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Primary Research:

Characteristics:

Reliable

Environmentally freindly 

Not expensive 

Functions / Benifits:

Design your own garden online

Pick your flowers and plants online

Order directly from website

Unique:

Packaged in biodegradable hardware

Delivered straight to your front door

Values:

Ready to plant when they are delivered to your house

Spend less time in store picking plants for garden

Reasonable prices so you can buy more for less

Scenario: 

You are having a garden party this weekend but don’t have time to go and look for new plants

Looking for cheaper and more efficient way of getting plants and flowers

Do not have an available car to take to the store.

Location / Geographical element:

Some delays to order if dangerous terrain or weather occurs 

Feelings:

The plants are healthy

They look and smell amazing

A load of stress taken off your shoulders now that you don’t have to go to the store

USP: 

We provide an environmentally friendly plant and flower delivery service.

Every supply is delivered in recycled or biodegradable packaging 

This product is designed to cater to people who not only care about the environment, but also might be too busy to fit in going the plant nursery to buy garden supplies. 

The website provides a garden grid space to design your own garden and get a feel of what the products you order might look like.

Includes the measurement of the plants, gives you the option to get correctly sized pots and correct amount of soil

Word list:

This product is designed to cater to people who not only care about the environment, but also might be too busy to fit in going the plant nursery to buy garden supplies

Categories:

Quality

Sustainable

Sturdy

Strong

Durable

Long lasting

Sophisticated

Exceptional 

Remarkable

Premium

Prevailing

Easy

Accessible

Clear

Simple

Understandable

User friendly

Light

Organized

Straightforward

Evident 

Not hard

Flexible

Soft

Malleable

Extensible

Ductile

Extensible

Supple

Yielding

Limber

Formative

Not stiff

Movable

Mobile

Adaptable

Adjustable

Shiftable

Unstationary

Liftable

Deployable

Portable

Transferable

Turnable

Organic

Prime

Innate

Vital

Structural

Original

Living

Integral

Anatomical

Fundamental

Essential

Fashionable

Smart

Fly

Trendsetting

Now

Upscale

Popular

Modern

Trendy

Modish

Latest thing

Sophisticated

Mature

Experienced

Studied

Cultivated

Disillusioned

Wordly wise

Refined

Worldy

Practical

Smooth

Long lasting

Life long

Fixed

Innate

Settled

Set

Permanent

Persistent

Hardened

Enduring

Abiding

Classy

Chic

Elegant

Fashionable

Posh

Sharp

Uptown

Select

Exclusive

Dashing

High-class

High-end

Elite

Premium

Swank

Refined

Elegant

First hand

New

Ritzy

Cosmopolitan

Aristocratic

Contemporary

New 

Present

Instant

Mod

Now

Topical

Ultramodern

Existent

Latest

Extant

Modern

Novel

Recent

Today

Avant-garde

Stylish

Prevalent

Fresh

Contempo

Present day

Contemporary

Clean

Orderly

Tidy

Immaculate

Graceful

Elegant

Clear

Well-kept

Delicat

Faultless

Unsoiled

Creative

Inventive

Ingenious

Prolific

Productive

Fertile

Deviceful 

Stimulating

Visionary

Formative

Innovational

Artistic

Cultivated

Pleasing

Stylish

Sublime

Imaginative

Creative

Grand

Poetic

Stimulating

Tasteful

Reliable

Stable

Steady

True

Firm

Impeccable

Solid

Dependable

Definite

Constant

Safe

Trustworthy

Accurate

Authentic

Believable

Credible 

Realistic

Plausible

Trustable

Ethical

Authoritative

Unfailing

Organized

Coordinated

Formed

Standardized

Methodized

Classified

Straightened

Construct

Composed

Settled

Regulated

Safe

Intact

Protected

Secure

Snug

Guarded

Impressive

Tended

Undamaged

Unscathed

Shielded

Cute

Adorable

Beautiful

Charming

Delightful

Pleasant

Danty

Pretty

Sweet

Non offensive

Happy

Client information: Busy / hard working, environmentally friendly client, who wants an easy and affordable way to buy plants, flowers, and gardening supplies.

Brand story: 

Our company provides an environmentally friendly plant and flower order / delivery service.  

This product is designed to cater to people who care about the environment. This product is also designed to cater to those who might be too busy to go to the plant nursery and buy plants, flowers, and garden supplies.  

The website provides a garden grid space to design your own garden and get a feel of what the products you order might look like. 

