{"id":684,"date":"2018-07-08T11:28:44","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T18:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/?p=684"},"modified":"2018-07-09T00:29:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T07:29:05","slug":"my-define-method-critical-reflection-of-design-thinking-process-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/my-define-method-critical-reflection-of-design-thinking-process-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"My Define Method & Critical Reflection of Design Thinking Process So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Define Method & How It Can Be Applied in My Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Define method that I believe was the most helpful for my design challenge is the why-how laddering (see my last post for a description of my challenge). I also used some empathy mapping as a method for initially defining needs and insights, but I found why-how laddering helped me to turn the empathy map into defined ideas that were actionable. This experience aligned with the result that was described by Stanford University Institute of Design (2016) for this method. In identifying needs through an empathy map, I utilized the most \u2018meaningful\u2019 one for the start of my why-how laddering. I found that the empathy map was useful to inform the whys as branches to the hows, as I built the hierarchy of needs that I could envision informing my prototype as a next step to the design thinking process.<\/p>\n

In terms of applying the method within my own context, I can see how the needs hierarchy that results from the why-how laddering method would become a plan for the learning. This method provides excellent framing to begin drafting a storyboard or design document that would ultimately result in a protype. A viable way that I could use the why-how laddering method in my own context would be to pick the top needs from it and use Bloom\u2019s taxonomy to create learning objectives for clients that requested them in the learning that I am designing. Another way this method could be used would be to do why-how laddering with clients themselves or subject matter experts (SMEs) to drill down into specific needs that the learning will provide to users, prior to designing based on their own perspectives of what the users need. This way their expertise and experience can be leveraged into the method.<\/p>\n

In my experience of designing learning with SMEs, revealing needs happened more as we built the learning and would have been more beneficial to determine more strictly beforehand. In going through this process and especially by making it a collaborative process, I believe it would better inform the initial prototype. I believe it would also help to better define the scope of what the learning will provide by framing the problem between certain points that are determined from the why-how laddering. This would also give me a way to bring it back to those points as the learning designer, once the iteration process began and the edits to the design may start to get away from the original intention.<\/p>\n

Critical Academic Reflection: My Empathy & Define Phase Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, I am enjoying the individual experience of immersing myself in the Unit 1 readings and determining specific empathy and defining methods that are based on a design challenge that I\u2019ve personally chosen. I think it\u2019s unique for me to have a design challenge that is more tied to my personal context, compared to my organizational context. I am really enjoying the experience of going through a set process with an idea that I\u2019m personally tied to, rather than professionally tied to.<\/p>\n

When I first began this experience prior to creating my FlipGrid video, I spoke to Jordanne about an idea that was more related to my organizational context. Our conversation led me to choose the design challenge that I ended up presenting in my FlipGrid \u2013 one that was more tied to my fianc\u00e9\u2019s organizational context than my own. However, I realized it was also more of a passion project and it also feels like a beneficial way to use a Master\u2019s assignment to explore an area that I otherwise may not have taken the time to understand in greater depth. This assignment also allowed me the opportunity to reframe my Master\u2019s; instead of only looking at it as a way to dig deeper into my own organizational context, I started looking at it as a way to dig into projects that I otherwise may not find time for, but that are valuable to my personal development which ultimately is tied to professional development as well. This particular challenge also had an added benefit of a way to gain more understanding for my fiance\u2019s world of work, which admittedly is a bit of an enigma for me that I\u2019d like to learn more about.<\/p>\n

In the empathizing phase, I had some key realizations that I will utilize going forward in design work. In my eagerness to help people, I may sometimes impose limitations or my own views on others in my eagerness to help them. In completing the Interview for Empathy method and following the instructions given by the Bootcamp Bootleg (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016), I became a better listener and realized how much less biased the data ended up being when I was seeking a need or challenge, rather than beginning with one.<\/p>\n

Another realization with the Interview for Empathy Method (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016) was that I found it difficult to hold video interviews with all users and for one of the interviews, I had a phone interview. As a result, I missed out on more in-depth observations such as how the interviewee looked and reacted while we were talking. Therefore, when I reviewed my notes compared to the other ones, I perceived this interview to be discounted in my final synthesis. This was demonstrated in the breadth of data that the interview brought into the empathy mapping process compared to the other user interviews.<\/p>\n

