Design Thinking – People Over Process

Posted on February 19, 2017 by phleung2@illinois.edu

In Tim Brown’s article of Design Thinking, IDEO defines design thinking as a method to focus on people’s behavior and solving people’s needs and desires. Design thinking has three main processes. One research consumer insight and figure out what customers want but don’t have. Two test your ideas by building prototypes and running experiments. Finally, bring the product to life making sure there are enough resources and strategies in place on distribution. I found the reading to be thought provoking because it touches on the how design was thought of in the past as a tool used later in the product development phase. By encompassing processes that are human centered, companies will be able to create products that are efficient and solve real-life problems.

From the class videos, design thinking is a set of guidelines. Finding solutions to wicked problems, where problem and solution are unclear. Similar to the reading, design thinking is described as user centered or finding out what the user needs. Desirability, viability, and feasibility, and responsibility are described as the four characteristics in design thinking. The two main takeaways I found were to empathize with others by placing yourself in their shoes, brainstorming all kinds of solutions, even if they seem impossible, and be willing to fail multiple times. In the Design for America workshop, we went through the ideation phase to the prototyping phase. I found the workshop to be a great introduction into design thinking.

Putting the idea of design thinking in real practice, Rotterdam Eye Hospital used the guidelines to solve their issue of an unwelcoming environment that included long dreary hallways. They redesigned the children’s wing adding artworks to create a welcoming environment. Children were sent animal print T-shirts before their scheduled appointment at the hospital, and their doctors would wear a T-shirt with the same print to establish closer connection. As part of design thinking, not all of the hospital’s idea were successful, and they were able to learn and build on them.

Another example of design thinking was combating sanitation issues in Cambodia and Vietnam. Jeff Chapin and his team observed villagers then designed sanitation systems that fit into the villagers’ everyday life. By using prototypes, they optimized which sanitation system worked best and discovered that kitchen sinks were the most important to the villagers because it prevents illness caused by food contamination. See more from the TEDtalk: https://vimeo.com/67542403

Learning one day at a time

Posted on February 19, 2017 by bakliwa2@illinois.edu

#DesignForAmerica #DesignProcess #MakersForLife

In order to give us a look at their design process and put us in a Design For America mindset, they facilitated a class activity in which we were handed 3 cards at random. One card gave the demographic which the product which we were designing for, the next gave what it will be used for, and the last card a constraint for out design. One of the group’s challenge was to design a way to make music for adventurous preschoolers and the constraint was that it should grow. They interpreted the constraint, “it grows”, as that the object expands. Their team came up with an expandable “laptop”, where it had 3 folds, one had a screen, the middle had buttons in different colors and shapes, and the last fold had a piano keyboard and a xylophone. The buttons would make noises when pressed and the screen can show cute characters dancing on the screen. The piano and xylophone allow the child to have a physical thing they can play with to make noise in case they do not like digital sounds.

As written on the website of Chicago Architecture Foundation, “The Design Process is an approach for breaking down a large project into manageable chunks.”

Although our workshop with Design for America had us create unrealistic products, the same concepts hold true. Before you can come up with a design, you need to have a specific population and a specific problem to solve in mind. As you design the product, it needs to be realistic and be able to be manufactured, and it needs to be profitable. Fortunately for us, our access to the Maker Lab and CU Fab Lab allows to rapidly design, create, and test prototypes. Regardless, It is important for us keep desirability, viability, and feasibility in mind throughout the entire process.

Now, it was time to make the logos for the groups. Just seeing the logos printing made all of us so excited for what the future holds for us. What can we all create from nothing? There are still so many questions we need to ask ourselves before coming up with our final ideas and designs. I look forward to figuring out what the final products will be through design thinking.

If you want to know a more in-depth experience of each individual you go to the ‘Week 3’ tab.

Product Development for the End User: Define, Design, Refine.

