In today’s class we met our new tutor David who has had 7 years of experience in the government sector; prior to this he was a freelancer. We spent the majority of the lecture discussing the upcoming project and what it would entail and from that I have gathered this semester will be predominantly research based and user testing which is something I’m looking forward to. I’ll make sure to keep in mind that everything is tested by my peers and others who aren’t involved in the same course as me. This module will allow us to investigate and troubleshoot how design can benefit the healthcare system that has been falling apart ever since the Brexit.
Upon hearing about everything concerning the module I came to realise how much discipline and time management this last semester will require. Something I liked was when David showed us the previous year’s work, I feel like when the tutor’s do this they give us an idea of what to look forward to and what needs to be done; and personally it also inspires and motivates me.
A major thing that we uncovered in this lecture is the design thinking and process; none of these terms are new to me of course but it seems as though we will be diving deeper into them in this module.
The first diamond is all about understanding the problem and it has 2 sections to it: Discover - Research and explore the problem space broadly, gathering insights, user needs, and challenges.
Define - Narrow down and refine the problem, identifying the key issue to address. I feel like this part of the design is what will help me build a brief/ proposal for for this project. It’ll also help me find what digital product to work on and what my demographic will be, with this I’ll be able to build some user personas as well.
The second diamond is the problem solving stage, my favourite sage of a design process.
In this stage you come up with as many ideas ass possible and Develop them; in this stage a lot of user testing is done to ensure that the project is on the right path. Finally in the Delivery stage the work is tested, refined, and any final solutions are implemented.
Each diamond represents a cycle of divergence and convergence; first expanding thinking to explore, then narrowing it to focus on the best approach.
I also did soe research into Stanford’s design thinking process and what I uncovered wasn't new to me but regardless it was interesting to gain more insight into the design thinking process from a different POV; I took some notes as I read the PDF i got from their website.
The first process of this process is Empathize:
-Understand people
-Understand the whys of their needs; this reminds me of a research I conducted in my first semester regarding users’ needs and wants and how it is crucial to prioritise their needs and blend it with what they want. Because the goal is it come to a solution and if a designer focuses on the “wants” then the design doesn't accomplish its goal.
This is done by observing behaviour, engaging, and watching ad listening. Find stories that help you connect to the user’s concerns and needs.
The next stage is the Define stage:
-Brings clarity and focus
-Helps make sense of the information gathered
This stage helps write a problem statement for the designer to solve. It also helps the designer to come up with with some user personas.