Design Thinking

What are the steps in the Design Thinking process?

1-Empathize 2-Define 3-Ideate 4-Prototype 5-Test

What are some techniques used to build empathy?

1-Observing your patrons and users 2-Journaling or Video Diaries 3-Journey Mapping 4-Patron Interviews and Focus Groups

What are good communication norms to establish before doing creative group work?

1_Agree in advance that no idea is too wild 2_ Actively listen 3_Set a goal of equal participation from everyone 4_Don't say "No", say "Yes, and" 5_Ask "How may we...?" 6_Defer judgement and have a clear understanding of how that judgement will occur

What are the steps in prototyping?

1_Define a minimal viable product 2_Think of the elements to test 3_Consider the audience 4_Build prototypes to facilitate iteration

Types of prototyping from low to high fidelity?

1_Paper prototyping 2_Static wireframe/mockup 3_Interactive wireframe/model 4_Functional prototype

Balsamiq - digital prototyping tool

A well-known wireframing tool that has been available for years, Balsamiq offers both a desktop version and a cloud-based option. The focus of Balsamiq is low-fidelity wireframes, with a look that is meant to be similar to a paper prototype, though there is a more formal theme as well. You can create interactive wireframes as well. This tool can be helpful for facilitating collaboration and speeding up the prototyping process.

Evaluation: Dot Voting

All ideas posted on a flat surface and each participant is given circle stickers to place on the ideas they want to move to the next stage

Mockingbird - digital prototyping tool

Another wireframing tool, Mockingbird offers real-time collaboration options and an ability to create wireframes with many of the same features as Balsamiq.

Journey Mapping

Ask users to map the steps in their process - whether it is their research process or the steps in finding a book in your library. This can simply be plotting the steps on a continuum, but can you can also ask participants to draw the steps as well, which often uncovers additional insights. As you can see in this example, Journey Mapping can be used for many types of scenarios and can give helpful insight into how your patrons interact with your library.

Lynda Barry's book Syllabus Exercise

Draw the same object first for 3 minutes, then for 2 minutes, then for 1 minute, then for 30 seconds, and finally for only 5 seconds. Though this would work with many different objects, in Syllabus, she discusses having her students draw a castle this way. By starting with more time and decreasing the time until you are drawing for only 5 seconds, you learn what the key elements of the drawing are and how you can pare your drawings down to the minimal amount of detail needed to convey your point. This can be a very helpful skill to practice when you are drawing as part of ideation work because the focus here is on quick sketches rather than detailed drawings.

3 Minute individual IDEATION technique

Getting into a brainstorming mindset by silencing your own internal critic. This exercise will help to get ideas flowing and will turn the idea of "quality" on its head to instead focus on quantity. You have 3 minutes to come up with as many bad ideas as possible. Fish flavored gum? Sure! Paper raincoats? Ok! This exercise is just to get you started thinking creatively; there are no bad answers. Be sure to set a timer for 3 minutes so you don't spend too long. Believe it or not, the time limit will help you to spark creativity.

Coggle - digital prototyping tool

If you are working on a diagram, workflow, mindmap, or other similar style of prototype, this tool makes the process easy. It also offers the option to share your finished project with others who can then collaborate on it and make edits in real-time. There are free and paid options depending on the nature of your use.

Journaling or Video Diaries

In this approach, you gather information by asking patrons to track their own activities. This can take a number of different forms. You could ask patrons to write down each step in their research process and then share the un-edited journal with you at the end of a specific period, or having a patron take photos throughout their process (either the entire research process or just while at the library) using a photojournaling protocol like this one, or even asking patrons to take video of themselves working through their research process. If you're interested in a more in-depth process for tracking library engagement, you might also want to check out the Where the Wild Books Are app from the Harvard Library Lab.

Is the Design Process linear?

It is cyclical, at any stage you may discover something that makes you decide to jump back to an earlier point in the process. This is particularly true at the prototype and testing phases. If you are committed to Design Thinking, you must be willing to go back to earlier stages in response to what you find along the way. This can be difficult. There is a tendency to look at the money already invested in a project and not want to scrap work, but this won't allow you to get the full value of design thinking.

Prototype

Now that you have decided on a possible solution based on your ideation, you'll begin prototyping. This process is focused on finding the minimum viable example that you can use to start evaluating your idea.

