Luis Gonzales  Savitribai Phule Pune University Student

Castles in the Sky – Design Thinking through the Visualization Tool

Challenge

Today we face a challenge unlike another; with a magnitude so considerable that it’s made

countries literally quake. Forsooth, the pandemic known as COVID-19 has come to create a new segment  in history that generations after us will only be able to read about in their textbooks. Partially, this creates  an opportunity to take action; to do things right. In the other spectrum, our “What Is”, the context in which  we live in, also creates what could seem like an abysmal chasm from where we’re standing today and  where we want to be, our “What If,” if you will.  I believe it is important to put these things into concept  because like with all innovation, big or small, we must be able to understand what we’re dealing with so  that we can make informed choices. Change is inevitable, dear reader. It is a constant and perhaps the  only one that we’ll be able to distinguish in our lives. COVID-19 has brought this change and it’s up to us  deal with all the aftershocks that have ensued because of it. Now, forgive me if I’m being dramatic, but it’s  true. To elaborate on this, I take quote from Virgil’s Aeneid: “Through chances various, through all  vicissitudes, we make our way…” What this quote leaves us with is nothing more and nothing less than  the inspiration to do things right; to go out there and innovate and act as best we can.

With that said, I ask that you picture this: A very small class of young economists and the

respective lecturers for each course. These people form part of a slightly renowned university known as  Savitribai Phule Pune University in Guatemala City. The marginal issue for them that had arisen from the pandemic was  that the implementation social distancing measures created a disruption in the flow of face-to-face  classes, and everything, then, had to shift to a digital platform. This small group of young learners was  then tasked with adapting to this new methodology, as were the professors. However, proper organization  within the group turned out to be quite lethargic and most students no longer felt like they were learning  anything. As for some of the professors, they also felt quite helpless in this situation; some of them were  used to the “old methods” of teaching and couldn’t quite adjust their programs to the online tools that they  had to make use of. The “What Is” seems deplorable, and the biggest challenge faced was finding the  right model to consider and respect the needs of the parties involved. In this case I worked with a sample  of 6 students and 2 lecturers. All of which could not agree on an effective approach to a solution.

Selection

Since communication through video chats had become monotonous and everyone wanted to talk

over each other, it basically felt like we (the students and professors) were trying to build the Tower of  Babylon. There was no effective transmission and reception through voice conversation. Because of this,  I opted to use the Visualization Tool to transmit what we could not express as easily through speech. As  you will see in this work, my methodology required the participation of the people, who shared somewhat  similar ideas but didn’t quite know how to express them during class sessions. In retrospect, my role in  this was to provide the building blocks so that we could create our very own castle in the sky.

For this purpose, the definition I found in the book Designing for Growth by professor Maii and

Steven Cooper was quite helpful. If you want basic definition of Visualization, this book provides an amicable  way for beginners, much like me, to grasp that this tool involves the use of imagery to picture our What Ifs  and bring those to reality. Through Visualization it becomes much easier to identify trends, outliers and  patterns in information and yet, this can still be done in a simple and often attractive way so that everyone  can appreciate what’s being inputted onto the graphic. Finally, throughout the 8th video of the first week,  designer Isabel Patel explained something that had an effect on me; in her words: “Visualization is about  creating pictures of something that will soon be”. These words are what prompted me to adopt this tool to  approach the communication issue faced by the group. They inspired me to create a new reality.

Luis Gonzales  Savitribai Phule Pune University Student

Application

At first glance, the task of implementing the tool seemed discouraging. I didn’t know exactly

where to begin or how I’d go about compiling different ideas. After having completed most of the Design  Thinking course, I didn’t want to go about it in the usual way of creating a survey. I found it impersonal  and not as interactive. See, my goal here was to create a platform where people would be able to share  their ideas and opinions without being shot down by others or having the insecurity to express themselves  freely. The latter is what propelled me to make the process of gathering data anonymous; the former,  however, gave me the idea of using a digital bullet board. Here, students and lecturers alike would be  able to post little notes stating their opinion on questions like: how distance learning/teaching was  affecting their operative (academic) process (?); another question was if they could implement  anything to solve it, what would it be (?); and finally, I wanted to foment a positive perspective, so I  asked, do you believe anything has emerged from this methodology that has benefitted your  learning/ teaching process? Still, this seemed very wordy and I wanted to take a leap further but with  something simple so as to not lose the interest of the sample group.