Additionally, I found video interviewing presented its own challenges, as some of the users may only show their face or upper part of their body. I was surprised by how much more I could observe in a face-to-face interview and as a result, I understood an important limitation of remote user interviews in the design process. Going forward, I plan to see if users are willing to use their web cameras on laptops wherever possible as they seem to allow for a wider lens of view compared to phones. However, through this experience, I realized that it is just a part of limitations to the design process that I need to be aware of and may not be able to control. It made me think about online learning and how the same limitations can create also benefits; I realized that some of my users may have been more open to share over the video than if we were in person.<\/p>\n

In reviewing the methods for both the empathy and define phases, I also became aware of how much can go into determining the right method for use in the design process and how important these steps were in design work. As we learned in LRNT 525, planning is the biggest step to project management and often the most overlooked (Watt, 2014). Through the experience of completing both phases by carefully selecting methods based on the design challenge and users, I gained even more of an appreciation of the time that I will need within a project to devote to this selection process as a planning step. Also, I observed that going into an interview with a planned method that had set instructions to follow was very helpful to keep the interview timely. It also resulted in consistent data across the interviews that could be more meaningfully compared as well as in-depth qualitative data, in terms of conversations and stories. As someone that analyzed data to reveal insights for six years, I found it enjoyable to utilize a set define method to infer revealed trends and patterns within the words and observations within my user interviews.<\/p>\n

For the define phase, I liked how visual the readings were compared to other peer-reviewed journal articles we\u2019ve had in other course readings. I enjoyed how Seelig (2013) used a quantitative equation to drill home the point that \u201call questions are the frame into which answers fall\u201d (Seelig, 2013, para. 1). I love this thought for the visual that it will create in my mind going forward; a design challenge is how you are framing the boundaries for which your problem can be solved. It therefore is important to have frames that \u201cboth inform and limit the way we think\u201d (Seelig, 2013, para 2). I was also happy to read that taking photos is an effective way to practice the skill of reframing problems (Seelig, 2013), since I get great joy from taking multiple pictures of a view or person. I never thought of it as perspective-taking and will bring that visual into my design process too.<\/p>\n

While I was reading the visual articles, I found myself drawing a lot of what the readings were describing to summarize ideas. I think I was encouraged to do so as the Bootcamp Bootleg (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016) recommended such a wide array of techniques and methods, including drawing and visuals, as design methods so I was able to reframe my learning a bit to increase my understanding of the material. Though I found that the Bootcamp Bootleg (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016) was well summarized into one-page descriptions of the methods, I would have been interested in more support in terms of which methods worked better for which purpose, number of users, etc. However, I found this curiosity informed a lot of research that went into my first assignment. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find peer-reviewed sources to back up the methods and I realized that it likely could be a thesis on its own.<\/p>\n

Another realization was that in my prior experience of designing supply and demand models, I was synthesizing data to come up with a way to reframe a problem, just as Woolery (2017) describes the define process to be. Reframing is taking a point of view or a perspective (Woolery, 2017). This is precisely what I used to do; take a perspective on an energy market based on data I collected from numerous sources and then use that data to reframe a problem that our company was having related to that energy market. Within my Master\u2019s, I have found that it often provides knowledge that allows me to sort through information and past experience in such a way that reveals new insights. In a small way, I think of it as my own little \u2018Earthwise\u2019 photo; the photo that provided the inspiration for Earth Day (Woolery, 2017). In a similar way, I hope that my Master\u2019s will result in my very own \u2018movement\u2019 within my career. From this point forward, I will be using that idea as my own user need as I constantly reframe how my Master\u2019s is defined within my own context.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Seelig, T. (2013). How reframing a problem unlocks innovation<\/a><\/em>. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.fastcodesign.com\/1672354\/how-reframing-a-problem-unlocks-innovation<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/dschool-old.stanford.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf<\/span><\/p>\n

Watt, A. (2014). Project Management<\/em>. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/projectmanagement\/<\/span><\/p>\n

Wollery, E. (2017). Design thinking handbook<\/em>.<\/a> Retrieved from https:\/\/www.designbetter.co\/design-thinking<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Define Method & How It Can Be Applied in My Context The Define method that I believe was the most helpful for my design challenge is the why-how laddering (see my last post for a description of my challenge)…. Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assignments-thoughts-sharings","category-lrnt527"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":698,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0028\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}