Want to provide an easier, more affordable way to find and buy gardening supplies.

We pride ourselves on our durable environmentally friendly packaging that we ship our long lasting gardening supplies.

Name ideas:

Descriptive:

Happy leaves

Happy roots

Happy plants

Happy trees

Sublime garden

Simple grow

Abstract:

Deep roots

Proper Plants

Strong Stems

Devine garden supplies

Abstract

Reliaseed

Modleaf

Organroot

Visual research: https://www.pinterest.com/sbs5262/logo-inspo/

Scott:

Having a user friendly Website with lots of visuals

Being able to get a 360 3D view of what product is being sold online

Not wasting any of the packaging, being able to plant it as soon as it is delivered

Erin

The 3D design aspect of the website is a great option

Not having to drive to the store is also  another eco friendly aspect of the brand

Information and environmental tips on the website recommended

Dad

Being able to touch and smell the plants is the only downside to online shopping

There needs to be a detailed description for each plant and flower online

Customer Persona: 

Identify your audience

Middle age and older, middle to high range income, people that prefer to shop online, Environmentally friendly, busy or cant stop in shop

Eco friendly, Enjoys quality goods, Likes plants, Busy, Little time to go out and shop in stores, May not have a car or form of transportation

Using companies that are less eco friendly, usually buying the product in store rather than online

Define their need

Easy, eco friendly garden, shipped right to their door

Not having a car, Wasteful containers, tricky rules of gardening

Plants,flowers, and gardening supplies

Reliable, long lasting gardening supplies

Eco friendly and reliability 

Macro to micro

The main overlap is business

Eco friendly, busy, enjoys long lasting quality goods and services

Their behaviors

Look for reliable eco friendly gardening supplies

Their interest

The easiness of our user friendly website, they don’t have to leave their house to buy and order their gardening supplies straight to their house

Eco friendly packaging supplies and shipping

Their turn-off

Don’t have time to go to the store and pick out the plants that they want

Writing buyer persona for individual and a group of consumer

Name: Brian

Age bracket: 60

Level of education: Graduated College

They want to address these problems or accomplish these tasks: Provide environmentally friendly packaging that is dependent on recycled material

Their biggest areas of resistance are: Having so much waste due to packaging

The words she uses to describe er pain points are

What kind of content are they looking for? Environmentally friendly supplies

Other decision-makers involved in their buying process: online vs. in store, long lasting supplies

Brand Story: 

Content structure

Why: To provide an easy way to order garden supplies online

How: 3D detailed online plant diagrams

What: Eco friendly online garden delivery service

1st Draft Statement

Our company provides an environmentally friendly garden supply delivery service.This product is designed to cater to people who care about the environment and to those who might be too busy to go to the plant nursery and buy plants, flowers, and garden supplies. The website provides a garden grid space to design your own garden and get a feel of what the products you order might look like. Want to provide an easier, more affordable way to find and buy gardening supplies.We pride ourselves on our long lasting, and durable supplies, as well as our environmentally friendly packaging.

Color Pallet:

Light green- Growth, eco friendly, nature 

Dark green- Ambition, peace, calming

Light brown- Serious, Down to earth, support

Angelina Lodes

12.10.18              

Imaging 1, Caleb Horn

Design Writing no.2

               Creative thinking is a way of looking at problems from a different and unique perspective to develop innovative ideas. Creative thinking can be stimulated both by an unstructured process such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is the process of solving problems from an indirect and creative approach, and usually involves using nontraditional steps to solving a problem. There are four steps to the creative thinking process and out of those four I believe the most important one is preparation.

               First, no good idea comes from just one brainstorming session. Great ideas come from multiple resources including your own mind, nature, other people’s thoughts and input, and observing the world around you. Noticing things that may have gone undetected in the past or looking at the problem from different perspectives help give the designer a more rounded collection of data to use. You don’t even have to start with an idea in the preparation phase, all you need is something to write down thoughts and information and you can start by going on a walk or checking out a new store. Even the grocery store can be an excellent place to do your creative thinking while grocery shopping. Start looking at the places you go to daily in new perspectives and the ideas will just start flowing. It doesn’t take a million places, only a million ideas.

