dt philly : middle school 2015 handbook

DT Philly 2015 Middle School Edition

Acknowledgments Compete 360 would like to acknowledge the following individuals, organizations, and resources. Please note, attribution does not imply endorsement by these sources: +Acumen/IDEO.org (Spring, 2014) Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation,

www.plusacumen.org Jon Coddington, AIA, Professor, Department of Architecture + Interiors, Drexel University Nathan Gasser, Owner, Rock River Star The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, and the resources they so generously share:

http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/ IDEO, IDE, Heifer International, and ICRW, and their Human Centered Design Toolkit, 2nd Edition,

funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which they share under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. www.hcdconnect.org/toolkit

IDEO, Riverdale Country Day School, and their Design Thinking for Educators resources, which they

share under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike 3.0 Unported License: ©2012 IDEO LLC. All rights reserved. http://designthinkingforeducators.com

Fletcher MacNeill, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP

Principal, Healthcare Practice, Environetics Mike Silverman, School District of Philadelphia (retired) Noah Tolson, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Lean GB

Principal and Practice Area Leader for Planning, Array Architects Karl Ulrich, (Spring, 2013) Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society [Lecture Notes], University of

Pennsylvania, www.coursera.org/course/design

To learn more about design thinking and Compete 360, please visit www.compete360.org

www.facebook.com/Compete360 www.twitter.com/Compete360 (@compete360, #designthinking)

Except where otherwise noted, this work is ©2015 Compete 360, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Please see the full text of this license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode) for rights and restrictions. Compete 360’s attribution: ©2015 Compete 360. All rights reserved. http://compete360.org

http://www.plusacumen.org/

http://dschool.stanford.edu/use-our-methods/

http://www.hcdconnect.org/toolkit

http://designthinkingfor/

http://www.compete360.org/

http://www.facebook.com/Compete360

http://www.twitter.com/Compete360

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

http://compete360.org/

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Welcome ...................................................................................................................................................................1

Honor Code and Expectations ................................................................................................................1

What is Design Thinking? ....................................................................................................................... 3

DT Philly 2015 ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Project portfolios and deliverables ............................................................................................. 4

Project management ................................................................................................................................ 5

Optional resources ..................................................................................................................................... 6

Project overview ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Deliverables, Bonuses, Achievements ........................................................................................... 8

Registration and Project Start-Up ..................................................................................................... 11

Register your team and create profiles ................................................................................ 11

What is design? ........................................................................................................................................... 12

Don’t forget your bonuses and achievements! ................................................................ 14

Stage 1: Empathize ....................................................................................................................................... 15

See design challenges around you ............................................................................................ 15

Write a design problem statement ............................................................................................ 17

Get to know your users and learn about your design challenge ................... 20

Plan ahead: Complete your research and analyze findings ............................ 23

Don’t forget your bonuses and achievements! ............................................................... 23

Stage 2: Define ............................................................................................................................................... 25

Debrief: What did you learn about your user and challenge? ......................... 25

Generate actionable insights .......................................................................................................... 27

Plan ahead: Prepare to brainstorm ......................................................................................... 29


Stage 3: Ideate .................................................................................................................................................. 31

Brainstorming .............................................................................................................................................. 31

Plan ahead: Prepare for prototyping .................................................................................... 33


Stage 4: Prototype ........................................................................................................................................ 35

Generating design concepts ........................................................................................................... 35

Build rapid prototypes ..........................................................................................................................37

Plan ahead: Prepare to iterate and refine your prototype ................................. 39


Stage 5: Test ...................................................................................................................................................... 40

Get user feedback .................................................................................................................................... 40

Iterate your way to a better solution ...................................................................................... 42

Prepare your final prototype for the DT Philly Challenge ............................... 42

Plan ahead: Prepare for the DT Philly Challenge .................................................... 43


The DT Philly Challenge ....................................................................................................................... 45

Factors in judging ................................................................................................................................... 45

Essay .................................................................................................................................................................... 46

Oral presentation ...................................................................................................................................... 46

Debrief and share feedback with Compete 360 ............................................................ 47


Definitions .......................................................................................................................................................... 49

Schedule and Deliverables .................................................................................................................... 51

Appendix: Templates for Deliverables and Activities

DT Philly 2015 – Middle School 1

Welcome We’re delighted to partner with you to pilot the newest iteration of DT Philly, our design thinking initiative for Philadelphia public schools. The lessons we’ve learned to date by implementing DT projects with city high schools have been incorporated here to better guide your team’s exploration of design-centered problem solving. We look forward to working closely with you to understand your experience, and we’ll use the insights we gain to strengthen the program for future participants. Please use this handbook to guide your DT Philly adventure, and enjoy the journey. We’re excited to see the great work your team will do!

Honor Code and Expectations All participants in DT Philly are expected to exhibit respect, truthfulness, and civility in the course of their work. Work posted by each team will represent students’ original work; if the work (including any photos or images used) is not original, it will be properly attributed. The project will be student driven and all submissions will be the work of student team members; teachers will provide instruction and support only, unless an activity specifically asks the teacher to write or create something. All members of the team will participate actively in the project and—in recognition of those who generously shared the wisdom, experiences, and resources that helped shape this program—we encourage collaboration across the DT Philly community. Please observe the following guidelines:

• Teams will consist of three to seven students in grades 6-8. • Each team will have a coach who is a teacher in the school. • Teams are expected to submit deliverables in a timely manner. • No changes to the team or the coach can be made without the consent of Compete 360. • A team's progress will be posted on the Compete 360 website. • Compete 360 reserves the right to share examples of project work for program purposes.

Teams will earn points and recognition for the work they do and for the different ways in which they embrace design thinking and the DT Philly initiative. Among the behaviors that will help you succeed are:


• Participation and engagement of all team members. • Fidelity to the DT process (being mindful of where you are in the design process, what

the goals are, and using appropriate methods for that stage). • Empathy (evidence that you are deeply engaged with your users and have diligently

captured their needs). • Quality (submitting complete and thoughtful work, including evidence that you review

your submissions for spelling, grammar, thoroughness, etc.). • Persistence and timeliness. • Collaboration and communication—within your team, with people in your school, with

Compete 360 staff, and with others in the DT Philly community. • Creativity (evidence that you considered a broad range of possible solutions to your

users’ needs, and evidence that your work or its application to your design problem is original).


What is Design Thinking?

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” –Winston Churchill

Design thinking (or DT) is a creative and structured approach to problem solving; it is a methodology promoted by leading universities, like Stanford and MIT, and by cutting-edge companies like IDEO and SAP. In the words of one practitioner, design thinking is, quite simply, “seeing something we want to be better, and then the activity of making it better.” (Paul Pangaro, CTO of Cyberneticlifestyles.com, Design & Thinking).

In K-12 education, design thinking offers students a fun and hands-on opportunity to develop 21st century skills—including creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication—while actively connecting skills and learning to the world outside the classroom.

Here are some important principles of design thinking:

It’s human centered. You are designing a real solution to a problem experienced by real people, so it is essential to develop deep empathy for your user in order to understand his or her needs and motivations.

It’s collaborative. Working together with people who have different skills, points of view, or backgrounds makes your project stronger by allowing you to gain diverse insights and generate more robust or thoughtful solutions.

It’s optimistic. Design thinking shows us that we can imagine new and improved outcomes to situations that are less than ideal. It’s a process that can be applied to any situation…so the mindset is that “problems” of all kinds are simply challenges or puzzles awaiting a solution.

It’s experimental. Design is an iterative process…prototyping and testing your ideas helps you learn and innovate. Failure is part of the learning. Ideas that fail help you get closer to ideas that work, and iterating your way to a solution helps you refine your product or process as many times as necessary to ensure that your solution is a thoughtful and elegant one.

It’s action oriented. DT is as much or more about doing as thinking—get out and observe your users and the design environment, build and test models of your solutions (they don’t have to be perfect, just good enough to see how they advance your solution)—and then keep refining your design concept based on the feedback you receive from your users.

We believe design thinking provides a great opportunity to engage students in a lively, meaningful, and challenging educational experience that will prepare them to tackle complex problems in school and beyond.


DT Philly 2015

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” –Neil Gaiman

Compete 360’s goal is to foster a design-thinking practice in city schools by training teachers, facilitating student-led projects, and hosting the DT Philly Challenge—an event where students present their work to a panel of judges, and where three teams earn awards for their schools or projects. This year’s awards will be in the amounts of $1,000, $750, and $500.

To complete a DT Philly project, students will identify a need in their school, their community, or the world around them, and they will apply the five steps of design thinking (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test) to that need as they develop a creative, viable, and desirable solution to the design problem.

As students move through the five phases of design thinking they practice and refine critical skills including: empathy, as they closely observe people and situations to understand and define a need; information synthesis, as they process data and observations to frame a point of view; risk taking and big picture thinking, as they brainstorm potential solutions; visual literacy and modeling, as they construct prototypes of potential solutions; and reflection and analysis, as they seek feedback, test, and refine a solution.

It’s also important to know that different professions and practitioners use different terminology to describe the design process, so don’t be concerned if you find (or if we send you) a resource using vocabulary that differs from what we use.

Project portfolios and deliverables Each team member will have a user account for the Compete 360 website, www.compete360.org. Teams will upload deliverables and documentation for bonuses and achievements on the website to build the team’s project portfolio and demonstrate progress.

Some practical considerations for uploading photos and other documents:

• Check your photos to make sure they’re clear and high resolution. • It’s helpful to eliminate distractions from your pictures when you are photographing an

object like a prototype (this does not apply to photos taken during field research). To this end, try to take photos of objects like prototypes in indirect natural light (eliminating shadows as much as possible) and against a plain white backdrop.

