HMW solve real-world problems using design thinking?

 

During the last week of October, we handed the keys over to our student designers to solve some real-world problems in and around our middle school. Kevin recorded three videos of some real-world user problems from around campus that we then showed our classes. While we viewed the videos, the student designers employed a visible thinking routine (VTR) called Adventure Grid that they recreated in their observation journals. 

 

The problems?

  • HMW design a better way to do lunch?
  • HMW help a teacher recovering from surgery transition/get around the school?
  • HMW help the brand team design a way to appreciate teachers?

From there, the student designers chose which "door" they would walk through, and then assembled a team to begin discovery work.



Discovery took several fascinating, agency-filled forms, from students emailing teachers to set up interviews, setting up a time to interview other students, engaging in observation walks to the cafeteria and other areas of campus...

...to full-on empathy immersion of how a wheelchair-bound person might navigate the school building.

Over the course of this design brief, we had to figure out how to best engage the student designers with assessment as well as deadlines. 


Todd, Kevin, and I collaborated to design a project management calendar and toolkit to beset equip the groups with the necessary skills and tools to get them through to deploy while also keeping them aware of the fact that time is undefeated (as Kevin likes to say).

After discovery concluded, there was discomfort and friction in many groups who either did not manage their time well, had a group dynamic fail-up or felt that they needed more time to conduct more discovery work. We concluded that we had to be okay with the messiness that this lap brought so as to allow our designers to experience all the highs and lows of solving human-centered problems with a human-centered approach brings.

The time was ripe to amass our data and experiences to define our problem via a user needs statement or a HMW question. 

With our needs statement or HMW question framing our ideation, we now shifted our focus to designing a solution to our problem or user need. After ideation, we pitched our solutions to user to hone in on one potential design solution to deploy.


For our deploy stage, we created a low-resolution prototype and created pitches to present. After presenting, we sought more feedback on our ideas via the "I LIKE... I WISH... WHAT IF...?" thinking routine aimed at helping us iterate our initial prototype to best meet user needs.


At this point, we are now reflecting on our design thinking journeys and aiming to potentially res-up our first iteration and both self-assess as well as teacher assess designer-chosen aspects of the process.

It has been such a messy, fun, and eye-opening experience turning the reigns over to our student designers.

Have you been empowering student agency? If so, in what ways?


Share with us on Twitter:

@TheMVDesignLab 
#impactfromthemiddle

Kevin Day @knowKMD
Todd Wass @toddw42
Ryan Welch @welch79


 

 



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