Thomas Bauman

Sydney Sokora

ARTC 1302

Professor Mitschke

April 1, 2019

The Importance of Human Centered Design

           Human centered designers think differently. They solve problems uniquely. This process involves many trials, many errors, and lots of room for not knowing the solution to the problem. It requires patience, optimism, and willingness to push the boundaries of comfort. The process of human centered design includes three main phases: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation (The Field Guide…).  

           In the first stage, Inspiration, the designer will observe various aspects of people: how they live, their desires, how they interact with others, and any other characteristics that might help lead them to a solution for their problem. Nailing down exactly what problem they want to solve as well as completing any research needed is necessary in this stage. The designer should begin to interview individuals and groups in the appropriate communities, gathering information about them and how they might be able to help them. Interviewing will give them a better understanding of this group, how they think and things they want. Once you’ve gathered in-field research, the designer should define their audience and then immerse themselves in their communities, learning to think like them. After organizing their research, the designer is ready to move on to the next stage in the process: Ideation.

           In the Ideation stage, the designer will start to ask questions like “What can I take from my research?” “How do I begin to implement my ideas into an actual design?” and “How do I know my idea is effective?” Ideation is a challenging phase in the design process, therefore, creating a list of their top five solutions might help narrow the designer’s thinking and maybe even spark new ideas when discussing the list with teammates. Sorting through ideas and categorizing them by themes and patterns can help them to better understand the research. If there are any ideas the designer has a good feeling about, they should follow that feeling and explore that idea further, so that they can either eliminate it or take it to the next stage. The designer should encourage their team to brainstorm a plethora of innovative ideas, no matter how wild or unattainable they seem. Brainstorming this way ensures that you come up with the best possible idea. Next, they should come up with a concept that they can perfect and push onward to the last stage: Implementation.

           In the last stage, Implementation, the designer explores what’s next, how they’re going to bring their concept to life, and making sure their solution is working. First, they should consider using a Live Prototype, where they get the chance to test their product in the real world, only for a few weeks (The Field Guide…). They should ensure they have a plan for getting their product to market and how they are going to present it to the public. It is also important to build connections through networking. Creating a funding strategy will also help plan for spending and expenses. Now that they’ve implemented a Live Prototype, they should produce a Pilot product to test for a longer-term (The Field Guide…). The last and final step is to connect with funders and go to market.

Works Cited

Design Thinking.

Rebecca Flores

Sara Mitschke

There are many types and stages to design methodology. Design thinking is just one of many. However, there are important stages of design thinking that help provide a solution to complex and simple problems. The stages are; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Though there is no correct order of operation, many times you will bounce back and forth between steps. (Dan, R)

Stage One: Empathize. To empathize means to “understand and share the feelings of another.” If there is a problem that needs to be addressed, you must first WANT to fix it and understand WHY it needs to be fixed at all. This come from researching said problem, asking experts, engaging in the topic, and finding the motivation.

Stage Two: Define. Here, after conducting research, expressing empathy, and gaining information about a particular field, is where you will define WHAT exactly the problem is. You should take what you’ve learned and analyze where the problem is starting, what it’s cause and effect is, and define it with a problem statement.

Stage Three: Ideate. The next step, after defining the problem is to brainstorm ideas that could potentially solve said problem. This is where you can begin to think of simple or “outside-the-box” solutions. You can brainstorm in many ways, always ask for other people opinions and write down your train of thought to go back to later.

Stage Four: Prototype. After deciding on an idea that might work, its time to put it into action. Here you will reconstruct, if necessary, a small scale version of the entire problem and implement the potential solution. It could be something you physically build or design or even just act on differently.

Stage Five: Test. Once a prototype has been proven to work on a small scale, it is time to test it in the real life situation. Did it correct the problem? Did it create new problems? Is it user friendly? This is many times where the design thinkers must go back to the drawing board and redefine the problem. However, they will have even more understanding and knowledge of the challenge than before and can start with new ideas.

These stages are merely outlines of what design thinking entails. As mentioned, there is no right or wrong way to go about design thinking. You will eventually hit all these steps throughout your process. You may stay in one stage longer than others, or you may keep going back to square one, or there may be a whole other group of people working on different stages. No matter what, design thinking is a crucial part in problem solving, creative thinking, and often leads directly to human centered thinking.

Citation:

The design process is one big experiment. IDEO tells us that “Creative confidence will drive you to make things, to test them out, to get it wrong, and to keep on rolling, secure in the knowledge that you’ll get where you need to go and that you’re bound to innovate along the way.”The best creations are born out of trial/error and experimentation that can only be completed after accepting creative confidence.