• If you are scanning documents to upload, make sure your scan is high quality (if you don’t have a scanner, consider an app like iPhone’s Genius Scan or Ricoh Scan), or take a photo of whatever you want to scan, and upload the photo, making sure the image is clear and high quality.


Teams will also prepare a written essay and make an oral presentation to a panel of judges.

All teams will be given a starter kit of supplies to support their project work. Supplies you may find useful for particular phases of your project are listed below: Empathize/Define/Ideate Supplies Prototype/Test Supplies Pens/pencils/erasers Foamboard Notepads Adhesives Straight edges/rulers Paper Post-it Notes Scissors or X-Acto knives Easel pads, flip chart, or whiteboard Assorted arts/crafts supplies (pipe cleaners, etc.) Markers Household objects (cans, toothpicks, foil, etc.)

Project management Here are a few strategies to help your project proceed smoothly:

• Use our templates (if it makes life easier). We’ve provided templates in the back of this handbook to guide and structure much of your work. You may use and upload them, or submit your responses and design work in a format of your choosing (just make sure you submit all elements of the assignment).

• Get un-stuck. There is one deliverable due each week, so it’s important to meet regularly

and stay on track. If you get stuck, contact Compete 360 staff—we’re here to help.

• Be the early bird. If you have the opportunity to work ahead, do it. Deliverables build on your preceding work. Look ahead to the next activity and see if you can start on or prepare for it before your next meeting.

• Divide and conquer. Consider giving team members regular or rotating roles such as

previewing video links or activities, uploading deliverables to www.compete360.org, etc.

• Do the extras. In many cases it isn’t difficult—and it may even be fun—to do bonus or achievement activities. We want you to engage more deeply in the design experience, but the extra points and recognition are nice, too!

• Mind the calendar. Time is a design constraint everyone faces. Be clear about what you

need to accomplish each week, use your time wisely, stay focused, and keep moving forward.

• Document your work. Take great notes, record all of your ideas, and save all of your working materials…revisiting early work can help you later in a project and can be useful for future projects as well.


• Make friends. Design is a collaborative process and inspiration can come from anywhere. See what other teams are doing and leave them a message or ask them a question. Learn from your fellow design thinkers in the DT Philly community!

• Maintain an idea board. Design thinking is a visual, tactile, and experiential process. If

possible, we recommend that you dedicate some space—a portion of a wall, for example—to the project so team members can share great quotes or images from their research, or share sketches of ideas and other visual reminders that help them track and focus their work.

Optional resources

If you choose to use them, we’ve listed optional tools and resources below. Some of the apps or resources mentioned only work on specific platforms (as of the date we printed this handbook), and we’ve noted costs and other considerations to the extent that we know them. Please be aware that most of these require time to learn to use.

• SketchUp (www.sketchup.com): a 3D modeling program that has helpful support video.

• Autodesk's 123D (www.123dapp.com): a family of modeling applications for different design purposes which link to methods for producing the objects you digitally design.

• Blender (www.blender.org): an open-source digital modeling tool that includes surface modeling, animation, solid modeling, and rendering.

• Invision (www.invisionapp.com): a tool to create screenshots for prototypes of programs or apps (free).

• TuvaLabs (https://tuvalabs.com/): an information resource that allows you to explore or request datasets for your research or report/presentation (free, lead time needed for information requests).

• Explain Everything (http://www.morriscooke.com/applications-ios/explain-everything-2): a whiteboard and screencasting tool for education ($2.99 for Apple, Android, and Windows).

• Coggle (https://coggle.it/): a mind mapping/note app (free, sign up with Google).

• Animation Creator HD (download from iTunes; tutorials on YouTube https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/animation-creator-hd/id363201632?mt=8): the name says it all—an animation creator ($1.99, iPhone, iPad).

• Post-it Plus (http://bit.ly/1n3J0Yx, download from iTunes): a Post-it Note capture/organize/share app (free, iOS 8.0).

• RealtimeBoard (https://realtimeboard.com/): a virtual whiteboard (free).

http://sketchup/

http://www.sketchup.com/

http://www.123dapp.com/

http://www.123dapp.com/

http://www.blender.org/

http://www.blender.org)/

http://www.invisionapp.com/

https://tuvalabs.com/

http://www.morriscooke.com/applications-ios/explain-everything-2

http://www.morriscooke.com/applications-ios/explain-everything-2

https://coggle.it/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/animation-creator-hd/id363201632?mt=8

http://bit.ly/1n3J0Yx

https://realtimeboard.com/


If you know of any other programs, apps, or resources that might be helpful to your fellow DT Philly teams, please email [email protected] or recommend them in a discussion post at www.compete360.org (you must be logged in to the website to post to the discussion board)!

Project overview

Good luck, have fun, & keep in touch!

DT Philly training: orient teachers, set

meeting schedule for teacher collaboration

and support.

Start-Up: teams register, set up profiles,

and complete other start-up activities at

www.compete360.org.

Empathize (DT Stage 1): teams identify gaps and

challenges, develop a problem statement, start user research.

Define (DT Stage 2): teams identify user

needs from interviews, observation, and

research.

Ideate (DT Stage 3): teams brainstorm and

explore a variety of possible solutions to

their need.

Prototype (DT Stage 4): generate design

concepts and build prototypes of your

solution.

Test (DT Stage 5): get feedback on your

prototypes, refine a solution, get more

feedback on your solution (if time allows).

Presentation Prep/Debrief: write

essay, prepare presentation, and

debrief.

DT Philly Challenge: teams make

presentations to judges and receive feedback;

grants announced.

Implementation or follow-up phase for

grant earners.

DT Philly Overview

mailto:[email protected]


Deliverables, Bonuses, Achievements

“And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)” –Dr. Seuss

Your project work for DT Philly is broken down into deliverables, bonus activities, and achievements. You will have deliverables due for each stage of the project (including the start-up stage and the presentation prep stage) along with bonus and achievement opportunities. While you will have a deliverable due each week, it may not be the sole focus of your project work that week. Please check the schedule and the preview section for each phase of your project to confirm goals, activities, due dates, etc. You earn points for deliverables (basic, required activities that help guide your team through the DT process and build your project portfolio) and bonus activities (optional activities that add interest and dimension to your team’s portfolio of work and often are easy to do). Points will count toward your final score at the DT Philly Challenge. In addition, the team with the most points will have the opportunity to choose when they would like to present (first, last, somewhere in the middle) at the DT Philly Challenge. Other teams will select their presentation slots in descending order of points earned. You earn virtual badges for achievements (optional activities that challenge you to explore design thinking more deeply, practice a skill that’s important for DT, or just do something fun). Teams that complete achievements are likely to be teams that are successfully advancing their DT Philly project. Badges don’t contribute to your final score, but they do earn you bragging rights. Furthermore, your badge count will be displayed on the website, and your badges will be included in your team’s profile information for the judges at the DT Philly Challenge. The badges you can earn are named after various inventors:

The Greenwood Badge (earned for completing the Let’s Start Talking about Design activity).

The Van Kannel Badge (earned for completing the Look Closely activity).


Stay tuned for other opportunities for your team to earn rewards and recognition. Some may pop up as surprises in the course of the project, but a few that are not surprises and also are not tied to one particular activity are identified below. Don’t forget about these as you work through the stages!

• Complete and upload all of your deliverables for a specific stage of your project. (Reward: Earn one piece of a 3D puzzle…by the time you finish your

The Fry/Silver Badge (earned for completing the Visual Telephone activity).

The Tsai Badge (earned for completing the Landfill Harmonic/Props activity).

The McVicker Badge (earned for completing the Tin Foil Models activity).

The Friedman Badge (earned for completing the Test Everything activity).

The Weiss/Manfredi Badge (earned for completing the Fun Theory activity).


project you will have a complete toy as a memento of your DT journey.)

• Earn XXX points (number to be announced) by March 13 and earn pizza for a team meeting sometime during the last two weeks of program!

• Find a typo, grammatical error, or formatting glitch in the handbook or on the website and report it to Kerry Ann Williams at [email protected]. (Reward: 5 bonus points.)



Registration and Project Start-Up It’s time to register your team and start learning about the power of design and the role it plays in your life and in problem solving. Don’t forget to view other teams’ work throughout the project and learn about your fellow design thinkers, how they see their world, and what inspires

them! You have one week to complete your start-up activities. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

January 12 – 16: Set up your profiles, introduce your team, start learning about design • Registration activities (choosing a team name and logo, setting up your profiles and

avatars, introducing your team, and scheduling a meeting with Compete 360) should be completed by Friday, January 16, 2015 (10 points for each activity – 40 points total).

• Your “Good Design” deliverables (photos and brief descriptions from all team members including the teacher) should be uploaded by Friday, January 16, 2015 (25 points).

• You can earn 25 bonus points if your “Good Design” uploads meet the criteria for “examples of good design in your life,” and you can earn an achievement (Greenwood Badge) by completing the “Let’s Start Talking about Design” activity.

Register your team and create profiles Teams consist of one teacher and three to seven students in grades 6-8. We need your team members’ names and email addresses to set up their user accounts at www.compete360.org. If students don’t have email addresses, help them create free accounts at Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. or contact us. As soon as your team’s Compete 360 team member accounts are active, you’ll want to complete the following registration activities.

Start-Up Activities: • Register a team name and upload a photo or image for your team logo. (10 points) • Have everyone (teacher and students) sign into their accounts and select or upload an

image/avatar for their personal profile. (10 points) • Write a brief paragraph in the “About” section introducing your team or answer the

introductory interview questions provided. Answer the questions as a team, not individually. (10 points)

• Contact Compete 360 (267-886-8233 or [email protected]) and schedule a visit so we can meet your team, help you get started (if necessary), and answer any



Image posted by [email protected] at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_1G.png# under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License.

questions you may have. If you’re moving full-steam ahead, we’ll just sit back, watch, and learn! (10 points)

40 points (total) – due January 16, 2015

Looking for a good way to introduce your team to design thinking? Watch this 4 minute and 20 second video titled What is Design Thinking? http://vimeo.com/90355541 They don’t use quite the same vocabulary we do, but it provides a quick intro and example.