               Secondly, gathering information is just the beginning of the preparation stage. After all that can be possibly gathered from the resources around you, then comes the organizing phase. You read, sort, organize, and outline it all to help you in the next stage, incubation. The Peak Performing Arts Center had an interesting article on the creative process and emphasized that “you cannot just hope for inspiration to strike, you have to plan and prepare for creativity.” Preparation is the key for success for anything you do. Whether you are cooking, cleaning, or creating, you need to prepare for every one of those situations

               Lastly, before coming to the incubation stage, a designer must make sure they have exhausted all their preparation resources, then start building ideas. While gathering information you may come across an unusual finding that may make for a good design product. It is important to note all thoughts while gathering information, so you can go back and expand them even further. What you thought was a silly idea could turn out to be the best idea you have, it’s all about changing your perspective.

               In conclusion, all the steps of creative thinking are important, but preparation is what sets you up for success or failure in any circumstance. Gather as much information as possible and become acquainted with what it is you are trying to solve. Without preparation, creative thinking will not be successful.

IDEO’s Field Guide to Human-centered Design has set the difficulty, time, and what you would need to go through these steps. Take your time with these things, it’s not always that simple to come up with a good concept on the spot. Make sure you understand that whatever process you decide to go through you will need to have some sense of inspiration, you’ll idealize it and then implement your design into the real world.

The Field Guide to Human-centered Design by IDEO is heavily armed with the tools needed to be a great designer. By having the right mindset, a good 3 step process, and the help of your peers you’ll be able to get there in no time. After you have established a positive mindset an you feel as if you are creatively confident to tackle ideas, you can start with this 3 step process. No matter what the design challenge might be you’ll go through 3 main phases: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. By going through this 3 step process, you’ll be able to produce  empathy with the individuals you’re designing with and for. You’ll figure out how to turn what you’ve learned from your peers, professor, client etc. into a chance to design a new idea; and you’ll build and test your ideas before presenting them to the world. Take things slow and do whatever you feel comfortable with and this process will set you on the right track. IDEO has many steps within these phases and I’m going to touch on what I think is most important for designers without being too lengthy, feel free to review all the steps.

First off is Inspiration. This one’s tough and takes time. IDEO states that “the inspiration phase is about learning to fly, opening yourself up to creative possibilities, and trusting that as long as you remain grounded in desires of the communities you’re engaging, your ideas will evolve into the right solutions.” The first step within this phase is framing your design. This step is critical to your success. IDEO suggests that you should take a stab at writing and refining your ideas, and ask questions from there. I’ve learned that the best way of doing this is to go on Pinterest and gather photos and ideas. You can also do this by writing a list of ideas, and with these two things you’ll be able to refine from there. Next is coming up with a plan. IDEO states that “even though they’re bound to change as things progress, you’ll be in much better shape if you can plan for what’s ahead.” This is exactly the same scenario when a professor or client would tell you to go ahead and write your statement of intent. Sure it is bound to change but go ahead and start jotting down what you intend to do. Next is building a team if you’re able to, but when you’re working alone its best to just get feedback from other individuals as you go. IDEO talks a lot about analogous inspiration, where you would initially try to get a new perspective on your research and shift your focus to a new context. After you get some feedback gather secondary research if needed, re-draw, back-step as much as you need to get yourself on the right track.

Next up is Ideation. IDEO states that within this phase “you’ll share what you’ve learned with your team, make sense of a vast amount of data, and identify opportunities for design. You’ll generate lots of ideas, some of which you’ll keep, and others which you’ll discard. You’ll get tangible by building rough prototypes of your ideas, then you’ll share them with the people from whom you’ve learned and get their feedback. You’ll keep iterating, refining, and building until you’re ready to get your solution out into the world.” Develop some thumbnails and then take everything you’ve learned, research and the feedback you were given and start refining your ideas into roughs. IDEO calls this the “Top Five.” Take your 5 best roughs and gather your peers and review again. IDEO suggests that you should do this exercise often, so refine your 5 into another 5, make as many iterations as you can and you’ll find some solution within it. Ask yourself some questions: Is there a theme? Is there a hierarchy? Etc. Develop the best possible concept.

Last but not least, Implementation. This is the phase where you’ll bring your ideas to life. For us, that’s gathering your research and ideas and bringing your roughs, photos, etc. into photoshop, illustrator or whatever program preferred, and start developing your concept. Keep iterating from there, IDEO says that “testing, getting feedback, and iterating will help you get a great solution to market and let you know where to push it when you do.” Evaluate what you’ve got and then it’s all about rolling with the punches. You’ll need to be able to accept criticism when given so that whenever you present your work you know what you can do to make things better.

