Month: July 2020 Page 3 of 4

By: Justin Koga

I think that our “understanding” phase was the hardest part of our project, and I’m still not quite sure that we’ve left this phase. The design thinking process is lengthy. Sometimes as a team, we’d come to solutions before gaining a 360 degree view of our stakeholders. What we collectively learned was that while the design thinking process takes time and loads of effort, it will help us to fully synthesize a problem and come up with solutions that can be iterated over time. By interviewing stakeholders and committing to in-depth research, we ultimately position ourselves for a more robust “solution”. 

We interviewed ~10 professors in 2 days. This was tough! But what this gave us was a perspective that we hadn’t really experienced before. Professors are going through the same amount (if not more) uncertainty than students are experiencing. In this case, empathizing with the professor experience, which is a large portion of our online learning stakeholder portfolio, is necessary in order to develop a comprehensive project. 

I think that my greatest impact is my “why not” attitude. If something isn’t working out, there’s always a different approach to achieving a similar goal.

By; Kaelyn Griffiths

I have developed such a love/hate relationship with the phase of understanding through this process. I think there is something so beautifully uncomfortable about waiting to design a solution until we can design WITH the stakeholders. My main grievance with this phase is the sense of urgency without direction; as we’re gaining all this information and figuring out how to analyze it, it’s hard not to try to jump to solutions or take one experience as a general experience. From talking to a few of our participants, it has been especially difficult to balance a comfortable, personable space for them, while also not asking questions that are too sensitive or questions that would reveal any bias I may have. With this, it has allowed me to listen a lot more closely to their experiences and truly empathize with students across all extremes. This honestly felt a little upsetting because there were just so many students who haven’t felt as supported as they should in pursuing their passions at Duke, and although I had some similarities with these students, it was disheartening to hear multiple other students have these experiences. 

Working on a project where the team demographic is a part of one of our larger stakeholder groups has been an obstacle. During this phase, we have really worked on holding each other accountable for decentering our own perspective and assumptions from how we frame our interview questions to ensure that our participants never feel judged or projected on. Through this, we were able to find a few “pain points” as we called them, or problem spaces, when we converged some of our key findings. Talking about these problem spaces was quite rewarding because throughout this entire phase, that was one of the first times I felt like this process was making sense and soon we’d be able to converge our other key findings and start designing solutions. 

I think some of the most memorable parts have been the points where we were given feedback and made quick efforts to change what was necessary so we could move forward. When making our stakeholder map, we were quite extensive, and the amount of people we wanted to talk to was an ambitious number. After receiving feedback, we started to discuss our most important stakeholders and personally, it gave me more focus and direction with what the project still needed and what our next steps were as a team. It has been a pleasure working with a team that is always ready and willing to adapt and it has made me much more open minded and flexible.

By: Marcus Ortiz

Perspectives are fascinating. No matter how definite something may seem, there is always a different angle to see it from (Except Star Wars, it is an unambiguous masterpiece). Over the past week we have asked more questions to interviewees than I can count, but every response has been unique – coming with its own concerns, hopes, and ambitions. Maybe this is what makes human-centered design so difficult but yet incredibly impactful: humans are inherently different. This insight has taught me the importance of the understanding phase in design – I can not decide what is best for others.

Just as Freire claimed the liberator must work with the oppressed, a designer must work with the user, not for them. If the designer does not take their time to work alongside the user, they are assuming their experiences outweigh the people’s they are attempting to help. The problem you are solving is likely not your own, and even if it is, you are likely not the only one impacted by it. If a designer does not take the time to learn and understand the problems of others, he may make matters worse by dehumanizing the user.

Because of perspective, the significance of team communication was definitely highlighted for me. It is so vital for the team to have proper discussions on what they took from interviews rather than just taking notes. These discussions bring out different ideas and perspectives that allow our team to consider different mindsets!

The most difficult part of the past week has easily been narrowing the problem space. With so many perspectives coming at us faster than my internet connection, it seemed that there was no “right” path to choose. Without focusing on solutions, it can seem nearly impossible to trim down the problem space. However, with the help of the team leaders, our team has been able to steer towards a specific topic that we are very excited to work on for the coming weeks!

By: Zsofia Walter

The understand process pushed me to accept being in a limbo state. Typically I have an urge to find direction, but with the Understand phase I had to learn to remain in exploration. Ensuring that I was delving deeply into the problem space and appreciating each perspective I encountered, while resisting the urge to impose my own viewpoint or focus on one direction. My team was incredibly helpful in this aspect, we would discuss and remind one another to step back when we felt we were narrowing our scope.

Once we had conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with students and faculty, we were able to begin the process of narrowing our scope, identifying specific areas to focus on. This process was incredibly gratifying as we were able to download our insights and then collectively analyze the data. I truly feel as though we got a complete understanding of the stakeholders in the online learning space. The themes we found are real problems, ones I believe are solvable, and I’m looking forward to tackling them.

I am incredibly proud of my team in balancing thinking about the next step, but not rushing to it. Everyone has really focused on understanding our stakeholders, and yet I feel we have all tentatively began reflecting upon insights, and considering next steps. I am also incredibly grateful that other teams have prioritized Open Sourcing, reminding us that we all benefit from sharing information and sources. Collaborating has led me to contemplate other angles than I might have.

By: Caroline Surret

To ask someone if they’ve found their purpose is a loaded question, but one that has led me into some of the most beautiful conversations I’ve had in a long time. There is something deeply moving about hearing someone tell the story of how they found what it is that they’re meant to do in this world. Sharing in the joy of someone finding and pursuing their passion has been an unexpected benefit of the Understand phase of the open design process. 

By its nature, the open design research process is deeply human, and in a time when face-to-face connection is limited, I welcome this form of empathetic connection with open arms. I catch myself inserting my own experiences into the research and am being active in trying to separate my experience from those represented in interviews with other students. I think that this will likely become easier as my interviews are shifting towards conversations with faculty and student support systems. Likely this shift in interviewees will aid in another challenge that my team is facing–deciding who our “persona” is. It will be necessary to make a decision about who we’re working to help sooner rather than later, and with so many perspectives shared in the Understand phase, I imagine that this will be a difficult decision.

Nonetheless, I am hopeful that we will design an impactful solution and I have faith that my team will make an informed decision about our “persona” in the coming days. Ultimately, the open design research process has reiterated to me the value of listening before acting, and I am eager to keep listening as we complete the Understand phase of this process. 

By: Arya Patel

The understanding phase of the Open Design project has been very interesting because it allowed me to shift from a “that will be too hard to solve” thought process to a “this is an important issue” focus. While keeping this constantly in mind was difficult, it has been a really meaningful and productive experience. 

Another aspect of this week that has stood out to me is how considering multiple stakeholders can really transform and deepen the problem space we are working in. When interviewing professors, my team and I were really able to get a more nuanced point of view on the challenges and dilemmas they face. While we were previously stuck in a student mindset, now we are able to humanize professors beyond an extension of the administration and deliverers of curriculum to real people who are also trying to adjust to online learning challenges. We gained a sort of user-empathy that will definitely positively impact our creation design process. 

One challenge we faced was hearing pessimism in our users about online learning. Coming from a place of excitement, innovation and readiness for change. However, as we talked through this as a team we realized we should take this pessimism as an opportunity to ask “why?”  to get to deeper roots of concerns. This helped us pivot interviews into more productive and engaging conversations that could truly help us define a specific but important problem and give us key insights.