What is design? Design is coming up with the idea for, and then giving shape to, a service, a system, or a physical object that solves problems.

Great design goes a step further, addressing not only an identified need or problem, but also a latent need (a need we might not recognize we have). For example, the first iPod not only fulfilled its main function of allowing you to carry your music library in your pocket, but its interface was fun and engaging and it was attractive, thereby satisfying an emotional need as well as a practical need.

Examples of design surround you. Think about some of your favorite things or some of your favorite experiences…what do you like about them?

Example:

At right is an object that we think is well designed—a Timbuk2 messenger bag. Why do we love this product? It is an excellent commuting bag because it’s rugged without looking rough, it is waterproof, the shoulder/cross body strap is adjustable and comfortable, it has reflectors on the ends of the closure straps to increase visibility, it has interior compartments to keep small items contained, and it has adjustable straps/tabs and Velcro strips to ensure it closes securely even when you stuff it full to capacity (lots of attention to form, function, detail, and user needs). This would still be a nice bag even if it were not waterproof, but the fact that it’s waterproof makes it a great commuter bag because it’s suitable for all weather conditions, and it eliminates the need for a common workaround—wrapping your belongings in plastic before putting them in your bag.


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_1G.png

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_1G.png

http://vimeo.com/90355541


The beauty of great design lies in its ability to solve problems…to close the gap between an existing condition and a person’s needs. To this end, the development of your favorite product or experience involved a great deal of thought, as the designers invested time in:

• talking to people and observing situations, • understanding the gap between what you have and what you need, • delving into the reasons for that gap, • exploring thoughtful, high-quality solutions, and • ensuring that those high-quality solutions work within existing constraints.

Among the constraints a designer may have to consider in crafting a solution are: Is it affordable? Does it work under extreme conditions? Is it accessible to a broad range of users? Is it culturally and demographically appropriate? You’ll consider the constraints that are specific to your challenge as you move through the phases of your project.

Here’s a resource for you as you start to think about design: http://vimeo.com/5820010. It’s a six-minute video from the Design Council called What is Design? One that is more student-friendly—not specially about design but which points to a few of the mindsets designers embrace—is this five-minute Kid President video titled How to be an Inventor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75okexRzWMk&index=18&list=PLzvRx_johoA-YabI6FWcU-jL6nKA1Um-t

Deliverable—Good Design: Start thinking about what constitutes good design. Each team

member—including the teacher—should upload a photo of an item, an experience or process, or a place that exemplifies good design. Tell us what it is, why you chose it, and what you like about it. Upload your pictures and text under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org

25 points – due by Friday, January 16, 2015

Bonus Opportunity: If the photos your team members upload are things you use or

experience in your lives (this has to be true for all submissions), your team earns 25 bonus points. There is no need to submit anything beyond your Good Design photos to receive these points.






Don’t forget your bonuses and achievements! Here are bonus point and achievement opportunities not previously listed for this phase of your design project. Reminder

• Complete all of the assignments for this stage and receive a puzzle piece (earn all six pieces over the course of the project and you will have a complete toy as a memento of your DT Philly journey).

Achievement Opportunity: Let’s Start Talking about Design!

• Pair up with a friend or friends from your design team and connect with three to five adults in your school to ask them what good design means to them. Submit photos (original photos taken by team members) and text, or video and audio to document your interactions. Your documentation must identify the person you spoke with and what they said. (Greenwood Badge)


Stage 1: Empathize

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” –Steve Jobs

In this phase of DT Philly, you will identify opportunities to use design to solve a problem, select a challenge to address, and start learning about your design challenge. Why is this stage important? To make sure you are addressing a real need, that your project is broad enough to allow you to explore and be creative but focused enough to be manageable, and that you are developing a deep understanding of the people who experience your design problem.

You have two weeks to complete your Empathize activities. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

January 19 – 30: Identify design challenges, choose a project, start your research • The “Design Challenges around Us” and “Share Your Design Problem Statement”

deliverables should be submitted by Friday, January 23, 2015. • The “Research Plan” deliverable should be uploaded by Friday, January 30, 2015. • You can earn 25 bonus points by submitting a few original photographs (ones taken by

someone on your team) of the design challenges you identified, and you can earn an achievement (Van Kannel Badge) by completing the “Look Closely” activity.

See design challenges around you Design challenges are everywhere. The challenge you choose for your project is up to your team, but it may be useful to pick a problem that affects team members personally or one where you know (or have easy access to) ten or so people who share the same problem. It’s also a good idea to pick something that can reasonably be addressed within the time frame this project will run and with the skills your team possesses. We applaud bold thinking, but if your design challenge requires having an advanced degree in molecular biology it may not be realistic for DT Philly 2015! Here’s an exercise to help you recognize design challenges: What do the photos below tell you about how the sidewalks are laid out?


The dirt paths—also known as a desire paths—emerged because there was a disconnect between the existing walkways and what users wanted (most likely the shortest way from point A to point B). Gaps or disconnects like these exist all around us. Finding gaps in our experience of daily life is as simple as thinking about situations that leave us with a feeling of dissatisfaction, the shortcuts or workarounds we create, the frustration—or inconvenience or inefficiency—we experience in different situations, or the times we think “this would be perfect (or so much better) if it just had…”

Example:

Tyrone, a 30-year old music teacher, has the following experiences as he goes about his day. He might describe those experiences with a complaint or by expressing a wish that something could be different or better. From those wishes or complaints, we can identify design challenges.

Scenes from Tyrone’s day The wish or the complaint (the gap)

Possible problem statement/design challenge

Tyrone slept through his alarm and has to rush to get out the door to get to work on time.

I wish my alarm clock were louder.

How might I ensure that I get up on time in the morning?

Tyrone gets to school and spends precious time looking for a parking space because the school doesn’t have a lot that accommodates all employees.

I wish I had a designated parking space at work.

In what way might I have an easier commute to work?

Tyrone notices that the principal and other school staff members are constantly picking up trash around the school.

I wish people took more pride in keeping our school nice.

How might we get members of our school to contribute to a clean environment?

Image posted by George Redgrave at https://www.flickr.com/photos/funfilledgeorgie/10157773535 under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative 2.0 license.

Image posted by felixphs at https://www.flickr.com/photos/felixphs/7164193775/in/photostream/ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial –ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/funfilledgeorgie/10157773535

https://www.flickr.com/photos/funfilledgeorgie/10157773535

https://www.flickr.com/photos/felixphs/7164193775/in/photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/felixphs/7164193775/in/photostream/


Tyrone forgot to pack a lunch, and there aren’t a lot of options for finding a tasty, healthy meal nearby.

There’s no place to get a quick, nutritious lunch near work.

How might we create access to fast and healthy food in or near my school?

Tyrone is disappointed that only one parent has volunteered so far to help with an upcoming event.

I wish parents were more interested in what we’re doing.

In what way might we encourage parent involvement in our school?

After work, Tyrone has a doctor’s appointment. The doctor’s office has a policy about rescheduling appointments if you are late. He arrives on time but ends up waiting over an hour to see the doctor because the medical staff is backed up.

I hate how long I have to wait to see the doctor.

How might the doctor’s office handle appointments and patients’ time more efficiently?

Tyrone’s sister is staying with him in his studio apartment. Tyrone gets home at 11 p.m. and needs to stay up and do some prep for tomorrow, but his sister has already turned out the lights and gone to sleep.

I wish my sister and I were on the same schedule.

In what way might our space better meet our individual needs and schedules?

Now it’s your turn! Think about things that could be better in your school, in your community or in your lives. What things annoy you or concern you? What do you wish was different? What would make life better?

Deliverable--Design Challenges around Us: Identify five “gaps”—wishes or complaints

that express a need for improvement in things you use or experience—that could become your design challenge. These could be challenges you experience at school, at home or in your personal lives, or in your community, city, or the world at large.

You can use the response template in the back of this handbook, or upload/enter your responses in your own format under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.

10 points – due by Friday, January 23, 2015 Bonus Opportunity: Upload three or more original photos (ones taken by your team

members, not pulled off the Internet!) depicting some of the gaps you identified, including a caption or note that describes what each photo shows, and earn 25 bonus points.

Review your list of complaints or wishes and choose one for your design challenge. You will want to interview and observe people who share this problem, so consider who experiences the problem—and how much access you have to those users—when selecting your challenge.

Write a design problem statement Your statement of your design challenge should be understandable and actionable. It is common for designers to frame problem statements as HMW (“how might we…”) or IWWMW (“in what



way might we…”) questions, and it’s important to think carefully about how you construct this. The statement should be broad enough to allow you to explore and find creative solutions in your design process, but it should be focused enough to be manageable. You should also revisit your problem statement throughout your project to help keep your work on track and control project drift. Briefly discuss and vote on the design challenges you identified (or new ones you come up with in the course of your discussion) in order to select one for your DT Philly project. You may wish to list all of the possibilities on a piece of chart paper or a whiteboard and have team members put a star next to the challenge they want to address. Questions you might consider in your discussion include:

• Who is this helping? • Why is this important? • How might we approach this—do we have enough time, and do we have or can we get

the information and resources we need to do a good job and complete this project on time?

You’ll be spending a lot of time on this project, so think about how how excited or interested you are in each of the challenges you are considering!

Example:

Tyrone and a group of students and school staff decide to look at how they can improve the cleanliness and appearance of the school. In selecting this problem they consider the following: Who is this helping?

• Our students • The teachers and school staff • Our visitors

Why is this important?