Observing patrons and users

Observation techniques from range from observing the flow of patrons through specific library spaces to larger scale ethnographic research. The important quality of observation is to make sure that you have a systematic approach in place and that you avoid having your observations clouded by your own pre-existing biases. The limitation of this approach is that it will only allow you to see how users interact with existing spaces and services, which may make it harder to identify gaps and areas where the library could be meeting their needs and desires better.

Ideate

Once you have your problem defined, you're ready to start brainstorming solutions. This process is often referred to as ideation.

Patron Interviews & Focus Group

Patron interviews and focus groups can be another great way to gather information, but will need to be structured to avoid bias and to encourage broad responses that will inspire new ideas. The best way to do that is to design your questions in a very open-ended manner. Start with a conversation starter like "How do you start a research project?" or "What did you do on your last trip to the library?" In a focus group setting, encourage participants to respond to one another. In a one-on-one interview setting, ask broad follow-ups such as "Why" or "What then" which will encourage deeper conversation rather than leading the respondent in any one particular direction.

Evaluation: Four Categories Approach

Sort your ideas based on four categories that you identify. Typically, these are based on abstractness (so categories might be 1. the most practical, 2. the most fun, 3. the most exciting, and 4. the most expensive), but you can pick other approaches if they fit your needs better. This can be a good approach when you have very clear goals for the project from the outset.

Ideation

The creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract.

Test

The last step in the process is testing your prototype, making any necessary modifications, and implementing it.

Empathize

The process of learning to truly understand what the users of the item being designed think. The focus here is not on asking them what they want, but instead fully understanding their behavior in relation to the item to design a final product that goes beyond what they would ask for.

"Deep dive" brainstorming technique

This approach encourages creativity by asking you to question each of your ideas. This one can actually be a bit difficult since it takes experience to learn how to productively question ideas without rejecting your initial idea or at least getting down on it. You may find success by combining it with brainwalking so that each person is asking the questions of a different person's ideas.

"Zero Draft" brainstorming technique

This is a good technique if you want to ideate on your own. It is basically a free-writing exercise with a bit more structure. First you write down everything you know on your topic or question, followed by what you still need to find out or what you still haven't solved. Then reflect on the importance of the topic before opening up to any further ideas and thoughts that come to mind once you've laid out this framework.

30 Circles exercise

This is an exercise about quantity over quality. You take a paper with 30 circles on it and you have 60 seconds to create as many drawings as possible using those 30 circles.

"Mindmapping" brainstorming technique

This one may be familiar from other creative endeavors. For visual learners, this is a great opportunity to draw the connections between ideas and steps in processes and even for non-visual learners, it can help to generate ideas, particularly for workflows and processes.

Moqups - digital prototyping tool

This produce is designed to streamline diagramming, which happens to include wireframing and prototyping.

Mockflow - digital prototyping tool

This product offers a suite of products that has whiteboard, wireframing, sitemapping, and collaboration options. The wireframing product is easy to use and integrates well with their other tools. They offer both desktop and web options. The video below shows the wireframing section in action.

"SCAMPER" brainstorming technique

This stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Another Use, Eliminate, and Reverse and the technique asks you to go through each of these steps for your idea to try to generate new insights.

"Forced Connections" brainstorming technique

This technique encourages you to look at things differently by instructing you to take two of your (or your team's) unrelated ideas and spend time exploring how they might be combined and connected.

"Brainwalking" brainstorming technique

This technique is similar to brainstorming, but after a certain amount of time is spent generating ideas, participants get up, switch locations, and build on the ideas of the previous occupant of that space.

LucidChart - digital prototyping tool

This tool is mostly focused on diagramming and workflow design. It offers some discounted options (or even free subscriptions) for certain types of educational use.

Wireframe.cc - digital prototyping tool

This tool offers a free version (though it is limited to public, single page sites), which makes it a great option if you are just curious about testing the waters of a digital wireframing and prototyping tool. It includes annotations and has a number of helpful built in features.

"Pass It On" brainstorming technique

Very closely related to brainwalking, Pass It On involves writing an idea on a piece of paper and then passing that paper along to each person present. The key here is to offer only a limited amount of time to respond and ensuring that everyone works on each idea.

Define

definition process: Here you define the problem you are trying to solve. Ideally, you haven't started your project with too narrow of a destination in mind (for example, it is better to think "We should redesign our book return options" than to think "Here is the space we have for a book return bin, let's design the precise size of the bin"), but whatever your starting point, this is the time when you reflect on the information gathered in step one and define your project in terms of what you have learned about the users' needs, behaviors, and desires.