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Brian Kobiernicki

This week in class our group of makers completed a design workshop hosted by Design for America at UIUC. Working in our project groups, we were able to work through a design process starting from basic guidelines and ultimately present a final mock prototype. Towards the end of our class, we also learned how to use Tinker Cad to design our group logo’s and print them at the end of class.

In the Harvard Business Review article “Design Thinking”, Tim Brown discusses the mindset needing for designing. In order to successfully design a product, you need to be able to design for a purpose that people would find useful. This mindset can be defined as “a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos.” Brown attributes Thomas Edison’s success to being “able to envision how people would want to use what he made” and engineer toward that insight. In order create a successful design, you must have a specific problem or task at hand to which you are trying to solve. This allows the design to be more useful and applicable to consumers. Additionally, Dr. David Weightman, Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design says that a design must have desirability, viability, and feasibility. This means that a design must be human centered, it must be able to follow a business model, and it needs to be physically and technically possible. Personally, I think too many people try to come up with an idea and then find a market to sell it to. However, we now know that the process should be reversed. Determine the market, identify a problem, then create a solution.

In the Forbes article, “How to Use Design Thinking and Agility to Reach Product Development Breakthroughs”, Steven Widen says that often product teams fail to find a solution to their problems because “they never involved the end-consumer in the process. That’s where design thinking comes in.” Instead of looking at data or their own processes, designers need to “focus on the problem from the consumer’s perspective.” Designers should ask “Why?” at every step of their brainstorming process. In the business blog post, “Design thinking for a competitive advantage” published in the Times of India, Dr. Mayank Dhaundival says “Design thinking is a structured approach to finding innovative, out of the box solutions to multiple types of problems.” Rather than focusing on the problem, it focuses on the solution. Dhaundival continues to say that design thinking removes constraints until you can narrow down choices or ideas to fit the reality. Similar to what Brown says in “Design Thinking, Dhuandival says design thinking gives a lot of importance to prototyping, and that also of the rapid variety. The initial prototypes are not the well-made workshop prototypes but much more modest; the ones made by chart paper, tape, scissors and colour pens.” Again this is where 3D printing is advantageous. Once you have access to the proper equipment, there is a low cost of failure and it is possible to rapidly design and refine products for testing.

Week 3: Inspiration=Innovation

Link

This week, we attended a Design Thinking Workshop hosted by Design for America-UIUC. The DFA is a network of student organizations that works to train young minds in the creative process and/or hone their skills for a future in innovation. In the workshop, we observed and made the steps necessary to provide good output(an effective product, design, etc.) with our input(creativity, experience, etc.). While many new innovations can be said to result from “out of the blue”, it never hurts to have a plan or buildup to that innovation.

The process described contains two main principles: understanding and creating. Understanding is the passive planning stage where one can observe and research more about a problem or issue to better identify a solution.The creation portion is the more active prototyping/design phase where the innovator takes what they have learned about the issue and puts it into an actual product. This is not only limited to 3D prints or physical objects, however, and can be represented by any means that will effectively resolve the issue at hand such as a service, advice, or other non-tangible goods. While everyone does indeed have their own creative process; these steps offer a suitable guideline for the innovator to utilize their skills and resources to create something. This framework has been canonized into businesses and markets as “Design Thinking”.

By utilizing this process, my team and I created a logo for ourselves. First we identified what we wanted: a logo for the three of us that would incorporate our last initials(L, A, and X) and a team name. We decided on a triangle as the base for the design as they were three of us. Next, we subtly added our initials by taking out different sized portions from each side of the triangle. Finally, we decided upon our name: “The MakerLAX”.