• A messy environment creates the impression that no one cares about our school • To encourage individual and community responsibility • To make our environment more attractive and enjoyable for everyone • Bad behavior in one area (like littering) can make it seem o.k. to engage in other negative behaviors • Show our values and create a sense of pride in our surroundings • Health and safety

How might we approach this? • Find ways to reduce trash • Create incentives to keep the school cleaner • Change people’s behavior • Help students take pride in their space or environment • Make it cool to have a clean school (or make it uncool to litter) • Punish littering and vandalism • Make it easier for people to dispose of trash responsibly


Do we have time to do this? Do we have or can we get the knowledge and resources to do this? • Yes, we can talk to and observe our users (students, staff, and visitors) easily, and we have access to

resources that will help us explore solutions. Based on their discussion, Tyrone and his colleagues might write the following design problem statement in HMW format:

How might we engage students, staff and visitors in contributing to a clean and verb who do what attractive school to improve our learning and work environment? here why

Deliverable—Share Your Design Problem Statement: Identify the design challenge your

team has chosen to tackle, confirm that it is desirable and achievable, and write your design problem statement in a HMW format. You can use the response template in the back of this handbook or your own document. Upload or enter your responses under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


Chances are you and your teammates already have some knowledge or ideas about your design challenge. To determine your next steps, assess what you know, what you need to find out, and potential roadblocks you might encounter. A quick way to do this is: What you know

• Give each team member five or so Post-it Notes. • Give everyone 3 to 5 minutes to silently jot down things they already know (one item per

Post-it Note) about your design challenge. These might include the feelings, needs or desires of the people who experience the problem, the effects that the problem produces, existing resources or efforts to solve the problem, any assumptions team members may have about the topic, etc.

• Have team members put their Post-it Notes on a large piece of chart paper (you may wish to label the paper and save it for future reference).

What you need to find out • Give each team member another five or so Post-it-Notes. • Give everyone 3 to 5 minutes to silently jot down things you need to find out (one item

per Post-it Note) about your design challenge. These may include what people who experience the problem need, want or feel, what motivates them or drives their behavior, what has been tried before, how effective previous efforts to address the problem have been, what resources or technologies can help, etc.



• Have team members put their Post-it Notes on a different piece of chart paper (you may wish to label the paper and save it for future reference).

Possible constraints or barriers • Give each team member another few Post-it Notes. • Give everyone 3 to 5 minutes to silently jot down any roadblocks you might encounter in

your research (one item per Post-it Note). For example, whether people who experience the problem will speak openly with you, etc.

• Have team members put their Post-it Notes on a new piece of chart paper (you may wish to label the paper and save it for future reference).

Review your findings

• Discuss what team members wrote down. You may wish to group the Post-it Notes by similarity to help figure out your next steps. You should also consider strategies to address any constraints or barriers identified.

Get to know your users and learn about your design challenge Now that you’ve assessed what you know and what you need to learn, you’re ready to plan your next steps and start studying your design challenge. Research takes time, so get started as soon as you can, and consider working in pairs or threesomes to split up the work and cover as much ground as possible. Research strategies you might use include: talking to users, observing people and situations in context (where the problem you are solving occurs), talking to experts, and visiting unexpected places that may have something in common with your design challenge. Information and tips about each of these research methods appears below.

Here’s a link to a video teachers may find helpful in this phase of your project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSLK3A1Kbl8. It’s from a 2013 Innovation Conference and is full of tips and stories about getting to know your users. It’s 13 minutes long and contains some business jargon, but it makes some great points! The following video link may be more accessible for students. It’s from IBM

and simply makes the point that knowing the person you are designing for is about more than knowing their “numbers:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b82Quinl7ac.

Talk to users One of the best ways to learn about your users’ needs is to interview users one-on-one. When you talk to your users, it’s important to leave preconceived notions behind and focus on understanding their perspectives—not only what they do, but how they feel and what motivates them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSLK3A1Kbl8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b82Quinl7ac


You’ll get different perspectives on your design challenge from people who experience it differently. Try to talk to a variety of users to understand all sides of your design challenge.

If you don’t talk to variety of users, you may end up with a biased or incomplete perspective on your design challenge, and this will affect your ability to design a feasible and desirable solution. Here is a great 19-minute video for teachers or students in which author and story teller Chimamanda Adichi describes what happens when you rely on a single story to inform your point of view. There are great examples throughout the talk, but you don’t have to watch all of it to understand the message. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-16764

When interviewing users, try to meet in their environment and document the conversation with notes, video, and photos (remembering to ask permission before taking photos or video). Try to capture exact quotes from each person. This will help you retain the exact concerns, feelings, or experiences of your user rather than generalizing what you heard. Remember to prepare your questions in advance of your interview and, if necessary, schedule appointments to meet your users. Here are some additional tips for interviewing:

• Assign roles: before your team starts interviewing, make sure you know your roles. One person should ask the questions while another takes careful notes, and maybe a third member can take photos or record video (if your user is o.k. with being recorded).

• Develop rapport: ease into the interview by getting to know each other a bit or starting with a brief casual conversation.

• Ask neutral questions: don’t use words that imply value or judgment…for example, ask “How do you feel about…” rather than “Do you think it’s bad that…”

• Encourage storytelling: ask open-ended questions that lead to conversational answers rather than questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

• Ask why: be truly curious and ask follow-up questions. • Be sensitive: if you’re asking about something people might be uncomfortable

discussing, try asking about the experiences of the person’s friends or neighbors. • Look for non-verbal responses: body language and emotions are helpful forms of

communication. • Ask people to show you: sometimes there are surprising inconsistencies between what

people say and what they do. If someone is explaining to you how he or she does something, ask if he or she would mind showing you.

• Consider using self-documentation: in some circumstances, it might be helpful to ask your users to “self document” by keeping a journal, taking photos, etc. and sharing those with you.

• Ask for referrals: if you need to speak with additional users or different types of users, ask the person you’re interviewing for suggestions or introductions.

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-16764

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-16764


Focus groups and surveys are also ways to gather information, but they are often less desirable methods because people can be self-conscious about speaking openly in a group or might be swayed by others’ statements, and surveys don’t give you the opportunity to dig more deeply with follow-up questions. Observe people and situations in context Seeing or experiencing something yourself can give you valuable insight into your design challenge. While conducting observations, look for actions that are awkward, handwritten signs or instructions that a user has put up to clarify something that is confusing, and indications that the user is frustrated or has developed a “workaround” or shortcut to deal with a problem. These behaviors will help you identify unspoken needs or problems users might not fully recognize. Remember to document your observation research with notes, video, and photos. You may be able to conduct some observations while interviewing (in which case you will want to have a team member or two assigned to the role of observer, watching and taking notes on what he or she sees). If it’s appropriate to your particular topic and the opportunity is available, you may also wish to participate in an activity that allows you to experience firsthand what your users are seeing, doing, and feeling. Learn from experts If you have access to someone with in-depth knowledge of a subject or technique that is relevant to your design challenge, schedule a time to speak with him or her. As with interviewing community members, prepare questions ahead of time, confirm the interview time and location or format/procedure (for example, if you are going to talk by phone, who will initiate the call, and to what number?), etc. Talking to experts can help you understand the historical context of your design challenge, conditions or rules that may affect possible solutions, and new ideas that are in development. Learn from other settings The same behaviors, skills, or resources that need to be addressed in your design challenge may be present in other settings (you might hear these referred to as analogous settings), and studying those environments can spark ideas for your design work. If these are not public places where you can freely go and observe, be sure to set up a time to visit and, of course, prepare any questions you may want to ask in advance of your visit. In some cases, you might also glean ideas using an approach called positive deviance, learning from individuals who are employing strategies or behaviors that allow them to do better than their peers even though they face the same challenges and have similar resources. (For more information on this theory, visit The Positive Deviance Initiative at www.positivedeviance.org.)

Example: For their research, Tyrone and his team plan to talk to all types of users (students—including students who don’t litter or deface their environment and students who do, custodians, other school staff, and visitors), as

http://www.positivedeviance.org/


well as some local experts at organizations like Keep Philadelphia Beautiful, the Anti-Graffiti Network, and the Streets Department. They also consider analogous settings that might hold valuable lessons for them. As they think about situations that require behavior change, they decide it might be helpful to talk to people who run anti-bullying programs and healthy eating initiatives. And when they think about helping students create a sense of pride in their space, they think about settings they might visit where space is respected—like a church or a beautiful monument—and places where space is communally cared for like a dog park.

Deliverable—Research Plan: Now that you know a variety of research strategies, create a

research plan to guide your efforts. Use the response template in the back of this handbook or create your own document and submit the plan under the appropriate assignment on www.compete360.org, identifying which strategies you will use, the people you will speak with, the places you will visit, etc. Pay attention to your time constraints when creating your research plan!


Once you’ve formulated a plan, jump right into your research!

Plan ahead: Complete your research and analyze findings In the next stage of your project you will finish the research you began in the Empathize stage, and you will analyze your findings. The best solution to your problem will be rooted in a deep understanding of your users, so find out as much specific information as you can about what your users do as well as how they think and feel.

Don’t forget your bonuses and achievements! Here are bonus and achievement opportunities not previously listed for this phase of your design project. Reminder

• Complete all of the assignments for this stage and receive a puzzle piece (earn all six pieces over the course of the project and you will have a complete toy as a memento of your DT Philly journey).

