Design for America Process and Values
This week for class, we worked with people from Design for America (DFA) for a workshop. The DFA team is an RSO of interdisciplinary students that try to use design to solve problems. The foundation is to use customer-centric thinking to improve the lives of individuals—to solve real world problems to make lives easier.

Five DFA members began class by walking us through the values of DFA. They broke down the Innovation process into two segments: Development and Implementation. 

The purpose of Development is to understand the problem. During development, you
1.) Identify— Get a better understanding of the challenges a consumer needs to face is the first step in solving a problem
2.) Immerse— Put yourself in the context of a consumer to understand the context of a problem and the real issues
3.) Reframe— Change the problem statement from an issue to an action item that you can act upon

The purpose of Implementation is to create the solution. During implementation, you
4.) Ideate— Brainstorm multiple solutions without judgment to get a large quantity of potential solutions
5.) Build— Develop the initial iteration of an object from a sketch to a working prototype
6.) Test— Check if customers find this item useful and iterate on improvements that can be made to the object

They also highlighted the most importance of other values during the design process such as making it tangible, being optimistic, documenting progress, asking for feedback, telling a story, iterating frequently, and reflecting regularly.

Solving a Problem
During the portion of the class that required us to exercise our design skills, we started with 4 character profiles with individual struggles. My team focused on Jessica—a blind girl whose handicap did not allow her to have a robust social life. Using this knowledge, we used sticky notes to come up with a ton of potential solutions—some great and some…well, mediocre at best. We reserved judgment until the end, as to not stifle any creativity. Using the idea we narrowed our problem down to the fact that Jessica was unable to attend tailgates. We thought about problems that Jessica might face if she did get to a tailgate and we determined that safety of her drink was a big issue. In the end we developed a potential object Jessica could use to keep her drink safe.

Eponymously named DrinkSafe, this is an object that is a finger-print activated, adjustable drink holder with a lid that only opens when the user activates it. This seems like a very simple solution because we thought about our problem statement why our problem statement existed.

“Jessica has trouble socially with her peers on college” –> because she does not feel safe.

Using this knowledge, we developed DrinkSafe as an appropriate object to help Jessica feel safer on campus and in a social setting.

My Understanding
First of all, I loved this class. It focused on design-centric thinking and prototyping to solve a problem. I think a lot of times (and especially in this class), it can be easy to get distracted by how cool the technology 3D printing can be. I think it is important to realize that no matter how cool a piece of technology is, it won’t become commercialized until someone is willing to buy it. People won’t buy an item no matter how cool it is, unless it adds an aspect of value to their lives.

Something that solves a problem definitely adds an aspect of value.

This class helped me rethink about how I market a product. Instead of starting with the technology, I should be identifying a problem to help solve first. I should, then, see if the technology is able to solve this issue. In a way, this idea could be applied, not just to physical products, but also services and emerging businesses too.

This class also gave me a step-by-step framework to analyze and emulate innovation in every new product I create. I always thought of design and creativity as a spur-of-the-moment sort of iteration. I never thought about how creativity could be broken down into steps and harnessed into a more productive methodology. Now I see this is a process that can be repeated and reworked so I can get creative solutions in every problem I approach.

Implications
Going forward, I’ve learned to design with a user in mind. I’ve decided to keep a running list of problems to solve and potential solutions because I think this is how I can design a useful product. I’ve also learned to frame the problem I’m trying to solve using this template:

How can we __(verb)__ __(users)__ at/in/on __(place)__ to __(verb)__ __(noun)__.

This will help me summarize problems and narrow my mission for helping real people solve real problems.