DESIGN THINKING REFLECTION - VISUALIZATION

DESIGN THINKING FOR INNOVATION

• Challenge:

I live in a gated community in one of the most developed cities of India. The challenge which  I’ve faced and also observed among my neighbors, peers is lack of smart home locking  system. Being a college student, I return from the college very tired after the hectic journey in  public transport and sometimes my parents go out for shopping, to a neighbor’s home, other  reasons. As we are having traditional locks, I must wait until my parents return. Despite my  hurdles I have also observed same challenge in case of my peers. Then I have thought of an idea  to introduce “Smart and Efficient Bio-Metric Home Locking System”. Through which I can  solve the challenge. But I’ve to convince my community president and residents to make this  happen. Obviously, they will question me, and I must be giving answers, solving their queries to  get this done.

• Selection:

The tool I have selected is “Visualization”. The reason for selection is for this challenge I have  to visualize so I can know how I am going to make it happen and through visualization only I  can make people get an idea about this. As in my case, the solution is making/developing a  product which inter-related to Visualization.

Also. In Module-I it was clearly stated that “it's really important to be able to understand  the way that you communicate to people. The primary tools for, for thinking visually are  really just mastering some basic elements of imagining people, spaces, situations and actions or  movements. It's very easy to create a simple diagram, and most anyone can draw a stick figure,  an arrow, a circle, a square. Those are the basic building blocks of creating a  visualization. Visualization has a role to play throughout the design process or the  development process.”

[References: Module-I videos.]

• Application:

First, I focused more on product development. Here, I used “Visualization” and understood how  to develop it. Then by using advanced CAD,CAE software like Fusion360 and ANSYS, I made a  virtual prototype. I have presented this virtual prototype in front of whole community in a  gathering and got neutral feedback. Most people reacted satisfactory for the prototype. I was  also getting additional ideas to advance this prototype model and the insights I’ve gained are  mentioned below.

DESIGN THINKING REFLECTION - VISUALIZATION

DESIGN THINKING FOR INNOVATION

• Insights:

The “Visualization” tool was perfect for development of my understanding but most of the  people were not actually getting the need of implementing this. There were also few people  who gave suggestions such as developing an Application which remotely grants access to get  inside home, integrating surveillance system with lock, intruder alarm technology and more.  Then I began to  think how I can make this better as well as convince the public. Finally, I  understood visualization isn’t enough.

• Approach:

Anyhow I was getting another chance to present my thought, this time I used “MIND MAPPING”  techniques in addition to “VISUALIZATION” and developed actual product which is “Arduino  based smart home lock with integrated surveillance”. For connecting and convincing people, I  have used “STORY TELLING”. Response was tremendously overwhelming, now we have formed  a team and working actually on how to make it more efficient, user friendly. Happy to share  that the App Development is in setting up stage and we are planning to expand our product  market.

[ Note: I’m not that much proficient in English as I’m not a native speaker. Kindly ignore if I’ve  made few(any) grammatical error(s). I hope that I was able to convey how this course helped  me. Thanks! ]

