Design Thinking for Innovation: Final Assignment

CHALLENGE

Last month, a friend of mine  a software developer at a local tech startup  asked if I would be  interested in designing the UI for a mobile app that he and a colleague had begun developing in their  free time. Before committing to anything, and interested to learn more, I asked If we could all get on a  call. I wanted to know what inspired the project, who its stakeholders were, and why they would care  about our solution. They agreed, and we set up a time the following day.

The next day, as we walked through these questions, I noticed that something  or rather someone   was missing.  Yes, there were prototypes and a growing list of features, but where was the user? What  did they think? How would this fit in their day?

Listening, I felt that decisions were being made without an adequate understanding of what is. In other  words, an app was being developed without a story to support it. Surely there were things we didn’t  know that were worth knowing?

After raising this perspective to the group, I was  understandably, met with some resistance.  What I  suggested wasn’t part of the plan; it wasn’t within scope. And with that, I had my challenge.

In order to create alignment, I needed to demonstrate that our understanding was insufficient. Our  product’s story lacked depth; and without it, it’s value would be significantly reduced. Moreover, I  needed to demonstrate that this knowledge gap was worth exploring.

SELECTION

To address my challenge, I used the storytelling technique. Storytelling encourages designers to create a  narrative centering on the user’s lived experience. Beginning with the current state, a journey is  envisioned and articulated; revealing the actors, emotions and motivations which propel the user and  connects them to an offering.

I selected storytelling because I felt that in our discussions and decisions, the contexts, goals and  constraints of the people who stood to benefit from our solution had taken a back seat to speculation.

Through storytelling, we would have to come to terms with the bigger picture. We would have to  articulate a logical series of events that would connect our audience to our proposed solution (see Week  2: Storytelling Tool). If we were unable to do this, the necessity of further research would become  apparent.

APPLICATION

In applying the tool, I first reviewed the notes from our discussion and highlighted anything that spoke  to our understanding of the user or how the proposed solution created value for them. Then, I

converted this information into a set of statements. These in turn represented the current state of our  knowledge.

Second, using a modified version of a story template 1 as a guide, my colleagues and I attempted to map  each statement to one of the questions. If a statement was a sensible fit, we filled the blank. Otherwise,  it was left empty.

Once complete, we walked through a series of questions I had prepared to encourage reflection on the  quality of our story. I asked, as the story evolves, do its outcomes follow from its events? Are its  characters and their world realistic? Are there compelling reasons to act?

With the answers from these questions we considered the implications for our approach to the project,  making note of what could be changed, and preparing a list of research questions to be answered before  future design decisions were made.

INSIGHT AND APPROACH

The insight I gained from applying this technique is that alignment is best established when individuals  are allowed to arrive at a conclusion organically, rather than through someone else’s point of view.  Further, that it is the outcome of collaboration, and not debate.

Initially, I believe we each saw the project through a different lens. We each had our own criteria for  what success looked like and the steps required to achieve it. Through utilizing the storytelling  technique, however, we saw through the same frame. In this case, the product became part of the story  and not the story.

In a broader sense, I believe this reflects one of design thinking’s core value propositions: building  understanding. Here, it’s primary role was to help create it between members of a project team, but I  believe that it was also a step in the right direction for helping us better understand our users.

Looking forward, if I was to run this exercise again I would have each participant complete the story  individually using the same set of statements. Then, they would communicate their stories to the team  in order to create an agreed upon story.

I would take this approach because I believe the current approach is susceptible to groupthink. In  mapping the statements as a group, initial suggestions unduly influence the pairings. If each participant  was allowed to build out the story individually, it could create alternate narratives. In trying to reconcile  those alternates for the agreed story, I believe that at the least, participants would be forced to further  empathize with the user, and at best, new insights would be revealed.

1 See https://www.cuevas.info/blogsearch.html for template.

