JD Photography

Just Kidding it’s only Design Thinking

We might not be performing brain surgery but we are creating a whole world seen by all industrialized people. We are the artists of word, sight, sound, feel, and flow. But, what is a design thinking?

My friends, design thinking is the key to unlocking the solutions to problems.

That is simplistic of me. Design thinking is a process that allows us to pick apart issues and find the roots and what nourishes them and brainstorm solutions. That said, there is a on-linear process that can lead us to resolve.

Rikki Friis Dam writes in her article, The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process, published on the Interaction Design Foundation’s website (interaction-design.org), “Design thinking is a methodology which provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful when used to tackle complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown—because it serves to understand the human needs involved, reframe the problem in human-centric ways, create numerous ideas in brainstorming sessions and adopt a hands-on approach to prototyping and testing.”

The five stages of design thinking are:
– Empathize: Find out your users’ needs
– Define: State the needs and problems
– Ideate: Challenge assumptions and create ideas
– Prototype: Start creating solutions
– Test: try your solutions out

The best way to really explain is by giving you an example.

I sat down recently to interview a graduate student about going back to school. We talked about the enrollment process, the classes he’s taken, and the difference between undergrad and grad. I really spent time to get to know him, personally.

In our conversation he told me he has a large family with several siblings and how he grew up always having a team. He always had to think about his family as a team and how he could help the team out. I really felt that because most of my adulthood has been in the military and that is all about team and teamwork.

I asked him how he like the online part of his studies and for the most part he loves it, he gets hands-on learning with professional software and he’s creating a professional portfolio in the process. His down side to online learning is a lack of team.

While an undergrad he had a few on-line classes but he had mostly in-person classes where he was able to form those connections with other classmates. In his graduate studies he’s feels like he’s missing that connection with his fellow student and with faculty.

This is where I decided to focus. This is a guy with a large family, needs connection, and is a couple states away from where his grad school is located. He want to feel included. He wants connection. I can’t blame him either because I want to form friendships and build networks that will last a lifetime, because we are all professionals in an extroverted field. We need to connect.

I did some research on what kinds of things are currently available to help connect people in an online forum. Several of the most popular meeting host sites offer some sort of interactive tools or apps to enhance meetings. There are breakout room options, polls, Kahoot!

I think I’m over thinking by trying to develop technology for technology.

My solution is to be more intentional with communication. I propose peer to peer session. This can be done on the phone, virtual, or another medium. Reach out talk class, the program, or go over projects. Build those lasting relationships. The next week they change partners and build a new partnership for the week. Connections are made and friendship can be made because in his program he will more than likely have multiple classes with the same people.

The feedback from his first week is positive. He enjoyed working with his partner for the week and the added benefit was having another creative mind to bounce ideas off of. This helped him gain great insight to what he wants to create moving forward.

It’s easy in today’s world of AI, on-line, and virtual world we live in to take for granted human interaction and connection. As a creative mind sometimes all I need to a great conversation to open a new world of ideas to take action on.