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Meeting 2: Gift-giving

Joel Trudeau
Joel Trudeau
Meeting 2: Gift-giving

Meeting 2 concerned processes integral to design thinking and in particular to human-centered design (HCD). The main class activity was to redesign the gift-giving experience for someone. This was done with the goal of providing an overview of methodologies you will use to develop solutions to your breakthrough ideas through projects in this course.

Through this activity we are exploring the stages of the HCD process.

  • Empathize. Understand the needs, motivations, and perspectives of the people you are designing for through research and observation. We practiced gaining empathy by going through an interview process.

  • Define. Synthesize the insights from the empathy phase to clearly define the problem you are trying to solve. You reframed the general problem of gift-giving with a statement related to your partners needs and that is personal to them.

  • Ideate. Generate a wide range of ideas for potential solutions through brainstorming and other ideation techniques. Idea generation using a visual approach was the focus. The goal was to generate 5 radical ideas to obtain feedback from your partner in order to test possible solutions and gain new insights.

  • Prototype. Create tangible, low-fidelity representations of your ideas to test and iterate upon. This is done in two ways: through your sketches and the follow up homework (see below).

  • Test. Gather feedback to inform and validate your design decisions. Feedback can be gathered at different times. The activity concludes with a presentation of your final prototype solution to your partner. We will reflect on how it addresses the problem you defined.

These stages form a cyclical process and can be nonlinear. The goal of HCD is to create solutions that are not only functional, but also meet the needs and desires of those they are intended for.

What is human-centered design?

More resources and background information about design thinking provided on the Omnivox platform.

Homework: Create a physical prototype of your solution.

As a follow-up to the in class activity, you are creating an experience that your partner can react to. Your solution could be a service, a system or method, an event, or something else that addresses the gift-giving needs of your partner and is personal to them.

The goal is to make something that allows your partner to experience the innovative nature of your solution. You can also repurpose objects to signify your solution. Use any materials or medium you find relevant. Be inventive.

Instructions for submission are provided through Omnivox. Bring your prototype solution to the next class for presentation and feedback.