Design thinking relies on noticing patterns and constructing emotional, meaningful, functional, and impressive ideas. The process is basically one big jumbled loop with ideas thrown around in the middle until the perfect one prevails. It is used to come up with solutions that might not be initially so obvious and encourages exploration through asking questions. The main idea is basically to just brainstorm and think out of the box which is the hardest and most frustrating part of the process for a creative individual. Sometimes it feels like a new idea is impossible to conceive so it’s important to remind yourself of your strengths and keep up your creative confidence.

           Human Design is a different process than any other. When pursuing this type of project, one must really focus their research on humans and what they use and need every single day. Accessibility, usefulness, and convenience are the main goals when creating something in this category. IDEO came up with three main steps to help fellow designers with the process: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. To be successful in any design you must first understand your subject, and when creating Human Centered Design, the first step is observing people’s lives, goals, desires, aspirations, and needs. This way of creating is unique and slightly uncomfortable to tackle at first because you shift between small tangible thoughts to wild abstract conceptual ideas. The outcome will surely be a creation of the process. In other words, don’t worry about trying to envision the final outcome until after the experimental phase is complete. Keep your ideas loose and open until a prototype is created to be tested. Only then will you be able to measure its success.

           The imagination is a hard place to dig through sometimes. Luckily, there are plenty of tips to help whenever you are stuck. Sometimes, the process becomes all too overwhelming and taking a step back by going back to the basics can trigger different creative pathways in the mind. Changing just one basic design elements such as line, shape, texture, space, color, value, tension, proportion, etc. can create something entirely new. Believe it or not, not working can sometimes be the best work, taking breaks throughout the process but continuing to keep that idea in the back of your mind as you go through everyday tasks can help tremendously. Ideas can come to us when walking the dog, taking a shower, or cooking dinner and those are usually some of the best.

           . The most important thing to remember about design thinking is that it isn’t just for designers. The process can help even the most traditional thinkers develop new solutions and force them to think outside their usual realm. Which reminds me, design thinking should not be a solo process. Collaboration and access to other minds and opinions is the most essential tool available. Nobody made it anywhere on their own and when brainstorming or experimenting, fresh eyes are crucial.

Works Cited –

Sydney Sokora

ARTC 1302

Professor Sara Mitschke

January 30, 2019

Without design, where would we be as a society? Nowhere. Without design, we wouldn’t have safe cars (air bags), an easy way to keep catalogs of items (bar codes), or a way to adhere things to one another (tape/glue). Our world would be unorganized, unsafe, and inconvenient. The people who generated these ideas used various processes such as creative thinking and design thinking to come up with these innovations.

           Creative thinking takes time. For some, ideas come easily with some focused thinking. For others, it takes a plan for creativity. In the book, The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, the author delivers a four-stage process of creative thinking. The first stage is preparation. In this stage, your goal is to research and find out everything you can about your problem or topic (“Creative Thinking Process”). Second, you let your brain fully process all the information you found in stage one through “incubation” (“Creative Thinking Process”). Illumination, the “Aha moment”, is stage three in the process. This idea appears when you are least expecting it and can give you an “emotional reaction of joy” (“Creative Thinking Process”). The final stage in the process is verification. In this stage, you want to evaluate, test, and hopefully verify the idea” that you received in the third stage. While this is not a fool proof way of generating ideas, it is very helpful for many of people when you feel like you might be stuck.

           Design thinking is similar to creative thinking in the way that they both require the person involved to explore all perspectives of the issue. However, design thinking is “a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems” (Dam). Just like creative thinking, design thinking has a process. The first stage is to empathize. In this stage, you will be doing in-field research, meeting with experts in order to find out more about your problem. The goal is to immerse yourself in the environment, so you can empathize with people and be able to better appreciate their experiences (Dam). Secondly, you must “define the problem” (Dam). Once you’ve reached an understanding of your user, you will begin generating ideas in the third stage, ideate (Dam). In the fourth stage, the designer will create a prototype in order to experiment with the product and discover any adjustments that need to be made (Dam). Lastly, you will “test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase” (Dam). The design thinking process is a very useful tool when trying to determine solutions to design related problems.

           Creative thinking and design thinking are responsible for some of the world’s greatest inventions. These ways of processing information for a problem or issue have helped many understand what it is like to think like a creative designer. As a society, we will continue to come up with new ideas and innovations that help humans live simply.

“Creative Thinking Process.” The Peak Performance Center, thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/types-of-thinking-2/creative-thinking-process/.

Drop colander by Viviana Degrandi for RIG-TIG by Stelton