Achievement Opportunity

• Look sharp and have some fun: Good design research requires you to be keen observers of your users and your environment. Watch this two-minute whodunit video (you’ll



never guess what it’s promoting, and you have to pay really close attention), and tell us what you observed. Be honest—the end of the video shows you the answers (if you pause at 57 seconds, you can record your observations before they show you what you might have missed)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hapS2SPz4 Also share something you saw during your observation research (or something you hope to learn if you haven’t yet conducted observations). Use the template in the back of the handbook or upload/enter answers in your own format under the “Look Closely” activity at www.compete360.org to earn the Van Kannel badge. If you want to test your skills further, here’s another quick test just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAFfYLR_IRY (94 seconds).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hapS2SPz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-hapS2SPz4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAFfYLR_IRY


Stage 2: Define

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” –Henry David Thoreau

This phase of the design process focuses on gaining deep insights into all aspects of your challenge and your user’s needs. You can’t “Google” your way to understanding a problem or a person’s perspective, so make sure your team gets out of the classroom and gets an in-depth and up-close look at your design challenge, your users, and your design environment. Why is this stage important? To achieve a deep understanding of the problem—as the people you want to help experience it—and to turn your research into actionable insights that will guide your brainstorming.

You have two weeks to complete your Define activities. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

February 2 - 13: Complete your research, debrief, and identify insights into your challenge • The “Empathy Map” deliverable should be submitted by Friday, February 6, 2015. • The “Insights: Good, Better, Best” deliverable should be uploaded by Friday, February

13, 2015. • You can earn 25 bonus points by submitting a few original photographs (ones taken by

someone on your team) from your user research or a few direct quotes you recorded from users during your research, and you can earn an achievement (Fry/Silver Badge) by playing a game of visual telephone and sharing the results.

Debrief: What did you learn about your user and challenge? Once you have completed your interviews, observations, and other research, you’ll need to debrief, organize your findings, and analyze the information you’ve gathered so you can turn this information into actionable insights that reflect a deep understanding of your users’ needs and experiences. Remember, you’re designing for people who experience a problem, so the better you understand them and the situations they face, the more likely you are to succeed with your design solution.

The following 11-minute TED Talk is full of insights, starting with this: award-winning design is pointless if it doesn’t actually solve the problem you set out to


address. Another lesson comes six minutes in and drives home the importance of understanding your users…because there are no “dumb” users, only “dumb” products. Keep watching to learn why it’s important to make something that’s hard to use incorrectly, and to learn about the unanticipated effects cockroaches and ants can have on your product! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpldYJ3sSIo

Start your debriefing by reviewing your notes, photographs, video, etc. Team members can use Post-it Notes to jot down things like:

• brief user profiles (personal details about the people you met with), • specific quotes from people you spoke with, • what you observed users doing • the frustrations or other emotions people expressed, (what your users care about), • new information you uncovered, • interesting or surprising discoveries, • any questions you may still have about your design challenge or users.

Put the Post-it Notes up on a wall or on chart paper, along with any photographs that capture useful information or illustrate key findings. Discuss this information and share stories about your research experiences—what did you see or hear, and why do you think things were happening? If anything new comes up in the conversation, write it on a Post-it Note and add it to your wall of findings and insights. It’s common for architects and designers to tell the story of their user through something called an empathy map, which personalizes the user and identifies his or her needs. This will create a visual reference point for the next steps of your design work. Start by dividing a piece of chart paper into four quadrants and label them “Say,” “Do,” “Think,” and “Feel” (or use the template in the back of this handbook). Place an image of your user in the center, and fill in the quadrants with your findings—specific things your users said, the actions and behaviors you noted, their motivations or thoughts (as told to you or as interpreted from information you obtained), and their emotions. As you identify needs your design solution could address, make a note of them somewhere on or near your empathy map. An example of an empathy map appears on the following page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpldYJ3sSIo


Example:

An empathy map created by members of Tyrone’s design team might look something like this:

Deliverable—Empathy Map: Upload an empathy map that personalizes your user and

captures what you’ve learned about them. Use the response template in the back of this handbook or create your own document and submit it under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org

10 points – due by February 6, 2014

Generate actionable insights Once you’ve unpacked all of your findings, it’s time to turn what you learned into actionable insights that will become the focus of your brainstorming. You’ll do this by teasing out specific needs your solution will address.


It may be helpful during this step to think in terms of verbs that describe what your solution will accomplish. You’ll get into design concepts (how to accomplish your goals) in the next phase of your project, so for now try to stay focused on the “whats.” As you identify needs your solution will address, consider the following:

• What did people mention most? • Which issues were most obvious? • Are there behaviors you saw repeatedly? • Did anything you saw or heard contradict something else you saw or heard? • What will increase user satisfaction the most? • What doesn’t apply to all users? • Which needs are latent needs—things the user won’t necessarily notice if left out but

which will delight the user if included. Addressing latent needs is one way to add some “wow” factor to your design solution.

Example:

Tyrone’s team generated the following insights about needs their users have that their solution must address:


Deliverable—Insights: Good, Better, Best: Based on what you learned about your user

and your design challenge, identify the needs that your solution will address. Remember, you’re not yet figuring out HOW to achieve these goals, you’re focusing on WHAT your solution will accomplish. Use and upload the template provided in the back of the handbook or submit your own responses at www.compete360.org.

10 points – due February 13, 2014

Plan ahead: Prepare to brainstorm Now that you’ve broken your design problem down into different user needs and desires, you’re ready to start brainstorming ways to address those needs. You’ll want to rev up your creativity for this stage of your design work and generate as many ways as possible to meet the needs you identified (including wild and crazy ideas—they can inspire new thinking and innovative approaches!). After you conduct your brainstorm, you’ll mix and match ideas to generate design concepts of potential solutions.

Don’t forget your bonuses and achievements! Here are the bonus point and achievement opportunities not previously listed for this phase of your design project. Reminder

• Complete all of the assignments in this stage and receive a puzzle piece (earn all six pieces over the course of the project and you will have a complete toy as a memento of your DT Philly journey).

Bonus Opportunity

• Share with us 3 to 5 of your favorite direct quotes (word-for-word statements from users) from your research and/or 3 to 5 original photos (include captions that describe what the photos show) from your research phase and earn 25 bonus points. If submitting quotes, you can use the form provided in the back of this handbook, or submit/enter your own document or text. Upload the quotes under the appropriate heading at www.compete360.org.


• Rev up your creativity and have some fun: Good designers communicate visually as well as verbally. Play a game of Visual Telephone (instructions below) to start getting comfortable with quick sketching. Upload photos or




documents to demonstrate completion of this activity and earn the Fry/Silver Badge.

Visual Telephone

Exercise taken from http://plusacumen.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Class_1_workshopguide.pdf, which is published

under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivatives license.

http://plusacumen.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Class_1_workshopguide.pdf


Stage 3: Ideate

“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” –Henry Ford

In the third phase of the design process, your team will use the needs you identified to start generating a wide range of ideas about how to solve different aspects of your design problem. Think as broadly and creatively as possible in order to come up with ideas you can use or combine to produce design concepts. Why is this stage important? To push the envelope and find new and creative solutions to existing problems.

You have one week to complete your Ideate work. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

February 16 - 20: Brainstorm ways to solve different aspects of your design challenge • The “Genius at Work” deliverable should be uploaded by Friday, February 20, 2015. • You can earn 25 bonus points by completing the “Wild Thing” activity explaining the

three craziest ideas from your brainstorming session, and you can earn an achievement (Tsai Badge) by completing the “Landfill Harmonic/Props” activity.

Brainstorming The list of user needs you created gives you a great starting point for brainstorming. The goal of your brainstorm is to come up with an extensive list of “hows”—various ways to meet the needs you identified in the last phase of your design project. Here are some tips to make your session positive and productive:

• Don’t judge: during brainstorming, there is no such thing as a bad idea. • Think crazy: a far-out idea that’s not very practical may help you get to a better idea. • Be additive: build on the ideas of others by thinking “yes, and…” instead of “no” or

“but….” • Be visual: make sketches of ideas rather than just writing descriptions. • Stay on topic: go “wide” with your ideas, but don’t lose sight of your users’ needs. • Give everyone a chance to be heard: different perspectives contribute to better solutions.


• Maintain momentum and energy: if you get stuck, take a break, do something to loosen up, and then return to brainstorming.

• Go for quantity: set an absurd goal for the number of ideas you will try to generate—and then go beyond it! Add constraints to help generate new ideas (for example, “What if it had to cost less than $____ to build?” or “How would the principal of our school do this?”).

It can be useful to conduct a warm-up activity to get your creativity flowing before brain-storming. Here’s one you might consider:

Achievement Opportunity: Rev up your creativity and have some fun! Watch this

amazing three-and-a-half minute teaser for a movie called Landfill Harmonic to inspire your thinking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI) and then play a game of Props. To play, teachers should provide two or three random objects (for example, a paper clip, safety cone, brick, foam noodle, a bottle cap, bubble wrap—use your imagination) and have students break up into pairs or small groups. Taking turns, students should come up with as many different uses (sensible, creative, crazy—it doesn’t matter) for an item as possible. Time the activity to spend two minutes on each object. Upload video/audio or photos with descriptive text to document completion of this activity and earn the Tsai Badge.

If you’re interested (and it’s definitely worth a look!), here’s a link to a longer video story on the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura from 60 Minutes: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-recyclers-from-trash-comes-triumph/

When you start brainstorming, work your way one-by-one through the needs you identified. To focus your efforts, try putting a time limit on your activities—maybe 5-7 minutes per need (you can always circle back or extend the time if the ideas are really flowing). You can have team members jot their ideas down on Post-it Notes and put them up on a wall for discussion (making sure you have an appropriate heading for each group of ideas to help organize your work), or conduct your entire brainstorming session out loud. If you’re doing it orally, make sure someone is writing down all of the ideas on a whiteboard or chart paper—somewhere your team members can see them and build off of them.

This two-and-a-half-minute video from the d.school at Stanford provides a deliberately silly example of brainstorming ways to preserve chewing gum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1h5L_0rFz8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXynrsrTKbI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1h5L_0rFz8


Example:

Here are some of the ideas Tyrone’s team came up with while brainstorming ways to meet their users’ needs:

Deliverable—Genius at Work: Upload the ideas you generated during your brainstorming

session under the appropriate assignment on www.compete360.org. You can use the response template in the back of this handbook, or submit your own document or clear photos of your chart paper, Post-it Notes, etc.