dateposted-public

The demand for expertly skilled designers and problem-solvers has grown since the start of the digital age and addictive manufacturing. According to TNW, https://thenextweb.com/dd/2017/02/10/create-maintain-strategic-approach-design-thinking/ many companies are seeking to the ability to unlock the ability to think like designers and apply the same principles of the design process to the actual workplace. While having an experienced designer with a powerful creative mind is key, it’s even better to be able to have the critical thinking and prowess as well. Being able to posses and understand a skill allows one to appreciate it more from someone else, and even harness it themselves. They also mention “creating a team as diverse and international as the clients that you serve”. By having a team of crafters with different backgrounds and experiences, it is easier and more fruitful to innovate designs and solutions to the problems at hand. While the concept of design thinking is powerful and beneficial, some have used it in malpractice. As the huffingtonpost puts it http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rethinking-design-thinking_us_589b504ce4b061551b3e066a “the current proliferation of a one-size-fits-all-approach is not only ineffective, it could ultimately doom [design thinking’s] future”. Design thinking is a powerful tool that allows one to transform their inspiration into innovation, but some utilize haphazardly in a way that presents it as oversimplified or short-term. Creating something out just an idea takes time, effort, and most of all: passion. One who does not truly care for a problem cannot effectively solve it. It’s also a misconception that the creative process provides a quick and easy fix on the first try, which is more than usually not true. Often times solutions need to be modified due to inefficiency, unforeseen issues, or just a desire for a better design. Design thinking is incredibly useful and has been taking off in the recent years, but everyone, not just innovators, must not fall prey to misconceptions like these. The world has gone a long way in the road of innovation to the point where it is constructing it themselves, but it must not build itself into a corner.

Design Thinking – Filling The Academic Void of Creativity

Posted on February 13, 2017 by iszetho2@illinois.edu

This past week I was lucky enough to participate in a design thinking workshop. I had exposed to the methodologies before of empathizing, defining, exploring, and iterative prototyping but it was nonetheless still an engaging, fun activity.

Especially the fun part. Personally, that’s where I think design thinking really succeeds and shines. Aside from being a great process and tool for physical products design thinking really adds a much-needed jolt from routine processes in other fields. Take business for example, too often we’re buried underneath financial reports, cost analysis, and worn-down frameworks to even consider the end user. Design thinking, however, pushes us to step away from the sheets and just write down what we’re thinking regardless of the cost.

Reading the article by HBS about design thinking, it covers the famous design firm IDEO. I think the article it puts it well about how with design thinking IDEO is able to really get into the customer mindset and although it doesn’t mention this explicitly, design thinking also gives way to acceptable failures.

There’s a very famous example of this from IDEO where the firm had a tight deadline to reinvent the shopping cart. Within a short amount of time the firm came up with a novel but effective way to solve the issue – but if you look around shopping carts are still the same around in the US. The funny thing is, though, IDEO still comes out on top. IDEO’s employees pushed themselves to solve a problem that most of us would never think of and came up with a great idea. It just didn’t take off like sliced bread and that’s ok.

Too often, I think business majors are scared to break out of the mold and be bold. To try and risk failure. Perhaps it is because we are so cost minded, maybe it’s our economic base for classes that teach us everything has a price and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Whatever it is I do believe that design thinking brings back the creativity in problem-solving for many disciplines, not just business, and pushes us to be ok with failures because without failures no organization or person would ever grow.

In conclusion, I push those who want to learn more to start exploring what’s out there. Non University students have resources like the d.School’s online catalog of how to use their methods. For those at a school like Illinois, plenty of classes exist and even Lynda has great content for learning everything from design thinking to more specific subsets like UX/UI design. I do truly believe design thinking pushes the boundaries of other disciplines to be more creative, more bold, and more willing to learn from failures.

http://www.everyonedeservesgreatdesign.com/

Human-Centric Design-The Way to Innovation

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Tiffany Kuo

design-for-america-logo This week we were fortunate to have members of Design for America from the UIUC Chapter present a workshop. It was a fantastic presentation in which we not only learned more about the RSO and their projects, but also participated in a series of interactive activities in groups in which eventually each group designed a prototype to solve a specific problem. As a class, we were given the prompt to come up with a system that could make daily lives easier for senior citizens. My group narrowed the topic down to specifically help the elderly when they are by themselves, especially in situations like falling. This idea stemmed from the fact that some of our team members have personal experiences of older relatives falling but weren’t able to get immediate help because they were home alone. Eventually, we designed a Fitbit-like bracelet which could sense emergency situations such as sudden drops or irregularities in the wearer’s heart rate and alert the person’s family members. This will ensure people get the help they need during accidents.

