ANYONE CAN DO IT - DESIGN THINKING
Often,
the innovators, architects and solution providers define and tell their
prospect users what their problem is and invariably convince the users that
their solution is the ultimate in addressing the prospective users’ problem. I have
experienced this as an employee of an organisation when its management decided to introduce the
practice of Six Sigma and SEI CMM Level 5 in the organisation.
The process
of Design Thinking is to know and care about those who you intend to create
meaningful innovation; to know and care about their lives too. Therefore,
Design Thinking process intends the innovator to empathize with the user of his
innovation. Carefully study him, his lifestyle, their physical and emotional
needs, and their thought process in terms of their beliefs, their attitude and
the resultant perception of the world around them. The innovator then will be
able to completely understand the challenges the users’ experience.
The
in-depth comprehension of the difficulties the users face in their life will
help the innovator to define the users’ challenges, the basis of ideating an
innovative solution for the users.
Design
Thinking Process comprises of five stages:
1.
Empathise
2.
Define
3.
Ideate
4.
Prototype
5.
Test
ADDIE
process comprises of:
1.
Analysing
2.
Defining
3.
Developing
4.
Implementing
5.
Evaluating
The
five stages an innovator needs to follow to develop a solution. The inherent difference between the ADDIE and
Design Thinking method of innovation is:
EMPATHY:
When an innovator empathises with the user, he does not only logically
analyse the challenges user faces, but also goes the extra mile to understand
the emotional aspects of the challenge the user faces. This helps the innovator
to observe the users, listen to the users and even get under the users’ skin to
clearly define all the dimensions of the challenge the users face. In the ADDIE
method, the Innovator will ANALYSE the users’ problem by interviewing
the user. While interviewing the user, he will listen to and observe the user
In
the EMPATHY stage of the Design Thinking Process, the Innovator not only
interviews the users, but also engages in-depth observation and study of the
process, lifestyle, from the perspective of the user and not a Subject Matter
Expert. The innovator elicits, anecdotes, vignettes and stories from the user
that are insightful in defining the problem.
Often,
the innovator is the Subject Matter Expert, who collaborates with the users to
study the challenges they face. For example, you must have read an
inspirational Chocolate Ice-cream story doing its rounds on WhatsApp. According
to the story, the Automobile Company receives a complaint from a buyer of a new
model of their car. The buyer reports problem in starting the car. Preempting
any more such complaints in the future for the particular automobile model, the
Company sends one of their engineers to study the cause of the problem before
they replace the car abiding by the norms of the Warranty. When the engineer
interviews the automobile owner, he learns that after dinner, the owner often
drives the car to a nearby ice-cream parlour to buy ice cream for the family.
When he purchases vanilla ice-cream he faces the problem with car. When he
purchases the family’s favourite chocolate ice-cream, he does not face the
problem. On further questioning the car owner, the Engineer gathered that the
owner had to wait longer for the delivery of the chocolate ice-cream after he placed
the order than he had to when he would place an order for their favourite
chocolate ice-cream. The engineer then drove with him to the ice-cream parlour
and checked the car while its owner went to pick vanilla ice-cream from the
ice-cream parlour. He detected the manufacturing flaw in the car’s engine and
immediately reported the matter to the Company. True, in this case the English
Proverb, “A stitch in time saves nine.” This prevented the Automobile Company
from incurring tremendous loss due to the manufacturing defect in the
particular model of the car it had introduced in the market.
How
to empathise? You may ask. Let us refer to the Empathy Map:
According
to the Empathy Map, when an innovator engages a user in an interview,
discussion, or a demo-workshop, he keenly observes the user for data to the two
quadrants: WHAT THE USER SAYS and WHAT AND HOW THE USER DOES. Based on these
two categories of data or explicit information, the innovator can garner
implicit information about the user in terms of his thought process and feeling.
The innovator watches and listens to the user; his stories, experience, his
method of doing any specific activity to clearly understand how they think
about the world; what and how they perform an activity; their physical and
emotional needs.
Please
Note:
1.
NLP Technique (for the Empathy Stage of Design
Thinking) and
2.
Mind Mapping (for all the five stages of Design
Thinking) are effective tools for recording the observation and mapping it with
the subsequent solution address the user’s problem.)
Let
us read the short story Empathy1
to understand the following stages of Design Thinking Process and understand
how it is easy to use the Design Thinking Process in our everyday life:
Now
that you have read about Dipu and his careless attitude towards himself and his
belongings and how his mother, Roma tries to solve this problem in a novel way,
let us learn how Roma covers all the five stages of Design Thinking process to
develop a solution to the problem.
Stage
1- Empathy: “To create meaningful innovations, you need to know your users and
care about their lives.” Roma, mother of ten-year old Dipu was aware of
Dipu’s careless attitude towards himself and his belongings. She was aware of
this problem and its inherent effect on Dipu’s behaviour and his attitude even
towards himself in terms of self worth and self discipline.
Stage
2- Define: “Framing the right problem is the only way to create the right
solution.” (Goal of this stage is to define an actionable problem statement) Few
problem defining techniques are brainstorming, What-if Analysis and
mind-mapping. Roma had identified the right problem, the root cause of
Dipu’s careless attitude; his lack of self worth or self esteem. She now needed
to ideate a solution to the well defined problem.
