Final Assignment of Design Thinking For Innovation

MIND MAPPING

Challenge and Selection

I used Mind Mapping as the key tool for understanding a problem space which includes a large  group of people of different age.  The problem was to improvise the flow of an android application  for a better user experience and understand what all factors influence our users. The application  provided an online platform for extra-curricular activities like yoga, guitar, chess, dance etc. The  target audience was diverse. It could be a mother who is finding a good math tutor for her son, an  adult looking forward to learn guitar, a senior citizen who wants to join a yoga club with his friends  or a tutor who wants to post his dance institute’s information on the application.

I used mind mapping to get to the very root and understand people’s behaviour towards decision  making. I believed that mind mapping tool would help me understand my target audience, flow of  the application, what all features should the application provide and how can I use the existing  data to improvise my app. I identified various relationships between different elements and also  what improvements could be done for future.  After using the tool I was able to look at the bigger  picture.

Application

I started my work by first trying to understand my target audience. I used the bullseye diagram for  that. I pen down my target audience and most importantly, the set of people who were influencing  my users or were taking decisions for them like a mother takes a decision for her son, a school kid  prefers to join a class which his friends attend etc. Then I asked myself “What is the typical process  a person follows when he wants to find a math tuition class?” So to find its answer I interviewed  people (focusing my target audience) and asked them specific set of questions which helped me  to clearly identify the steps taken. It helped me to identify what measures are taken care by that  person to decide, let’s say Akash Math Classes, is best for him. Data through interview was  collected from 30 individuals. Also there was the computer data of the existing app users.

I made a complete flowchart of the general view for the procedure. Then, I started to see patterns  in the data. I noticed that (generalizing what my interviewee’s told) there is a list in the person’s  mind that helps him to decide which class to go to and that list was similar for most of the  interviewers. Like when people look for classes, they focus that it should be within their area, good  qualifications of the teachers, fees under 2000, student teacher ratio etc. Those patterns thus  helped me decide what options I should provide in my application. I deduced that there should be  an option to join a class from the application, proper info on qualifications of the teachers, an  introductory video of the institute, sync with calendar, etc.

An important point was that people who join classes (online or offline) decision making is highly  affected by the people who influence them. Requirement of a student could be to join a nearby  class with his fellow friends but requirements of his parent could be that the institute has be the  best in Delhi even it is far away. So for ‘people influencing users’ I saw a pattern from the  computerized data collected of the existing users. It showed that most of the decisions for a kid  (from age group 4-15) are made by his mother. She was playing a main role there. (This helped me  realize that parents, especially mothers are one of my target audience)

Insight and Approach

When I used mind mapping tool to address this problem, it made me realize that I am not looking  at the big picture. Earlier my mind was focused on improvising the flow of the application but then  I realized that understanding people’s decision making criteria was the bigger picture. I could see  the application’s growth from an extra-curricular based application to an application that helps  people make wiser and better decisions for the extra-curricular activity club they want to join. It  helped me to gain insight of what options should I provide to the user so that he is able to find the  best institute according to his present requirements. Distance, location, popularity, fees,  qualifications of teachers, cab and AC facility, infrastructure of the institute, activities organized  by institute, past performance, etc. were included in the application. To focus on mothers, a new  idea of #BossMom was initiated which gave mothers fancy tags, blog opportunity, allowed them  to make a scrapbook of his child’s achievements and share etc.

I discovered a valuable aspect by using mind mapping tool.