This workshop allowed us to create something using a very systematic approach. It was interesting because rather than chaotic free-thinking, we were purposely forced to break down the problem and go through individual steps (“Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation” as Tim Brown mentioned in his article Design Thinking) that eventually led to a solution. However, this type of approach did not hinder our creativity. Instead, it allowed us to utilize low-fidelity prototyping in which we openly generated ideas without discarding any right away. At the same time, this process made us think through each of their feasibilities. It also made me realize that by brainstorming problems in our lives, discussing with others, and using simple, supposedly “childish” tools such as markers, Play-Doh, and pipe cleaners, we were able to develop ideas that could potentially become a powerful contribution to the society.

As said in the article Design Thinking and videos from the Coursera Online Course, in today’s society, professional designers aren’t the only ones that design. Big corporations, companies, organization, and people like you and me should be involved in the design process. Innovation is not just limited to producing aesthetically pleasing physical products, but rather it expands into the realm of IT processes and collaboration. This leads to the idea, which was also mentioned during DFA’s presentation, of human-centric design. It’s very important to factor in human needs when designing. In addition, it’s essential to not shy away from complexity or ambiguity and be willing to fail, as mentioned in the videos. The famous IDEO shopping cart design documentary is a great example of how people (and not just designers) with all sorts of backgrounds come together and create something using the human-centric design. The shopping trolleys with multiple handles for bags make it easy for shoppers who are only picking up a few items. These trolleys can also hold baskets for those who need more space. Also, an article I found to be interesting is How to use human centric knowledge to your advantage by Robert Leeming, which explains how learning about the interactions between lighting and the human circadian rhythm could help us increase efficiency in the workplace and improve patients’ health in hospitals. And think about how neat it would be if lighting itself could fix jet lags!

To sum it up, when we look at problems today like unaffordable healthcare, poor education system, and poverty, it’s clear that these issues require creative, human-centered solutions, which can be developed through inspiration, ideation, and implementation, because ultimately, people are the ones the system serves.

Design Thinking is the New Black

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Kenny Nguyen

Human-centered design is a new up and coming scene in which designers put into the account of the target user and design around that basis. In order to successfully produce a new product, one has to be able to identify the problem and the user to identify the situation at hand and then solve it utilizing creative problem-solving techniques. This week the student organization Design for America taught the design process that was developed at Northwestern University and they were teaching us the process in a condensed version with a case study on senior citizens. Our team identified Alzheimer patients and their forgetfulness and developed the How Can We statement as “How can we help Alzheimer patients at home to remember daily tasks and belongings.” Our design was a bracelet that is connected to your phone and has sensors on other everyday objects so if the distance between the two sensors grows, then the bracelet would vibrate and notify you. One can also send push notifications as reminders such as caregivers to remind about medicine and the bracelet would vibrate and also get notifications on a phone.

Designing with the end users in mind allows one to identify all of the possible facets that ultimately allows the innovators to tweak and make the product or service into an even better prototype. Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, has said that she utilizes design thinking in nearly every aspect of the company’s decisions now. The user experience of a product is reexamined from the trends in women’s snacking to how she, as a mother, would view her own products on a shelf. PepsiCo has taken an initiative to curate a more robust portfolio and a more health-conscious focus as well while keeping the customers in mind. This type of forwarding design thinking has led to their steady growth versus their competitors.