10 points – due February 20, 2015

Plan ahead: Prepare for prototyping In the next phase of your design thinking project you’ll generate design concepts based on your brainstorming ideas and pick two ideas to prototype. Prototypes are a physical tool to generate communication with your users and assess one or more elements of a design concept. The form of your prototype will depend on what you are designing. If you are creating a physical object, you will want to build a prototype that can be touched and used. If you are designing a service or software, you might use a process map or a role play/simulation, and if you are designing a campaign, you might use a storyboard. Think about the type of prototypes you’ll be creating and assemble the supplies or equipment you’ll need to move forward.




Bonus Opportunity

• Show your wild side! Share and explain the three craziest ideas your team came up with during brainstorming and earn 25 bonus points. Use the template in the back of the handbook or enter your responses (text or photos from your brainstorm board) under the “Wild Thing” activity at www.compete360.org.


Stage 4: Prototype

“My designer friends…just never mind trying something. They just don’t mind being wrong, having a bad idea, as long as that being wrong, that bad idea, helps them get to the next stage

of a good idea.”—Roger Martin The ideas you generated during brainstorming will become the basis for your design concept sketches, and you will use those sketches to develop prototypes. A prototype is a model or representation that brings a design idea to life and helps answer important questions like “Will this design element work?” and “How will users respond to this design concept?” Ideally, your prototypes will be something your users, your design team, and others can touch or experience. Why is this stage important? To create something you can test with users and to see if your proposed solution is viable and feasible.

You have two weeks to complete your work for this stage. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

February 23 – March 6: Create design concepts and build quick models of promising solutions

• The “Design Concept Sketches” and final vote should be uploaded by Friday, February 27, 2015.

• Depictions of your two rapid prototypes should be submitted by Friday, March 6. • You can earn 25 bonus points by “spreading the word” about your project and involving

your principal or another school leader in a team meeting or activity, and you can earn an achievement (McVicker Badge) by completing the “Tin Foil Models” activity.

Generating design concepts This phase of the design process calls for you to express your ideas visually. Sketches, diagrams, process maps, and other types of drawings are effective ways to convey ideas quickly so you can get feedback and so others can build on your concept. Drawing also conveys the look of your idea and describes in graphic form your concept’s features and spatial relationships.

Renowned industrial designer Dieter Rams once asked himself a critical question: Is my design good? In response, he came up with ten guiding principles to define what good design meant to him. Use them for inspiration as you enter the concept generation stage of your project: https://www.vitsoe.com/us/about/good-design.

https://www.vitsoe.com/us/about/good-design


Here are some tips for producing good drawings:

• Make it big enough to be seen easily. • Erase any mistakes or unnecessary marks by moving your eraser gently in one direction. • Use dark lines (ask yourself if your sketch can be seen from 10 paces away). • Use pencil first and then trace over it with fine point black marker, if needed, to improve

visibility. • Label where appropriate, writing explanatory notes on straight-edge lines that point to the

feature you are describing. • Title the drawing, and include your name.

Revisit the ideas you generated during brainstorming. Mix and match ideas to create a solution to your design challenge, and then create a sketch, diagram, process map, or other visual depiction of your design concept.

Example: As a result of their brainstorming and ideation work, Tyrone’s team generated several design concepts:


As a team, you must decide which of your design concepts to prototype. Put all of the design concepts up on a wall and have team members review them and vote for the two concepts they think hold the most promise for addressing your design problem. If it helps you narrow your choices, you may wish to consider which idea seems most innovative and which seems most likely to succeed. Remember, you can choose to combine elements from different concepts and sketches if that makes sense.

Deliverable—Design Concept Sketches: Each team member should select their favorite

brainstorming idea or ideas and create a quick visual representation (sketch, process map, diagram, etc.) of how those ideas could come together in a possible solution. Be sure to label and annotate your drawings, and to include your name and a title for your drawing. You can use the response template in the back of this handbook, or submit your own documents, scans, or photos. Submit your drawings under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.

Discuss and vote on the team’s concept sketches and identify which two will become the

basis for your two rapid prototypes. You can use the response template in the back of this handbook or enter the information in the text box or on the sketches you upload.

25 points – due by February 27, 2015

Build rapid prototypes Prototyping is not about getting it right the first time, it’s about starting the conversation, getting answers to the question of how well your concept solves the problem you set out to address, and developing your ideas. Most prototypes change significantly over time as you advance your understanding of what works best. Prototypes can take many forms, including physical objects, mock ups, process or journey maps, role plays, CAD files, diagrams, storyboards, advertisements, etc. It’s important to keep in mind that most prototypes can be built out of basic materials. Refer to the pp. 6-7 of this handbook for resources you may find useful. It’s o.k. to fake some functionality in order to prototype. For example, if you are developing a prototype that needs an automatic trigger to launch (like a motion sensor on a light), you can simply have a person perform the mechanical function behind the scenes during a role play while you test your idea.



Example: Tyrone’s team chose the game concept and the public campaign concept to prototype. Rapid prototypes of these concepts took two forms…a sample game-form wastebasket and poster, and a storyboard for an ad that would play during school assemblies and morning announcements: Game prototype: http://thefuntheory.com http://litterfreelouisville.org Campaign prototype:

http://thefuntheory.com/

http://litterfreelouisville.org/


Deliverable—Rapid Prototypes: Upload photos (diagrams, video, etc. as appropriate) of

the two rapid prototypes your team built. Include text or audio describing your prototype. Submit your files under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.

10 points – due March 6, 2015

Plan ahead: Prepare to iterate and refine your prototype Testing your prototypes with your users will allow you to see how well your proposed solutions meet their needs. Pay close attention to what your users do and how they react when experiencing your prototypes. This feedback will help you refine your prototype and advance your design solution. Remember, prototyping and testing is an iterative process…once you get feedback and incorporate it into a more refined prototype, look for opportunities to test your revisions to see if they achieve the desired outcomes.



Bonus Opportunity

• Spread the word about your DT Philly project in your school by getting your principal or another school leader to attend and participate in one of your work sessions or project activities. Submit photos and text, video, or audio to document their participation (be sure to identify the school leader who participated) and earn 25 bonus points.


Stage 5: Test

“It’s a lot like karaoke, right? You gotta kinda like get out, take a chance.” –David Kelley,

Sharing your prototypes with your users and others can give you valuable insights into what is useful, confusing, and desirable in your design concept. During this phase of your design project you will obtain and evaluate feedback from users, modify your design solution, and—if time allows—retest and further refine your design solution. It’s not unusual for projects to experience some “drift” from start to finish, which is one reason you want to stop and test your ideas, making sure they address your users’ needs. Why is this stage important? To see how well you have succeeded in meeting your users’ needs.

You have up to two weeks to catch up on your project work and complete your test phase activities. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

March 6 – 20: Test and refine your solution, catch up on any unfinished project work, and start preparing for the DT Philly Challenge

• Upload insights gained from user testing (the “Lessons Learned” activity) by Friday, March 13, 2015.

• “And the Winner is…”: let us know which of your prototypes will become your design solution and what changes will be made based on user testing. This should be uploaded by Friday, March 20, 2015.

• You can earn 25 bonus points by constructively commenting on your fellow DT Philly design teams’ concepts or prototypes, and you can earn an achievement (Friedman Badge) by completing the “Test Everything” activity.

• Start working on your final essay and presentation materials for DT Philly!

Get user feedback Testing is critical to ensure that your design concepts meet the specific needs of your users. Your prototypes don’t have to be perfect to solicit feedback from your users and others. One benefit of rapid prototypes is that they allow you to “fail fast” and modify your design concept quickly. Consider the best ways to get feedback on your prototypes. Should you invite users into your classroom or take your prototypes out into the community? If you’re prototyping a service, will


you have people role play or experience a mock-up service, or will you show them a process map? Here are a few more tips for user testing:

• Allow users to experience more than one prototype. Having more than one option will let people compare and contrast different attributes.

• Don’t “sell” your design concept or tell people how to use it…simply put it out there, speak as little as possible, and see how people interact with it or respond to it.

• Ask users to give you the play-by-play as they experience your prototype, describing what they are doing, thinking, and feeling.

• Assign some team members to observe and others to take notes to capture as many user responses as possible. Watch what people do without guiding or correcting them.

Be sharp observers and good note takers during testing so you capture as much feedback as possible.

Savvy designers invest time and energy in getting feedback so they can evaluate the viability and desirability of their ideas. Check out this video of one designer’s approach to user testing (do not try this at home or for your DT Philly project!): http://vimeo.com/79313674.

You may also discover something you didn’t anticipate while you are testing your prototype. Here’s quick example of the importance of testing your designs! http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/12/nyregion/slogan-causes-pencil-recall.html

Debrief with your team following user testing, sharing your stories, notes and observations. Does the feedback you gathered answer the following questions?

• What did users like? • What surprised them? • What confused them or didn’t work? • What would convince them to use your solution? • What other feedback did they share? • What questions still need to be answered? • What barriers exist to users adopting your solution?

Deliverable—Lessons Learned: Share some of the feedback you received from user testing, such as what your users liked, what confused them or didn’t work, any unanticipated problems you may have uncovered, or surprising discoveries you made. Use the response template in the back of this handbook, or submit your own documents under the appropriate assignment on www.compete360.org.




http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/12/nyregion/slogan-causes-pencil-recall.html



Iterate your way to a better solution

You may not be able to incorporate all of the feedback you receive into a single refined prototype, so you will have to evaluate and prioritize what you learned as you select your final prototype and decide what modifications you will make to it. It may help to revisit your design problem statement and earlier findings about user needs to see how the feedback supports, contradicts, or otherwise gives you a different perspective on your design challenge and proposed solution. Testing is an iterative process, so you can engage in several rounds of refining your prototype and re-testing it with your users to ensure you have the most complete and elegant solution possible. Time constraints will limit how many cycles of prototyping and testing you can do, but a second round of testing will help you determine if you’ve made additional progress in closing the gap for your design problem.