Stage
3- Ideate: “It’s not about coming up with the right idea. It is about
generating the broadest range of possibilities.” (Goal of this stage is to
formulate and evolve possible solution(s) to the defined problem.) Few Ideation
techniques are body-storming, mind-mapping, sketching, What-if Analysis etc. Roma
took the most pragmatic approach to ideate solutions to the problem:
a.
She devised a method to make Dipu associate or
identify with his belongings and also with the objects he carelessly used and
trashed. She devised a method that would trigger Dipu’s negative emotion and he
would immediately react by refusing to dissociate with the objects he trashed
so easily.
b.
Roma also devised a method to channelize Dipu’s
negative emotion to appreciate the source or the providers of his sustenance,
his parents and the planet Earth. Then how he could associate with them to
derive his own self esteem and self worth.
Stage
4- Prototype: “Build to Think. Test to Learn” (Goal of this stage is iterative
generation of artifacts as prospective solutions to the defined problem.) Few
prototyping techniques are post-it board, storyboard, models, role-play, etc. Based on her ideation, Roma built four
different prototypes that she could implement and test simultaneously based on
Dipu’s reaction-response to them.
1.
Roma implemented her first idea by putting
Dipu’s image on all his books, dirty clothes, torn books, used paper cups and
paper balls that Dipu had thrown carelessly in his room.
2.
Roma implemented her second idea by putting the
image of planet Earth and his parents on the garbage bins in the house.
3.
Roma recycled one of the used large paper cups
into a beautiful tooth brush and tooth paste holder.
4.
Roma placed a gift for Dipu that he was craving
for.
There
is a loose logical and emotional connect between the four prototypes, while
Roma could use them all together or an independent of each other without
linking them to each other. Roma decided to link the four prototypes and use
them for a greater impact or influence on Dipu’s behaviour.
Stage
5- Test: “Testing is an opportunity to learn more about your solution and your
user.” (Goal of this stage is to test
the prototype within the real context of the user’s life.) This iterative stage
is an integral part of the Prototype stage of Design Thinking process. Rule of
Thumb applied: “Always prototype as though you are right, but test as if you
know you are wrong. Few testing techniques are Field-Testing, Demonstration,
Role-play, etc. Dipu’s reaction-response to Roma’s prototypes:
1.
Dipu reacted to the first prototype exactly how
Roma had expected him to.
2.
Dipu’s reaction to the first prototype was a
trigger for Roma to draw Dipu’s attention to the second prototype and impress
upon him the worth of the providers and how they are inherently connected to
his own self worth and self esteem. In this way Roma tried to achieve solving
Dipu’s behavioural problem and tried to inculcate self discipline in him.
3.
Roma used the opportunity, when Dipu was
intellectually and emotionally tuned in to her message, to present a
beautifully recycled cup to Dipu so that he could easily identify with it and
revive his shattered self-worth on seeing his image on crumpled paper balls,
crushed paper cups, tissue papers and torn books. The intention was to revive
his self esteem and tune him in to creative solutions to the problems he faced.
4.
The much desired gift that Dipu found along with
the recycled paper cup was like a reward for the initiative Dipu took to clean
up his room and was a positive reinforce of the lesson Dipu learnt in the
process. Roma kept it as a much intended prompt for Dipu to acknowledge the
gift and ask the reason why Roma had gifted it to him. She could then use it to
encourage him to commit to change his behaviour towards himself and his
belongings.
So,
it is now quite evident that anyone can effectively apply design thinking
process to innovate solution to the challenges one faces in his or her life
too. We can encourage children to apply the Design Thinking process in their
learning process to encourage them to apply the concepts and theories they
learn in solving problems they face in life.
Design
Thinking process too have lacunae that its users need to be aware of:
1.
The time, know-how and resource constraint.
2.
Innovator’s prejudice and bias can affect his listening
skills.
3.
Taking care of the possibility of an intelligent
user high-jacking the process.
4.
Need for the innovator to be aware of Disruptive
Technique of Innovation.
5.
The need to control the number of iterations of prototyping
and testing stages of the process to maintain the timely relevance of the solution.
6.
Possibility of the solution becoming innovator specific
and not user-specific, when the user is influenced or compelled to accept innovator’s
preferred proto-type as the viable solution to the problem.
7.
Design Thinking
is a non-linear process; therefore the innovator may face a challenge of anticipating
the hurdles the innovator may face in transiting from one stage of the process to
another.
ACTIVITY:
Try
to use the Design Thinking process to solve the following problems:
1.
Devise methods to encourage a person out of his/her
phobia or a habit they want to be rid of.
2.
Encourage the inhabitants of your locality to
keep it clean and tidy.
3.
Discourage the school and college students from
substance abuse.
4.
Encourage gender equality in formal education,
career and public life.
5.
Encourage patients and their attendants, the medical
care providers to be aware of their rights and duties and how to educate the
patients and their attendants in receiving optimum service from a hospital.
6.
Encourage consumers to be aware of their rights
and how to use the consumer redressal system.
References:
Design
Thinking process:
NLP:
Mind
Mapping:
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