Empathy with users allows a company to be able to refine their processes and products. The design-centric culture that the Harvard Business Review cites is a new movement that large organizations are utilizing to analyze complex problems and that is exactly how companies are developing new business strategies along with product innovations. Companies like GE and IBM have adopted such tactics and have noted how business strategies differ little from defining user experiences. The movement towards integrating design thinking into every aspect of companies means that it is a valuable skill to have and to be able to master. In order to continue to be innovative, there has to be constant change and to be adaptive to the changing culture of society nowadays. I believe that design thinking will empower companies and now will empower us, as students as well.

https://hbr.org/2015/09/how-indra-nooyi-turned-design-thinking-into-strategy

https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-thinking-comes-of-age

Ideating without Boundaries

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Veronika

Limitless. This word accurately depicts the nature of our class session this week, where we participated in a lab led by the UIUC chapter of Design for America. Through a series of exercises, we were exposed to the processes and mindset behind ideation from a designer’s perspective. Our primary learning tools were, to say the least, unconventional, ranging from Play-Doh to markers to card games. In each exercise, we were presented with a broad scenario, goal, and set of constraints, and asked to invent a solution. We were not confined to products that could be plausibly produced and implemented today, which is a key piece of initial ideated, as referenced in Professor Sachdev’s video, “An Introduction to Design Thinking.” One must not limit oneself to what is seen as “possible” in the eyes of the public. The result of such an environment was a series of products that expanded upon current solutions with innovative and creative new ideas. Many defined what may be considered technologically plausible in today’s world, yet set a new precedent for the complexity of solutions we can work towards as makers.

This activity challenged the mindset that I have entered the course with. Up until this point, I have explored the cutting edge developments going on in 3D making around the world, and used those as the boundaries within which I can create. I have defined them, to some extent, as the resource pool at my disposal. This mindset entirely contradicts the process of ideation, and the mindset of designers as a whole. As discussed in Brown’s “Design Thinking”, designers are no longer restricted to downstream activities in product development; they have become increasingly instrumental in end-to-end development of products, starting with the earliest steps. This mentality will be formative in my career as a digital consultant; solutions are not limited to those that have previously been tested and implemented. They do not even need to be a slight adjustment to a previous solution. Sometimes, the best course of action is to start with a blank slate and create a new, boundary-breaking solution that is a unique fit for the problem at hand.

Moving forward, I will carry this mindset with me in many capacities. As an amateur designer, I will begin to create based on real-world needs and desires that I identify, and produce products that are unique solutions to said issues. I already had the opportunity to put this new approach into practice when designing my team’s logo in Tinkercad. Instead of opting for a simple design, or a minor adjustment to a pre-made design, we designed a relatively complex 3D dice, complete with imprinting on five of the six sides. While this was a bold decision, as we were just learning the technology, our finished project turned out wonderfully. In pushing the limits, we also expanded our own capabilities, and built skills for future creations. While this approach easily could have backfired, I learned that there is a valuable balance between complacency and pushing one’s limits – if struck, creating at this level immensely benefits the learning curve.

Brown, Tim. 2015. “Design Thinking.” Harvard Business Review. Accessed February 12. https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking

Professor Sachdev’s videos. Click here.

Pushing the Boundaries of Creative Thought: Design Thinking and Ideating

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Chase

Design for America’s presentation on design thinking and ideating drastically changed my perception of the product creation process. In accordance with Tim Brown’s article titled “Design Thinking” (https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking), we learned the three steps in the design thinking: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Many times, it can be easy to perhaps identify a problem that is encountered in everyday life (i.e. the product’s inspiration), however developing an idea to resolve the problem can take a significant amount of effort. The problem itself, in addition, cannot be too broad or impractical. This part of the process is so impactful, Brown believes, that companies are now hiring thinkers to not only implement an idea, but also to originate them.

One particularly interesting exercise the presenter’s guided us through was the design thinking card game. Each team was given three cards: one card had the hypothetical patrons of the product, the other had the purpose of the product, and the third outlined some type of constraint that the creators would encounter. This game definitely forced us to think outside the box, as well as demonstrated from a high-level the thought process that designers experience. In addition, our team used the design thinking process described by the presenters in order to develop our team logo. The logo (which can be found here), incorporated the initials of our last names in an overlapping and visually appealing fashion.

