Human-Centered Design
Reading Reflection: The guide on Equity-Centered Community Design was eye-opening on many levels as it shows the various thought processes that go into designing products. This reading really helped put into perspective what Professor Hu and Professor Durlak were working with during their visit to Nepal and how they contributed to equitable design through their method of inclusive and yet broad-minded working. It is not as easy to just identify the problem, we must identify who the problem is affecting and who the solution will benefit. The most interesting statement I read was that a designer is not only someone who is in the profession but anyone who has the power to make decisions. As someone with the ability to influence the community through design-based problem solving, it is imperative that we focus on mindset shifting rather than process adoption. The crux of equity-centered design is diversity and inclusion. It is necessary to create a team with diverse co-creators and build trust through balanced representation.
Critical Thinking: The video shown to us in last class depicting how a team brainstormed ideas to create a new ‘store trolley’ and came up with diverse design solutions was the highlight of the class. The design addressed the various problems with the existing design such as child hazards and aimed to create a new and efficient model. This process took them only 5 days. I associated this with the Google Ventures Design Sprint which is the 5-day process of answering business questions through design solutions. The team went through a similar process:
Day 1 — They sat in various groups and brainstormed problem-solving techniques, they also spoke to the workers of the grocery markets and took their opinions
Day 2 — They wrote down their ideas on paper and stuck it to a thinking board which included sketches and drawings
Day 3 — They turned their ideas into hypotheses that could be tested
Day 4 — Different teams created their individual prototypes of the trolley
Day 5 — They tested out the prototypes in an actual market environment.
This process revealed the core of human-centered design.
Personal Reflection: The exercise conducted in class where we were made to decide how we would cater our product (Apple+Mental Health) to our audience and how we will gather the data that will help us do so. Since mental health is a sensitive topic, there are many things we as designers must be mindful of while asking questions or taking surveys.
Who will we interview?
We will look to interview working professionals and students between the ages of 18 to 35 as we want to get a deeper understanding into the impact that loneliness has on other mental health conditions and how our product can help alleviate this to some extent. We also aim to interview mental health experts who can give us a greater understanding of the human element of our product.
I interviewed my friend who’s name I have kept anonymous and used the 5 Why’s method to ask her questions that would be relevant to introduce the human-centered element in our product. First, I began with some conversation starters such as asking her how she was feeling that morning and how her day was going so far. I then asked her about how she has been feeling living away from her family the past year. Using the 5 Whys, this led to a broader conversation.
Q. What do you like to do when you are feeling low?
A. I like to go home and unwind by watching a good romantic-comedy and ordering in some pizza on days that I am feeling lost or low.
Q. Why?
A. I believe that my favourite food helps uplift my mood.
Q. Why do you think you feel lost or low on some days?
A. I think it has a lot to do with living away from home and family.
Q. Why?
A. I miss home sometimes.
Q. How close are you to friends and family?
A. Quite close.
Q. Do you speak to them often?
A. Not as often as I would like.
Q. Why?
A. Sometimes the schedules don’t match.
Q. Would you speak to your family about how you are feeling?
A. Probably not into much detail.
Q. Why?
A. There is little they can do to help.
Q. Would you be comfortable speaking to stranger about how you feel?
A. To some extent, yes.
Key Takeaways:
· Understanding body language
I realise that it is important to notice hand gestures and how one behaves while talking about such personal things. I noticed that my friend’s hands were in a closed position in the beginning and slowly she eased into the conversation.
· Differentiate between the extremes and mainstreams
It is important to ensure to make sure you draw a difference between your interviewee in the sense if they belong to a more mainstream category of your target audience or if they are in the category that requires special attention. For these extremes, the pattern of questions should be framed differently. In our case, extremes would be classified as those individuals that have been diagnosed with a mental health condition and or if they are on medication to treat the same.
Again, the most critical thing to remember is that we are still in the ideation phase and the problem is more important than the solution. With more extensive research and analysis, the core problem can be further defined and we can identify areas of modification in the possible solutions.