{"id":436,"date":"2019-06-30T23:26:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T06:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0060\/?p=436"},"modified":"2019-07-22T14:36:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T21:36:51","slug":"design-challenge-empathy-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0060\/design-challenge-empathy-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"Unit 1 – Activity 3: Design Challenge \u2013 Empathy Methods"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Empathy is at the heart of design<\/strong>. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task. \u2013 Tim Brown<\/h4>\n
\"\"
Image by: Arpan Mitra Meets Interactive Media<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote>\n

A team from Standford d. school worked on a design challenge and created a portable incubator called Embrace, similar to a heated sleeping bag to save newborn babies born outside of the hospital from hypothermia.\u00a0 Without interviewing moms, healthcare workers and shopkeepers and learning of key barriers the iterations pro-typed from this product would not have been adopted. Using a beginners mindset\u00a0and immersing oneself in the user\u2019s experience and guessing less on the product design helped with the success of Embrace (Woolery, 2019).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Design Challenge<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

My design challenge is no large feet like Standford\u2019s team embraced, however one that is still important for the success of the organization I\u2019m with.\u00a0 The design challenge is to create a meaningful and engaging on-boarding experience for all new employees.\u00a0 Using similar approaches and considerations of interviewing, learning from those involved, along with having beginners, open and unprescribed mindset will certainly help in the right direction in creating a remarkable new employee on-boarding program.<\/span><\/p>\n

With recent increases in voluntary turnover of employees less than 1-year on the job, supported by comments captured in exit interviews and exit surveys on the unsuccessful acclimation during their first few months on the job, along with 2019 annual engagement survey capturing existing staffs concerns of impacts to team and production with the recent higher volumes of attrition has drawn lots of attention to this organizational problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I look at an employee life cycle from pre-onboarding, to on-boarding, to developing and growing (retention) and finally off-boarding I will specifically focus on on-boarding and learning technologies, as the primary focus for this design challenge.\u00a0 Centered on acclimation as the first phase, and then followed by development and growth as phase two and three in the new employee on-boarding program, I will be seeking out ways to possibly leverage learning technologies to help build new employee learning communities to create an environment of belonging, safety, connection and support as they transition in to a new organization, new team and new role within their first few months.\u00a0 As quantitative and qualitative data suggested this through exit interviews and survey\u2019s it will be a consideration as one of many solutions that may need to come in play to help with the growing problem of high voluntary turnover and no formal on-boarding program.\u00a0 However, as I immerse myself in to the design challenge I will remind myself part of the quality of design is \u201cempathetic understanding goes beyond knowledge; when empathizing you do not judge, you relate to [the user] and understand the situations and why certain experiences are meaningful to these people\u201d (Kouprie & Visser, 2009, p. 438 as cited by Battarbee, 2004).<\/span><\/p>\n

Key Stakeholders<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n