An intriguing real-world example of design thinking that was recently publicized was the German engineering firm Siemens use of 3D printing to create gas turbine blades. The article, which can be found here, details the problem faced by Siemens and their solution. The problem, that the cost to produce these blades were immense and the time needed to produce them was lengthy, was resolved by using metal-based 3D printing. As a result, the time needed to produce this part was shaved from two years to just two months.

Further examples of the impact of design thinking can be found in this article, “3 Great Examples of Design Thinking in Action”, found on the website Medium. One in particular great example of the utilization of design thinking was in creating a foot activated car door, in which ideators realized the challenge of opening a car door when the user’s hands are occupied, such as when they are leaving a grocery store. The foot activated car door allows users to still open the door without needing to free their hands.

In conclusion, I believe that learning about the design thinking process will prove to be crucial as we continue to explore the world of making, and this knowledge will serve as a strong foundation on which we can start to build our own innovative ideas.

From Design Process to Design Thinking

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Taofik Sulaiman

I had the opportunity to participate in this week’s workshop with the Design For America-UIUC. They focused on guiding us through the steps of design thinking – a new trend/concept in the product development life cycle. These steps included:

Identify
Immerse
Reframe
Ideate
Build
Test

In this workshop, we went through many different scenarios and worked in groups to create a non-functional prototype in its simplest form using the deign thinking steps. Starting off with perceiving and questioning the consumers’ world/perspective. After which we worked on an idea, sketch, a model prototype out of arts and craft material available. We came up with so many questions and scenarios for the cinsumers and equally as many possible solutions in the “ideate” step then tried to combine them into one prototype out of art supplis available.

As mentioned in an article by Tim Brown, before companies made products that performed a specific function then it would try to apply to a problem by “dressing them up” with a design. I’ve learnt that this is a flawed way of creating a product. With the new concept of “design thinking”, I would be able to enhance the need and impact of my product ideas on consumers and reduce the chances of them being useless or redundant, this would make them much more innovative. The deign thinking process first pushes me to identify a problem or need. Then immersing my self, empathetically, relating to the world of the consumer encountering that problem or need, reframing the problem to avoid assumptions, coming up with an idea from the perspective of the consumer – this is where the human centered focus is crucial, then building the idea to those constraints and finally testing as in any product development cycle.

So we have an idea of what design thinking is, What does that do now? Now we can target specific problems and consumer responses to products as well as identifying new market potentials as in the examples given in Tim Brown’s articles. Universities are starting to implement this in their classes, as I have experience with this new concept from my ME270 class at UIUC which involved creating a product – primariy mechanical focused – to tackle a specific problem and reiterating till it solved the problem more efficiently. I could then see the business potential in these especially after reading the two articles mentioned below. In the “Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures”, they did a great job doing in-depth definition of design thinking and the different ways it could be implemented. Also in “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking”, he kind of alluded to the challenges of incorporating design thinking as putting art before science and how it was difficult for ‘scientists’ to do so.

[1] “Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures” Ulla Johansson-Sköldberg,
Jill Woodilla, Mehves Çetinkaya . Wiley Online Library. Web. 25 March 2013

[2] “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking” Richard Buchanan. The MIT Press. Web. 23 October 2015

Now, we are entering a world where almost any new open-ended idea has been implemented. Now we need innovative ideas and products that solve the other problems – the specific problems. We will need this design thinking in today’s innovators and major players to tackle more specific problems. I believe companies like Amazon, Capitol One, General Electric and so on, are using big data and data analytics in a way to find these specific problems – these specific potential consumer/market – and provide solutions to these.

Digital Making at the Makerlab- Spring2017

Learn. Make. Share.

Category Archives: Week3