Let’s celebrate my mistakes during my design thinking project!
This current article intends to warn you of the possible mistakes that might occur during your next design thinking project as a newbie. As every story has a beginning, let me tell you how it all has started.
The aftermath of the pandemic had a tremendous impact on our present-day situation. This impact hasn’t exempt any area of life from affecting it. Hence, the sole alternative in this midst of the covid 19 is to go digital.
In particular, the educational institutes were among the affected areas and they were obligated to complete their courses remotely. Additionally, the number of people enrolling in online courses has surprisingly increased.
Despite these circumstances, the idea of this DT project has emerged at COMMIT. I’d like to mention that COMMITT, where I had the opportunity to get trained in design thinking, is a consulting enterprise in communication, strategy, and design thinking based in Tunisia. Among its various services, they design and offer a set of training for a wide and diverse people in 3 different languages (Arabic, French, and English).
The crux of the project is: How we design an online course about design thinking that engage people and keep them committed to fully finish it?
Based on my personal experience, I’m going to impart my main 4 mistakes respectively as follows:
Mistake number 1: Lack of knowledge of the chosen topic.
Online resources refer to a set of different types of documents that contain useful information, linked to your desired goal.
frankly assume that the first mistake that I’ve made is that I had no solid knowledge of the subject ( e-learning in my case ) and its keywords. Thereby, since the beginning, I haven’t had enough gasoline to finish my trip.
The preparedness of prior knowledge for each element is mandatory. In addition, you should identify in the first place what you know and what you don’t know, and then You have to spot the significant gaps that will be filled up through the next stage namely the interview. Therefore, you are able readily to build upon it.
Mistake number 2: Don’t ‘’ checklist ‘’ during the interviews.
The interview represents one of the main milestones in the design thinking process.
The error actually occurred when I conducted the interviews. I was simply hearing and check my list simultaneously. Hence, conducting interviews without any solid knowledge hinders the sought after result. Consequently, the interview with the end-user becomes pointless. Another way stated, I’ve made a muck of it and therefore a second round was suggested.
Before heading to the interview, you have simply to be prepared in advance, it turns the experience into an amusing piece of cake and you will fully enjoy it.
Subsequently, based on the gathered information from online resources and the identified gaps in the first mistake, you have to fill these gaps and match the information with the verbatim of the interviewee to connect the ideas and have a clear vision.
Other tips to share with you are:
-Try to manage a semi-structured interview.
-Ensure to gather all the needed data.
-Be vigilant of the new information that might occur.
Note: you can’t start the interview without your online resources ready unless you want to adopt the back and forth process between the two (searching the necessary online resources and conducting interviews).
Mistake 3: Empathy Journey Maps and Personas in one basket.
Firstly, it is mandatory to clearly stress the importance of both of these tools.
Personas are the mirror of the customer that we are designing for. It points out the roles, goals, needs, etc…While the empathy journey map assembles the actions towards behavior or a decision to be taken eventually.
I have put all the personas in one sole EJM which is totally erroneous.
Each persona has its unique journey, therefore it is highly recommended to keep away from assembling all the personas in one empathy journey map, owing to the particularity of every persona (every persona has its own behaviors, goals, attitudes, etc.)
Examples of two personas:
Here is an extract of empathy journeys where I divided the personas into two main categories:
1. People who are driven by work reasons.
2. People who are driven by curiosity.
Note: if the personas go through the same journey, in this case, it is possible to bring them all together in one empathy journey.
Mistake 4: being trapped by my own assumptions.
My sole mistake at this stage was that I didn’t get rid completely of my previous beliefs during my design thinking project. Knowing that my background is academic, to search for a good reference for the online platform, I gave myself permission to search only on academic scholars sites. It was quite challenging for novice learners in design thinking like me. Literally, it was a war between a new mindset implementation and cognitive bias waiting around the corner for me. Clearly, I was barking up the wrong tree.
When you’re planning to look for information, you should check all the different perspectives and mainly you should identify who are the biggest savvies in the required field. I advise as well to look for the required subject from different contexts because you may be missing out on some important details that are interesting. Next, it is suggested to ensure that this information is valid and correct.
Conclusion:
In nutshell, design thinking is a gate into a new world where it is possible for newbies to make mistakes like it is mentioned above. Alongside that, it is recommended to take them into consideration and to keep in mind that failure is success in progress.