Empathy

• “In order to design for your users, you must build empathy for who they are and what is important to them.”

• “The best solutions come out of the best insights into human behavior. But learning to recognize those insights is harder than you might think. Why?”

• “Because our minds automatically filter out a lot of information in ways we aren’t even aware of. We need to learn to see things “with a fresh set of eyes”– tools for empathy, along with a human-centered mindset, is what gives us those new eyes.”

• “The stories that people tell and the things that people say they do—even if they are different from what they actually do—are strong indicators of their deeply held beliefs about the way the world is. Good designs are built on a solid understanding of these kinds of beliefs and values.”

 

Define

• “Define…to come up with an actionable problem statement: your point of view (POV). Your point of view should be a guiding statement that focuses on specific users…”

• “Your point of view is your unique design vision…”

• “…it explicitly expresses the problem you are striving to address through your efforts. In order to be truly generative, you must first craft a specific and compelling problem statement to use as a solution-generation springboard.”

• “A good POV is one that:

– Provides focus and frames the problem

– Inspires your team

– Provides a reference for evaluating competing ideas

– Empowers your team to make decisions independently in parallel

– Guides your innovation efforts”

 

Ideate

• “The goal of ideation is to explore a wide solution space – both a large quantity of ideas and a diversity among those ideas.”

• “…From this vast depository of ideas you can build prototypes to test with users.”

• “You ideate in order to transition from identifying problems into exploring solutions for your users.”

• “Create fluency (volume) and flexibility (variety) in your innovation options”

• “Get obvious solutions out of your heads, and drive your team beyond them”

• “Regardless of what ideation method you use, the fundamental principle of ideation is to be cognizant of when you and your team are generating ideas and when you are evaluating ideas – and mix the two only intentionally.”

 

Prototype

• “Prototyping is getting ideas and explorations out of your head and into the physical world.”

• “A prototype can be anything that takes a physical form…”

• “In early explorations keep your prototypes rough and rapid to allow yourself to learn quickly and investigate a lot of different possibilities.”

• “Prototypes are most successful when people (the design team, the user, and others) can experience and interact with them.”

• “But prototyping is used for many reasons, including these…

– Empathy gaining

– Exploration

– Testing

– Inspiration

– Learn

– Solve disagreements

– Start a conversation

– Fail quickly and cheaply”

 

Test

• “Testing is the chance to refine our solutions and make them better.”

• “Prototype as if you know you’re right, but test as if you know you’re wrong.”

• “Test to…

– To refine our prototypes and solutions.

– To learn more about our user.

– To test and refine our POV.”

 

 

*http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/the-bootcamp-bootleg/