling out.
This exercise really showed me the importance of listening to the fullest ability when a client is talking about what features they would like in a design. It also confirmed that sometimes simplicity is key and the need to go over the top is not always what the client wants. Asking questions that may seem off-topic or unrelated also can give you a deeper look into the clients and can sometimes reveal there true wants and needs.
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