REFLECTING ON THE TOOLS OF DESIGN THINKING

VISUALIZATION -AS A DESIGN THINKING TOOL

Introduction-

I am going to throw light on 'visualization' as the most important tool of 'design thinking'. I say  so because design thinking has been a crucial tool in simplifying the processes or studies related  to the topic. As the neuro-science says that our brain adapts quickly to learn and memorize when  we see the images, drawing or sketches of something. The 21st century state-of-the-art  technology have made things possible for vast magnitudes. May it be a 4 year old or a 64 year  old grasps visual information better and is able to represent it in better ways.

Such is design thinking with visualization that not only it helps us to look at things in a very  different way but also to understand how things could be done and problems be resolved in a  manner no one earlier thought of. Imagine the field of architechure, interior designing or 60s  school education where it was so tough to materialise things when they were in hard format  written on dusty papers and scrambling day in and day out just to make a meaning out of it.

Insights-

I observed and pratically ran the visualization experiment in my company which deals in  education technology. To deal with K-3 segment and teaching them with old school pedagogy  with texts and notes makes it real hard for the students to memorize the theories and understand  the concepts. With this it became real tough for an organization like us to capitalize on the course  pedagogy. Soon I realized that we should start our research in the learning habits and learning  styles of the K3 and K12 students and we consulted a child learning specialist and a  physocologist. We came to know that in Grades 1-3 the child learns to read and speak, whereas  beyond grade 3 they read to learn new concepts.

We also ran an experiment where we brought 4 canditates agead 2, 4, 6 and 8 in a room which  had a flat screen TV depicting the bowl filled with pop corns which is tilted and the popcorns are  about to fall. The two year old kid was asked as to what he is seeing he said that someone has  tilted the popcorn bowl letting the popcorn fall, the 4 year and 6 year old has mixed perceptions  about the image being an animation or else if someone is holding it behind the screen and the 9  year old said that no one has tilted the TV screen its a 3D model which makes us think that the  image with tilted popcorn bowl makes it look like the popcorns are falling.

Results-

At last we understood that how we should mould and change our pedagogy from books to visual  to make children learn more and understand better, we started showing them various videos on  concepts such as addition, multiplication, on planet, spinning of earth on its axis which made the  kids grasp better, retain it and express it in more subtle ways. This is how visualtion acts as a

most powerful tools in analyzing and accessing behaviours of the target audience and to work on  What wows? and move to What works?

Thanks!

Submitted by  Dai

