REFLECTION – VISUALISATION

CHALLENGE

As a Computer Engineering student, I was required to take part in a Software  Engineering course. The Seminar sessions of the subject focused on applying the  Design Thinking process to develop an application that solved an unmet need.  However, the common idea throughout the steps taken from identifying the need to  developing a prototype to be tested was required to be done using visual tools. The  aim was for students to explore the capabilities of design thinking along with  visualisation to solve an unmet need while keeping the people at the centre.

SELECTION

Visualisation is a tool that allows us to reason in a non-verbal way and unlock the  creativity in our brains. However, it is not about drawing, but visual thinking. This  provides a way of structuring our thoughts in a more visual way. Following this idea,  when trying to develop an application to improve the user experience when taking  the public transport.

It was crucial to identify the journey the public transport user was taking in order to go  from point A to point B using the public transport and in which parts would the user  need the aid of an application so that the process was more successfully.

APPLICATION

The first step taken was to identify all the possible personas that take the public  transport and model them using a Persona canvas. After having interviewed several  public transport users to get information related to their personal situation, a Persona  canvas was created in which it was included the personal information, positive trends,  negative trends, opportunities, headaches, hopes and fears. By doing this in a visual  way using post-its and pictures, we were able to identify the underlying feelings of the  users and how they might react to an application.

Once separate Personas were identified, we developed a simple drawing in which  there were outlined the steps a general user would take when going from point A to  point B, using train to get to Barcelona and bus/metro to move around it. From these  clearly defined steps, we needed to identify how each of the personas interacted  with the process and when were they more likely to get information that could be  provided by the application.

INSIGHT

Applying design thinking while incorporating visualisation makes the experience much  more enriching, since, in this particular case, it allowed to visualise what was the  journey a user would take and how different personas interacted with the journey. In  addition, using a pre-defined visual tool, such as the Persona canvas, and adding  Post-its to it, gives a level of flexibility that allows to change and evolve lines of thought.

This visual organisation of incorporating personas into the user journey led to an easy  definition of the specific design criteria that needed to be incorporated and how best  they could help each of the possible users of the application.

In addition, by trying to visualise oneself as a persona following a sketched user journey  allowed me to immerse myself better in the design process and think from the  perspective of that specific user when taking the journey and how I might interact  with the application in that particular context.

APPROACH

The next time I integrate visualisation and design thinking, I aim to follow a more  structured process in which the steps of design thinking are followed and then the  visualisation is applied as a support tool. Because in that project, although the  visualisation was very useful in gaining insight about the users and their journey, it was  the only tool applied through out the design thinking process. Therefore, I believe that  there are other tools that can be used to gain better understanding of the users  without having them to be focused on visualisation. Hence, I intend not to abuse the  usage of visualisation and interleave the tool with other ones that I have learned  during the course.