The following Kickstarter video about a student’s idea to create a more stable cup for her grandfather, who has Parkinson’s disease, provides a good example of how iterating can improve a product: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeborn/kangaroo-cups-plastic.

Deliverable—And the Winner is…: Identify which of your prototypes will become your

final prototype, and what revisions you will make to it based on user testing. Use the response template in the back of this handbook, or submit your own documents under the appropriate assignment on www.compete360.org.


Prepare your final prototype for the DT Philly Challenge You’ve invested a lot of effort in designing your solution. It’s time to make final revisions to your prototype and then, as part of your preparation for your DT Philly presentation, give the product or process you designed a thoughtful name or title. Guidelines for good naming practices include:

• Your name or title should be descriptive of what the item is or does. • Your name or title should convey positive images or associations. • Your name or title should be easy to say. • Your name or title should be memorable. • Your name or title should be easy to spell.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeborn/kangaroo-cups-plastic



Posted by Ted Major at http://tedmajor.net/2012/12/02/truth-in-packaging/

See the picture at right for an example of what can happen if you choose a name that’s ambiguous (remember the video links earlier in this handbook that make the point that there are no “dumb” users, only “dumb” products?). While Chock full o’Nuts is a well-established brand of coffee, the name confuses consumers, leading the company to print a clarification on the lid of the can. Try to avoid this type of confusion when naming your design!

Plan ahead: Prepare for the DT Philly Challenge Congratulations! You’ve done a lot of great design work over the last few months, and now it’s time to tell the amazing story of your design project. You’ll have to submit a 750-1,000 word essay and deliver a five- to seven-minute oral presentation for the DT Philly Challenge. Please remember that your report must be written by the student members of your team (teachers and mentors can assist with writing and editing, but they cannot write the paper on behalf of the students). Also, teachers can introduce their team at the DT Philly Challenge, but the presentation must be given by the student members of the team. Any slides, handouts, or props should also be created by the students.



Bonus

• Design is a collaborative process. Have each member of your team post one constructive comment to another team about their design concepts or prototypes and earn 25 bonus points. Submit your comments by viewing other teams’ deliverables and using the comment option on the website. You must be logged in at www.compete360.org to post comments.

Achievement

• It’s hard to test everything about your design concept, but testing as much as possible will both refine your design solution and help you avoid unintended consequences (remember the pencil example from p. 41 of this handbook?). Now that you understand the processes that inform good design, you might start to see design flaws in lots of things you use or experience! Send us a photo and

http://tedmajor.net/2012/12/02/truth-in-packaging/

http://tedmajor.net/2012/12/02/truth-in-packaging/



description of something you encounter that seems like it wasn’t fully tested or thought out and earn the Friedman Badge. Upload your picture and description under the “Test Everything” activity heading at www.compete360.org. Here’s an example from our Compete 360 website! If you forget your password (and who hasn’t forgotten a password at one time or another?), the site will email you a link to get back into your account. All good, so far, right? However, it then asks for your current password (the one you forgot) before it accepts your new password. (Yes, we’ll be fixing that…remember, design is an iterative process!)


The DT Philly Challenge

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”—Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple

Teams will present their DT Philly projects to a panel of judges, and three teams will earn awards for their project or school. Awards will be in the amounts of $1,000, $750, and $500. Project presentations will consist of two parts: a short essay and an oral presentation. Why is presentation prep important? Being able to communicate ideas effectively in person and in writing are skills you will use throughout your education and career.

You have one week (or two weeks if you completed your catch up and test stage work by March 13) to prepare for the DT Philly Challenge. Here’s a preview of goals, dates, and activities (more information is provided in the pages that follow):

March 23-27: Write your essay, prepare presentation materials, and rehearse

• Submit your project essay by Thursday, March 26, 2015. • Submit a copy of your presentation slides or photos of your presentation props by Friday,

March 27, 2015. • You can earn 25 bonus points by inviting three or more guests—including one adult from

your school—to a practice session and getting their feedback on your presentation, and you can earn an achievement (Weiss/Manfredi Badge) by completing “The Fun Theory” activity.

Factors in judging The following factors—as demonstrated by your work throughout the project and by your presentation—will be considered in judging. Empathy: How well did the team understand the person for whom they were designing? How well does the solution address the user’s needs? Creativity and “Wow” Factor: How transformative or original is the proposed solution? Is the solution elegant—does it address latent needs and create a sense of delight? Feasibility: How well does the solution fit within the constraints of the use environment? To what extent is the proposed solution implementable, scalable, affordable, reproducible? Communication/Presentation: How well does the team communicate its work and its story in the final report and in the oral presentation?


The points your team earned by submitting deliverables throughout the project will count for 20 percent of your final DT Philly score. Total points (including bonus points) earned by teams will be used to determine the order of presentations. The team that earns the highest number of points will get to select their presentation slot first, and other teams will choose their slots in descending order of points earned. Any badges you have earned throughout your project work will also be shared with the judges.

Essay Submit an essay (750-1,000 words) written by student team members explaining:

• Why you chose your design challenge. • Whom you are designing for and how you conducted your user research. • The needs you identified. • How you arrived at your final design concept. • How your design concept meets your users’ needs, and what is special or innovative

about it. • What the next steps would be if you could move forward with your idea.

Please observe the following guidelines when formatting your written report:

• Text should be single-spaced within paragraphs and double-spaced between paragraphs if typed. If handwritten, be sure the writing is legible.

• Use one-inch margins on your pages and include page numbers. • Include a cover page with a title, your team name, and the date of your presentation. • Begin with a brief overview of your project, and introduce the members of your team

here. • Include headings as appropriate to organize your writing. • You may include photos or visuals if useful and appropriate.

Deliverable—Submit Essay: Upload your written report for your DT Philly presentation in

the appropriate place at www.compete360.org or email it to [email protected]. Reports must be received by the due date so they can be read before the presentations.

10 points – due by March 26, 2015

Oral presentation Your oral presentation should run 5-7 minutes. Your goal is to tell the story of your project in a compelling way that:



• Brings your users to life. • Helps your audience feel their needs. • Shares your insights. • Explains how your design concept works and what is special about it. • Explains how your solution could be implemented.

All team members should be prepared to answer questions if called upon by the judges. Here are some additional tips for making a great impression during your presentation:

• Plan your presentation: organize your presentation and designate specific roles and responsibilities for each team member.

• Practice: allow time to practice the presentation as a full group. If possible, practice in front of other adults or students and ask them for feedback.

• Be confident: stand up straight, don’t fidget, make eye contact with your audience. • Speak to your audience: try not to rush through the presentation, and be familiar enough

with your part that you don’t have to read every word from your notes. • Use props effectively: slides, models, pictures, etc. can all enhance a presentation if used

well. • Be professional: pay attention to your appearance, language and demeanor.

Deliverable—Presentation Materials: Upload your presentation materials (slides, photos

of props and handouts, etc.) for the DT Philly Challenge under the appropriate heading at www.compete360.org or email the materials to [email protected].

10 points – due by March 27, 2015

Bonus Opportunity: Get three guests—including at least one adult from your school—to

attend a practice session for your presentation and provide you with feedback to earn 25 bonus points. Submit video or photos to document your practice session and include text or audio identifying your guests.

Debrief and share feedback with Compete 360 As you wrap up your project, take a few moments to debrief about what you have accomplished and how you might do things differently in the future. We’d also like you to share with us some reflections on your experience to help us understand and improve the program for the future (yes, we’re testing and iterating). A simple exercise to help you do this, recommended by the d.school at Stanford, is an “I Like/I Wish/What If” exercise. A template for this activity is available in the back of this handbook. Please take a few



minutes to complete this exercise. Each team member and the teacher should complete a feedback form.


• If you haven’t earned your last piece of the puzzle yet, here’s your chance! Submit your essay and presentation materials (and any other missing deliverables if you’ve earned fewer than five puzzle pieces to date) by their due dates and receive your sixth puzzle piece so you have a complete toy as a memento of your DT Philly journey.


• Visit thefuntheory.com and watch the Piano Staircase video. Submit a brief personal reflection on what your team saw. Do you think this is an effective way to change people’s behavior? How might The Fun Theory be used to help change something in your school? Use the response template in the back of this handbook, or submit your responses in your own format, and enter/upload them under the appropriate heading at www.compete360.org to earn the Weiss/Manfredi badge.

http://www.thefuntheory.com/


Definitions

Achievement: An optional activity that challenges you to explore design thinking (DT) more deeply, practice a skill that’s important for DT, or just do something fun. Your team earns badges for each achievement completed. Badges don’t contribute to your final score, but they do earn you bragging rights. Teams that complete achievements are likely to be teams that are successfully advancing their DT Philly project.

Analogous or alternate settings: Places or situations that seem very different on the surface but that share behaviors, skills, or resources that are applicable to your design challenge and can be useful in your research.

Assignment: A basic, required activity to document your progress in DT Philly. Templates are provided for most assignments to help structure your team’s responses. Your team earns points for each assignment, and the points count toward your final score at the DT Philly Challenge.

Bonus: An optional activity that adds dimension and interest to your project portfolio. Many bonus activities are easy to do. Your team earns points for bonus activities.

Constraint: A restriction or limitation.

Define: The second phase of the design thinking process where you collect and analyze information to advance your understanding of your design challenge.

Deliverable: A document or file you submit to demonstrate progress on your project.

Design challenge (also called a problem statement): The specific problem you are addressing.

Design thinking: A structured problem-solving methodology that embraces collaboration, creativity, optimism, action, experimentation, and iteration.

