Ajay Preet

Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection    The design thinking tool that I choose as a final reflection is mind mapping. Design  thinking is applied for a group final project in one of the courses that I teach in higher  education. Undergrad students with a mayor in Tourism studies that are close to  completing their credits for graduation take an Information Systems course with the  purpose of achieving better practices on administration. The final project that they work  on is a work-in-progress website that they feel is needed in their field of study. Before  they even start with the website design, they narrow the project idea to an area of  interest within tourism in one of the following fields: gastronomy, health, museums and  exhibitions, and event logistics. After that, they think of a problem that may be solved  by a website or app and begin working on an idea that ends in a user ready prototype.  During this whole process they receive feedback until they are ready to present their  final product and hand in their documentation. The idea to use design thinking with the  mind mapping tool, is for the students to better understand the needs of their future  customers as a human-centered solution, by generating an idea that will be transformed  into a real world creative and useful solution with a user-friendly interface design.    Mind mapping as a tool for this project starts as a mind map, once the area of interest  is chosen, and in a process with the proper design criteria. Design criteria brings a  meaning to all the data by transforming it into information, with the required conditions  met to satisfy the customer’s problem. As said before, the areas to explore are  gastronomy tourism, health tourism, museum and exhibitions tourism, and finally  tourism for event logistics. Once the group chooses an area, they follow the design  thinking steps in the process of: what is, what if, what wows, and what works. By using  this tool, groups prevent countless attempts that end up in no-good solutions, while  creating a visual and engaging design challenge proposal. All of the concepts  encountered by using the mind mapping tool, start connecting within each other in a  visual way, by representing the minds of customers, in order to deliver an intuitive and  creative website or app.    Application    Mind mapping and gathering data starts after choosing the specific tourism area  proposed for the project, as mentioned in the Challenge & Selection section. Afterwards,  the group starts writing ideas in sticky notes that they think customers have trouble  with, while thinking in chosen the tourism field. This step defines the “what is” in design  thinking. The group consists of 3 to 4 students, so each of them is required to start  conversations with potential customers and write the brainstorming ideas in the same  sticky notes. Afterwards, the group reads them all and makes clusters of related data  that may channel the project orientation in the designated area. Sticky notes should  contain short descriptions of ideas of problems that customers have, same as  interactions that may improve in the area of tourism to explore in a website or app.

The process of identifying the clusters starts defining the representation for the design  criteria. The next step is for the group of students to sort out the sticky notes into the  cluster in which it belongs; all of them are included. Later on, each cluster delivers insight  for the “what if” part of the design thinking mapping process and traces the design  solution to satisfy the customer’s problem. The process of mapping or relating the ideas  starts, defining the mind map and keeping in mind the customer’s needs. In this step,  data is being transformed into information that has a meaning. By this design thinking  step, the group has resolved the idea about what to develop (either website or app), the  product name, a brief description of the system, as well as the product justification and  objective. Other aspects of the preliminary project evolve as well, such as target market,  list of customer needs, system functions to integrate, and a brief and simple project  management plan.    Once the project idea is defined, the user interface design starts based on the ideas from  the “what if” step. Next, students start to develop a prototype of the website or app  pretending to deliver the “what wows”. Through iteration steps, constant feedback from  the instructor and from several potential customers that participated in the idea  brainstorming, the product is transformed to a final version of the “what works” step in  design thinking.    Other few project requisites apart from the website or app prototype, regarding system  documentation are delivered as well, including the product financing proposal, a  reflection of the project process and how it relates to the concepts learned in the course,  and a final reflection in terms of product feasibility, system maintenance, etc. The mind  mapping tool is of great use to find the right problem to solve with all of the implications,  by thinking about the user, and by creating a functional prototype that works in a  creative and fun way.      Insight & Approach    Students often have trouble finding the right problem to solve that represents a creative  solution for tourism customers. They often lack originality or depth in the functionality  of the system, being an app or website. By using the design thinking mind mapping tool,  students get engaged into innovative solutions and get to understand the problem much  better. The focus in using the mind mapping tool since the beginning is human centered  based on the user’s needs. This involves analyzing the project and getting a much better  understanding of the latter, in order to deliver a prototype that is being tested  throughout the rest of the design thinking process. Students get to stand in the customer  shoes while finding or identifying a new problem, or one problem that already has a  solution but gets to be fixed into an even better solution. By practicing design thinking  through mind mapping, students get to practice important values such as empathy while  defining and idealizing the solution. The following steps in the process involve constant  prototyping and testing, that end up in a real world challenge that delivers a successful  product.

Finally, for user design projects proposed by students based on potential customer  needs, I strongly agree in using the mind mapping design thinking tool. Mind mapping  in this type of project ensures that a creative solution will be delivered, that the project  will be engaging for the students, and that the solution will help the final users and  customer needs because in the end the idea has been born in a human centered way.

