Reflection – Visualization

This course on Design Thinking has equipped me with very useful knowledge of various techniques I can  apply at my workplace. One of these techniques is the Visualization tool, which I had the opportunity to  test just a week ago for one of the projects I am working on. My supervisor and I were given the task to  lead a website redevelopment project – making the town’s website more appealing and modern-looking.  This in itself is a very interesting, yet at the same time a very challenging endeavour. The challenge comes  from having to create a product to cater to the tastes of multiple and very diverse audiences, while at the  same time keeping it withing budget and scope. We had to make sure it was easy to navigate, that it  contained the necessary information that both external and internal users (local residents and visitors,  investors, entrepreneurs), and was overall a vital promotional tool for the town.

The challenge came mainly from the lack of agreement as to what the new look should be – we had  accumulated quite a feedback, yet it was more of a criticism of the current look of the website rather than  constructive suggestions on what the new vision should be. Since we were aiming to please a diverse  demographic group (baby boomers, millennials, etc.) with different views on what information should be  included and how it should be presented, we had to come out with an out-of-the-box solution. It was then  that I thought the visualization tool can help us produce the results we were looking for. After all, it aims  at helping people arrive at a common understanding of an issue by eliminating the constraints of using  just words.

It was of utmost importance for us to establish a common agreement on what the new website should  serve and what we wanted it to incorporate – in other words to create its skeleton and then slowly try to  dress it up in accordance with people’s comments. In order to do that we decided to form focus groups.  Each focus group included representatives from different age groups and different professions. Also, each  focus group was given a board where they could visualize the structure, they believed the new website  should take. The groups were given one week to meet, discuss and come up with ideas and at the end of  that week, they were to deliver their boards to us. We would then gather all the boards, analyze them  and invite all the groups to discuss the findings.

I believe this was one of the best decisions we made as to selecting how to approach the situation. We  were not only actively engaging our stakeholders (thus assuring them that their input is valuable and  appreciated), but by forcing them to actually put the ideas they have in their minds onto paper we had a  clearer understanding on what they found problematic with the website, what was important for them to  see and how they imagined it to look like. It also helped them (and ultimately us of course) to see other  people’s perspective and create a shared vision, respecting each others’ positions. Since the website  redevelopment project was a major undertaking for the town, consuming a large portion of its budget,  we wanted to guarantee that it will be a product people would be supportive of in the long-run and thus  getting them on board in the initial stage was very important.

As for me, this exercise really showed me the power of the visualization tool in create common  understanding and avoiding misperceptions. Having an idea or a vision in your mind is awesome and you  might think you are explaining it well, but when you work in a group, it is important to make sure that  everyone is on the same page and if that means using images, charts, drawings or other means of  conveying your vision or ideas, by all means do so. I will certainly utilize the visualization tool in further  projects as well.