Desire path: A path—usually made by walking—that typically represents the shortest or easiest way to get from one point to another.

DT: An abbreviation for design thinking.

DT Philly Challenge: A design thinking initiative developed by Compete 360 for Philadelphia public schools.

Empathize: The first phase of the design thinking process where you select and frame a design challenge.

Empathy map: A tool to help you paint a picture of your user and develop insights into their needs.

Gap in user experience: The disparity between what a person needs and what exists to address that need.


HMW or IWWMW: “How might we” or “In what way might we.” Statements that begin with these phrases are the conventional way to describe a design challenge.

Ideate: The third stage of design thinking. In this phase, you brainstorm possible solutions to aspects of your design challenge in order to generate concepts to prototype.

Iteration: The act of repeating a process in order to get closer to a goal. Iteration helps you refine your ideas and generate better solutions.

Positive deviance: An approach to behavioral and social change based on learning from individuals who are doing better than their peers despite facing similar challenges and having similar resources.

Prototype: A representation or model of a design idea that allows you to test the feasibility and desirability of the idea. Also the fourth phase of the design thinking process.

Test: The fifth and final phase of the design thinking process. In this stage, you take your design idea to your users, get their feedback, and refine your solution.

Users: The people who experience the problem your design team is addressing.

User need: A requirement or desire you seek to satisfy with your design solution.

Visual expression: Representing an idea or object through sketches or other visual constructs.

Workaround: A method for overcoming a problem.


Schedule and Deliverables

Unless otherwise noted, all work is due by 6:00 p.m. on the date indicated. Progress toward project completion will be documented on the Compete 360 website. All of the deliverables described below will be in the form of text or uploaded documents (video, photo, sketch, word processing, spreadsheets, pdf, scan, etc.) and will be submitted through your user account at www.compete360.org. Details about all activities listed can be found in the appropriate sections of the handbook Date Deliverables & Activities Saturday, January 10 Teacher training Registration & Start Up (January 12 - 16) Friday, January 16 Team registration activities (name/logo, log-ins/avatars,

“about” section, schedule meeting) and Good Design deliverable due

Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Examples of good design in your life; Let’s Start Talking about Design activity

Stage 1: Empathize (January 19 - 30) Friday, January 23 Design Challenges around Us and Problem Statement

deliverables due Friday, January 30 Research Plan deliverable due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Original photos of design challenges identified; Look Closely activity

Stage 2: Define (February 2 - 13) Friday, February 6 Empathy Map deliverable due Friday, February 13 Insights: Good, Better, Best deliverable due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Share research highlights; Visual Telephone activity

Stage 3: Ideate (February 16 - 20) Friday, February 20 Genius at Work deliverable due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Wild Thing activity; Landfill Harmonic/Props activity

Stage 4: Prototype (February 23 – March 6) Friday, February 27 Design Concept Sketches, Concepts to Prototype deliverable

due Friday, March 6 Rapid Prototypes deliverable due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Spread the Word activity; Tin Foil Models activity



Stage 5: Test / Catch Up (March 9 – March 20) Friday, March 13 Lessons Learned deliverable due Friday, March 20 And the Winner is… deliverable due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Collaborate activity; Test Everything activity

Preparation for DT Philly Challenge (March 23 – 27) Thursday, March 26 Essay due Friday, March 27 Presentation materials due Bonus and Achievement Opportunities

Polished Presenter activity; The Fun Theory activity

Monday, March 30 DT Philly Challenge!

Appendix: Templates for Deliverables and Activities

• Please note, not all deliverables and activities have templates.

• Follow along in the handbook and check the schedule for a complete list of deliverables and activities.

www.compete360.org

DT Philly Team Name: _____________________________

2014-2015 School: _________________________________

Achievement Activity: Let’s Start Talking About Design

DT Phase: Registration & Start Up

Pair up with a friend or friends from your design team and connect with three to five adults in your school to ask them what good design means to them. Submit photos (original photos taken by team members) and text, or video and audio to document your interactions. Your documentation must identify who you spoke with and what they said.

1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________

Upload or enter your responses under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.

DT Philly Team Name:

2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Design Challenges Around Us

DT Stage: Empathize Due: January 23, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Identify five “gaps”—wishes or complaints that express a need for improvement in something you use or experience—that could become the focus of your design project.

1. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________




2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Share Your Design Problem Statement

DT Stage: Empathize Due: January 23, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Identify the design challenge your team has chosen to tackle, confirm that it is desirable and achievable, and write your design problem statement in a HMW (“how might we”) format.

Our Complaint or Problem

_______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________

Our Team’s Design Challenge Statement How might we do what, where (if applicable), why?

How might we

Quick Check: Is this desirable? Is it feasible? Who are you helping? Why is this important? Do you have enough time to do this? Do you have/can you get what you need to design a solution?




2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Research Plan

DT Stage: Empathize Due: January 30, 2015 ∼ 10 points Which research strategies do you plan to use?

Talk to users Conduct observations in context

Talk to experts Learn from other settings

Other: Who will you talk to? What places will you visit?




2014-2015 School:

Achievement Activity: Look Closely

DT Stage: Empathize Good design research requires you to be keen observers of your users and your environment. Watch this two-minute “whodunit” video (you have to pay really close attention), and tell us what your team observed. Pause the video at 57 seconds (be honest—the end of the video shows you the answers!) to record your observations then watch to the end (or watch the whole thing a few times!) to see what might have missed. What did you notice in the first 57 seconds of the video? Share something your team saw during your observation research (or something you hope to learn through observation, if you haven’t yet done your research).


Upload this document (or clear photos of your large empathy map) under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Empathy Map

DT Stage: Define Due: February 6, 2015

Create an empathy map that personalizes your user and captures what you learned about them. As you identify needs to be addressed by your solution, jot them down on the side. You can create your map on a large piece of chart paper and put Post-it Notes in the different areas, or use this template.

Put an image and brief description of your user here

SAY DO

THINK FEEL

Needs


Upload or enter your responses (or clear photos of your Post-it Note groupings) under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Insights—Good, Better, Best DT Stage: Define Due: February 13, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Based on what you learned about your user and your challenge, create a list of needs that your design solution will address. Your focus here is on the “what” rather than the “how.” You can do this by writing needs on Post-it Notes and physically grouping them on a wall, or write and organize the information in the space below.

A good solution will…

It would be even better if our solution…

A truly delightful solution will…




2014-2015 School:

Bonus Activity: Share Research Highlights ∼ 25 points

DT Stage: Define

Share three to five of your favorite direct quotes (word-for-word statements) from your user research and/or upload three to five original photos (ones taken by team members) or video footage from your research to earn this bonus.

1. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

4. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________


Upload or enter your responses (or clear photos of your Post-it Note groupings or whiteboard/chart paper list) under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Genius at Work

DT Stage: Ideate Due: February 20, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Brainstorm! Come up with as many ways as you can to meet all of the needs you identified in your “Insights: Good, Better, Best” activity.

Need:

Ideas:

Need:

Ideas:

Need:

Ideas:

Need:

Ideas:

Need:

Ideas:

Need:

Ideas:




2014-2015 School:

Bonus Activity: Wild Thing ∼ 25 points DT Stage: Ideate Identify and explain the three craziest ideas that your team came up with during brainstorming (include a sketch, if you like). Crazily creative idea #1

Crazily creative idea #2

Crazily creative idea #3


Upload your drawings under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Design Concept Sketches

DT Stage: Prototype Due: February 27, 2015 ∼ 25 points

Each team member should select their favorite brainstorming idea or ideas and create a quick visual representation (sketch, process map, diagram, etc.) of how those ideas could come together in a possible solution. Be sure to label your drawings as appropriate, and include your name and a title for your drawing. Use the space below (give each team member their own copy of this template) or use your own paper and upload your files.




2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Concepts to Prototype

DT Stage: Prototype Due: March 6, 2015 Which two concepts will you prototype and why? Prototype concept #1 Title or description: Why this one?

Prototype concept #2 Title or description: Why this one?




2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: Lessons Learned

DT Stage: Test Due: March 13, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Share some of what you learned from user testing, for example: What did your users like? Did they have questions? What was confusing or not intuitive for your users? Did you uncover any unanticipated problems? Did you make any unexpected discoveries?


Upload or enter your responses or your own documents under the appropriate assignment at www.compete360.org.


2014-2015 School:

Deliverable: And the Winner is…

DT Stage: Test Due: March 20, 2015 ∼ 10 points

Which of your initial prototypes will become your final prototype?

What revisions will you make to your prototype based on user feedback? Upload or include a photo or sketch if appropriate.




2014-2015 School:

Achievement Activity: The Fun Theory DT Stage: Prep for the DT Philly Challenge Visit www.thefuntheory.com and watch the Piano Stairs video. After you’ve finished, submit a brief reflection on what your team observed in the space below.

What was your reaction to the video?

_______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ Do you think this is an effective way to change behavior? _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ How might the Fun Theory be used to help change something in your school? _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________


http://www.thefuntheory.com/

1639 N. Hancock Street, Suite 309 • Philadelphia, PA 19122 267-886-8233 • Fax 267-886-8469

compete360.org

I Like – I Wish – What If

Project Feedback for DT Philly 2015 Designers rely on personal communication and, particularly, on feedback to advance their design work. We are testing a redesign of the DT Philly curriculum, and we’d like to know more about your experience. The “I Like, I Wish, What If” is a simple tool to encourage open feedback. Here are examples from last year:

“I like the freedom of our creative idea and how our ideas got to be heard.” “I wish we could have affected even more people than our primary user.” “What if our ideas/inventions were challenged by other students to be

improved or altered?” Please share your thoughts about your project and DT Philly here:

I like

I wish

What if Team: First name:

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dt philly : middle school 2015 handbook

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