The purpose of design is rooted in problem solving. Human-centered design is believing that every problem has a solution, and the ones most capable of finding a solution are the ones who are currently suffering from the problem. Human-centered design is important because the process emphasizes the human experience, brings attention to underrepresented communities, and calls for overall growth as human beings in the design field.

The human-centered design process is similar to the process used in class. It starts with heavy research, and with human-centered design, research must include developing a sense of compassion and empathy for the people who are dealing with problem you are solving. In The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design by the designers at IDEO, their process of inspiration, ideation, and implementation is interwoven with empathy, optimism, iteration, creative confidence, making, embracing ambiguity, and learning from failure. All of these are foundations of the human experience a designer must experience to effectively solve a problem. These experiences remind us that no who we are or what problems we face, we’re all human and we can come together for positive change.

Sela Lewis, a graphic designer, said “(Design) serves as a call to action, preserve history and culture, make the invisible visible…” In an interview about the Black In Design project design student Diamond James stated “What is best in a studio or laboratory may not even translate well without cultural literacy of the population in need of better design for better lives.” For IDEO, this cultural literacy is evident when their design process is used to improve the lives of marginalized communities such as bringing sexual heath education to at-risk teens, or bringing clean water solutions to tribes in impoverished countries. Human-centered design makes the invisible visible by using empathy and compassion in the design process.

With compassion and empathy being at the forefront of human-centered design, designers can become agents of social change. Former AIGA president Doug Powell believes that people with the right skills and creativity have a responsibility to be a positive influence to the world around us. Making connections with people who may be different than us through design makes not only the field of design grow stronger, it makes the designer grow as a human being. Part of the Black In Design project focuses on meshing together the white and black student experience against the backdrop of urban Baltimore, to provide new perspective on how everyone can be agents of social change though design. Fresh perspectives and new ideas play a pivotal role in problem solving that designers need to embrace. 

As you can see, human-centered design is important for problem solving and improving the world around us. The process of human-centered design and the development of empathy puts emphasis on the human experience to help us understand that we are all the same, bringing attention to marginalized communities make the invisible visible, and everyone throughout the design community can experience growth through social change.

Resources:

The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, IDEO

Sela Lewis, Black in Design http://www.inherentdesignbyselalewis.com/black-in-design-mica/

In class there were five specific steps to the design process: discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and implementation. While these aren’t hard and fast rules to live by when problem solving or designing, they do cover the bases of how you should start your own process. There are also other things to consider in developing your own design process, like taking a break and stepping away from your projects, using the three H’s, and expanding your process beyond physical design work.

One of the most beneficial things you can do in the early design process sounds like the most counter-productive… stepping away from your work and take a break. Don Draper from the show Mad Men said it best, “Just think about it deeply, then forget it. An idea will jump in your face.” In the book “The Art of Thought” by Graham Wallas, the design process is broken down into four stages, and the second stage is incubation. In the incubation stage, you’ve already gathered as much information about the problem you are trying to solve, and now you’re letting it marinate while you step away for a while. Inspiration can come from doing the most mundane tasks. I personally like to take walks with my dog and get inspired by what’s going on around me. Clearing your mind allows for more creative ideas to flow in!

After you’ve cleared your head, it’s time to come back and use it. In an article for the American Institute of Graphic Arts, designer Richard Grefe writes about the “three H’s” head, heart, and hand and it’s incorporation into modern design work. Using your head is thinking critically and creatively to problem solve. Join creative thinking with empathy and you think of human-centered solutions, then craft that solution with your talent and hand-skills. By engaging all three parts you can maximize your own ideas and skillsets to come up with better solutions to design problems.

In The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design from the designers at IDEO, the design process is enhanced by expanding that process beyond physical design work. Much like Grefe’s recommendation of using your heart in your process, IDEO implements seven mindsets that enhance the process and create a greater human experience through design. These mindsets include empathy, optimism, iteration, creative confidence, making, embracing ambiguity, and learning from failure. Notice how very few of these mindsets involve doing any physical design work. Expanding your process to include real human feeling and emotion makes a greater connection between you, your design, and your client that the design is for, which is an all-around great set up to make a better solution to the original problem.

As you can see, the design process used in class only covers the basics of what we as designers should do to produce design work. Incubating thought, using your head, heart, and hands, and expanding your design process to include emotional responses to the human experience are all great things to include into your own personal design process.

Resources:

Wallas, Graham, The Art of Thought

Grefe, Richard, Head, Heart and Hand: Modern Design Practice https://www.aiga.org/aiga/content/about-aiga/insight/head-heart-and-hand-modern-design-practice/