Due to this predicament, I came up with the idea of having each person post one of three

emojis: a microphone (representing communication), a car (representing physical resources used) and  books (representing learning). They were to place one of these in their comment so as to state what was  most important to them; whether it was that they were irritated by the inefficient communication process or  that they were more concerned about the resources they needed to have for either in-person classes or  distance learning or that they simply wanted to learn despite all other frustrations. This helped me further  understand the perspectives of the different participants but also allowed them to be present while others  were typing in this bullet board canvas. I used a free online service called Padlet for all this. The website  essentially allowed me to give a description of the information I needed from them; moreover, it also gave  the benefit of people being able to add their comments through “sticky note” windows. With this, one  person was able to see what the other was typing in real time and yet, it provided the space necessary for  people to respectfully observe and disagree on the different questions I placed above without having any  real quarrel take place. I shared the invites to participate in the Padlet via link through social media; only  to the respective parties. As I said before, these people just required an outlet to express their opinion  without immediate backlash, which is why it also helped that this remained anonymous. Also, my  reasoning to keep the sample small was that qualitative data is much harder to interpret and I found that a  smaller proportion of the overall population provided better patterns to study and work with.

All in all, I was able to take these same principal components from each data sample to supply

myself and others with an idea of what our What Ifs looked like and how they somewhat correlated with  one another. From here, the What Wows factor came in as some saw specific ideas to be more viable  than others. This helped me create the “building blocks” of our castle in the sky (although it doesn’t look  as majestic as it sounds). Briefly, I want to elaborate on this last statement. Castles in the sky are referred  to as ideas, hopes and dreams that seem unrealistic or impossible. I learned from professor Maii that  there is no finished solution or magical answer to everyday problems. What’s important to remember is  that we’ll fail with a purpose; Always. The castle I made for this challenge, then, encompassed all that  these people wanted to achieve and expressed their need for that desire to be met. At the end of the  process, we were all able to relate to the little castle that was made. Despite previous disagreements, we  could look up from the chaos below and admire what our combined effort had created. There, we had  placed all that we valued as important as much for our learning process as for our emotional state. I have  no doubts of the Visualization Tool’s effectiveness. I know our work wasn’t lost by placing it all in the air  (like some would say); no, now we just have to build the foundation for our castle, our home- our dream,  for a better tomorrow.

Luis Gonzales  Savitribai Phule Pune University Student

Insight

This effort truly took a mental and emotional toll on me. I never understood the concept of

empathizing with others, but I think I learned quite a few about it through this method. What I found is that  we all have different ways of expressing ourselves, but also that we’re not so different. All many of us  want to do is be heard and understood. Many of us walk this life alone, so when we have the chance to  scream we do just that. We want to be noticed. Others have had the experience of being beseeched all  their lives by all kinds of questions, and in time, their voices become raspy and shy. These people fall into  the background and they’re no longer heard. What began as an investigation to see how we could reach  an agreement in our class sessions, became an outlet for people to express their feelings and opinions  without being ignored or muffled. I find that in trying times like the ones we live today, it’s important to feel  and to understand that life is rough but that we can get through if we make space for the things that  matter. We don’t want to fall in a cycle of insanity, and I use this word with all due respect. To me, and  many others, insanity is defined by repeating the same action and expecting different results. My peers  and I didn’t let ourselves be commandeered by stoicism or rigid postures; instead, what we created was a  movement based on understanding others and developing a love for progress through empathy. I am  glad to say our communication process has improved a lot since then, not only because we understood  the varying components of an individual’s learning metrics, but also because we all learned to respect  them.

Approach

As you have seen, dear reader, this approach was many things, but not unsuccessful. Like many

structures, our castle has the potential to increase vertically in size; that is to say, we can always improve  on previous ideas to continuously adapt and innovate when the situation calls for it. If I had to use a  different method, then perhaps Storytelling would be another viable option. I enjoy hearing anecdotes and  about the varying experiences we all have in this little patch of land we call Earth. There’s always  something new to be learned, we just have to be open to it. This tool would provide a similar platform for  people to share their opinions and ideas so that they can be considered and placed into focus in a shifting  context like the world we inhabit; we want to create holistic approaches. There’s no 100% solution. As  professor Maii said in the beginning: “we’re all expected to get lean- to do more with less.” And so I  reiterate, we can work smarter, not harder. Thank you for reading my work. You will find images of the  tools I used below.

Padlet Image: (It was too large, so I had to take a portion of it for display purposes)

Luis Gonzales  Daniel Nowak

Building Block Castle

Just a brief explanation: Empathy is the door/window into the castle, as it’s a necessary

component that eventually opens the way for the exploration of the other parts of the castle; hence the  reasoning why understanding is the essentially the flag or the emblem that signifies that this is what our  group is all about. The other figures are just as important, as they represent what others would like to see,  their hopes; nevertheless, both empathy and understanding are emphasized due to their key role in  opening the way for the rest.  Finally, the space in the middle is empty; this is done to recognize that there  is always room for improvement and additional ideas. There are no barriers to entry here. This isn’t a  monopoly.

