Reflection – Visualization

Challenge

The challenge at hand is that customers are not happy with the travel bags manufactured by  our company. As a result, the customers are moving to other brands to buy travel bags. This led  to a reduction in company’s revenue.

1. Problems can be of two types – Puzzles and Mystery. This problem is of mystery type

because the data such as what is problem in the current manufacturing bag type, what  is customer’s requirement, what is better in the bags of other brands etc alone are not  sufficient to solve the problem at hand. The challenge is that to solve the problem at  hand we might require a new thinking altogether.

2. The problem statement is not clearly defined. Are customers not happy with our bags or

they want to try new bags from other brands; are there any new customers to our  brand; is the problem with bag or marketing or service.

Selection

Visualization is a tool that allows making an abstract idea into a tangible, concrete one. The  reason for choosing this tool is that I could make sure that all the participants of Design  Thinking are on the same page. If I chose words to define the problem or ideas, it would be  perceived differently by different participants. Some forms of Visualization or Visual Thinking  are drawing a picture, telling a story, making a map etc. Another reason to choose this tool to  solve the problem is that I could delve deeper into the problem and channelize my creativity to  solve the problem.

Application

I started by digging deeper to understand the problem. For this I used the tool journey mapping  to track the journey of consumers from the time of product purchase to delivery of product to  usage to product service to product disposal. This helped us break down the problem  statement into smaller units by focusing one area at a time. Then I made a list of all the stake  holders of the product – investors, customers, service providers, advertisement people etc. I  invited all these stakeholders for a meeting and divided into groups ensuring each group had  members from different teams. This ensured diversity in thinking. We discussed the problem at  length, the problems of the organization on a high level like revenue, customer base loss etc.  Then we discussed the functional and emotional difficulties of each group.

We then visualized the possible solutions to each problem. We took the real life stories of  tourists for discussions. Then drew bags with the problem statement in mind.

Insight

Few insights we received are –

1. Tourists were looking for bags that didn’t weigh heavy.  2. Tourists were mostly tired by travelling.  3. Consumers wanted bags with huge storage and isolated places for all items.  4. Unique bag design for easy check out and check in.  5. Uniqueness in brand products.  6. Fashion trend in bags.

Approach

In this stage, we started addressing each problem faced by consumers with visualization tool.

1. Designed a bag with a lighter material.  2. Designed bags with bags that needn’t be lifted by travelers.  3. Bags with separate compartments for laptops, flask, pens, tablets etc.  4. Unique designs and customized bags made available.  5. Top stars in bag advertisements.  6. Unique colors and shapes of bags introduced.

