1.
WHO ARE WE?
THOMAS WENDT
WILL EVANS
UX Strategist
Managing Director
Surrounding Signifiers
TLC Labs
thomas@srsg.co
@thomas_wendt
will@tlclabs.co
@semanticwill
#NYinnovates

2.
LET’S START WITH AN EXERCISE

3.
WHICH IS TIMEBOXED

4.
CHARACTER SKETCH

5.
What is Design Thinking?

6.
“Everyone can – and does – design. We all design
when we plan for something new to happen,
whether that might be a new version of a recipe, a
new arrangement of the living room furniture, or
a new layout of a personal web page. The
evidence from different cultures around the
world, and from designs created by children as
well as by adults, suggests that everyone is
capable of designing. So design thinking is
something inherent within human cognition; it is
a key part of what makes us human.”
Nigel Cross

7.
“Design is now too important to be left to
designers.”
Tim Brown

8.
ANOTHER DEFINITION
An approach to solving problems by
understanding people’s needs and synthesizing
insights to solve those needs – in context.

9.
DESIGN THINKING PREMISE
Only through contact, observation, and empathy
with customers can you hope to design solutions
to fit their needs.

10.
AS OPPOSED TO?
• We have this problem, lets jump in and
brainstorm a solution
• We have a new technology, what can we
possibly use it for?
• Our competitors just launched X; how quickly
can we also do X?

11.
THREE OVERLAPPING CONSTRAINTS

12.
WHERE IS DESIGN INNOVATION?

13.
IDEO’S DESIGN PROCESS

14.
Insight about customer behavior
and work patterns were never
discovered sitting at your desk.
*

15.
Research, when done well, creates
a deep sense of empathy for
others.
*

16.
Understanding context
involves being-there.
*

17.
You are not the user.
*

18.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative ideation
Prototyping & validation

19.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative ideation
Prototyping & validation

20.
BASICS OF CUSTOMER RESEARCH

21.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
Theory
Practice
Thought
Disengaged
Frivolous
Virtual
Action
Invested
Productive
Real

22.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
Praxis
Process by which theory, lesson, or skill is enacted,
practiced, embodied, or realized.

23.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
“Apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals
cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through
invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient,
continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the
world, with the world, and with each other.”
Paulo Freire

24.
SYMPATHY
syn - together
pathos - feeling
1. harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons
or on the part of one person with respect to another.
2. the harmony of feeling naturally existing between
persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial
dispositions.
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another,
especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion,
or commiseration.

25.
EMPATHY
en - in
pathos - feeling
1. the intellectual identification with or vicarious
experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of
another.

26.
In the absence of direct experience,
vicarious identification becomes our
substitute.

27.
“Our real goal, then, is not so much fulfilling manifest
needs by creating a speedier printer or a more
ergonomic keyboard; that’s the job of designers. It is
helping people to articulate the latent needs they may
not even know they have, and this is the challenge of
design thinkers.”
Tim Brown

28.
“To understand a hammer, for example, does not mean to
know that hammers have such and such properties and
that they are used for certain purposes—or that in order
to hammer one follows a certain procedure, i.e.,
understanding a hammer at its most primordial sense
means knowing how to hammer.”
Hubert Dreyfus

29.
Customer Research
HOW MUCH RESEARCH?
People
Insights
Lot
s

30.
A RESEARCH HEURISTIC
12
People
Insights
Lot
s

31.
UX RESEARCH/EMOTION CURVE

32.
Malkovich Bias
The tendency to believe
that everyone uses
technology
the same way you do.
- Andres Glusman

33.
ETHNOGRAPHY
Literally “writing culture”
Ethnography is:
1. The process of “deep hanging out.”
2. The richest research method we have.
3. Something you should be doing all the time.

34.
Ethnography
Allows Us To

35.
1. Discover the semantics of living

36.
2. Decode signifiers of cultural practice

37.
3. Understand the language people use.

38.
CONTEXT

39.
Keys
To Good
Ethnography

40.
Delve deeply into the context, lives, cultures, and rituals of a few
people rather than study a large number of people superficially.
This isn’t about booty calls, this is about relationships.

41.
Holistically study people’s behaviors and experiences in daily life.
You won’t find this in a lab, focus group, or 5 minute interview
on the street.

42.
Learn to ask probing, open questions, gathering as much data as
possible to inform your understanding.

43.
Practice “active seeing,” and “active listening.” Record every
minutiae of daily existence, and encode on post-its.

44.
Use collaborative sense-making activities like cynefin and affinity
diagramming to understand and formulate a narrative of
experience.

45.
Map the stories and insights back to the original customer
hypothesis and problem hypothesis.
Did it validate or invalidate your hypotheses?

46.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative ideation
Prototyping & validation

47.
How do we make sense of the world so that we can act in it?
FRAMING AND SENSEMAKING

48.
ON FRAMING
“A frame is, simplistically, a point of view; often, and
particularly in technical situations, this point of view
is deemed “irrelevant” or “biasing” because it
implicitly references a non-objective way of
considering a situation or idea. But a frame – while
certainly subjective and often biasing – is of critical
use to the designer, as it is something that is shaped
over the long-term aggregation of thoughts and
experiences.”
Jon Kolko

49.
FRAMING THROUGH VISUALIZATION
“By taking the data out of the cognitive realm (the
head), removing it from the digital realm (the
computer), and making it tangible in the physical
realm in one cohesive visual structure (the wall),
the designer is freed of the natural memory
limitations of the brain and the artificial
organizational limitations of technology.”
Jon Kolko

50.
SENSEMAKING
The act of assigning meaning to experience.
Extraction of meaning out of a situation.
Sometimes purposeful, sometimes not.
Micro and macro.

51.
CYNEFIN
The place of your multiple
affiliations or belongings.

52.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative ideation
Prototyping & validation

53.
GENERATIVE IDEATION

54.
DESIGN EPISTEMOLOGY
Deduction
Induction
Abduction
What
logically
is.
What
likely is.
What
could be.

55.
DESIGN EPISTEMOLOGY
Deduction
Induction
Abduction
Absolute
Truth
Science
Design

56.
DESIGN EPISTEMOLOGY

57.
Ideation Process

58.
KNOWLEDGE FUNNEL

59.
CREATE
PITCH
CRITIQUE

60.
DESIGN STUDIO
Generate lots of design concepts (options*)
Present concept as stories
Check stories for coherence
Integrate (steal) & Iterate
Critique using Ritual Dissent
Converge around testable solution hypotheses
*See Chris Matts Real Options Theory

61.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative ideation
Prototyping & validation

62.
PROTOTYPES AND VALIDATION

63.
WHY PROTOTYPE?
• Explore
• Quickly create testable solution options
• Identifies problems before they’re coded
• Reflection-in-action*
• Experiment
• Early frequent feedback from customers
• Low opportunity cost
• Evolve understanding of customer behaviors
* “Theory in Practice,” Chris Argyris & Donald Schön

64.
GET OUT
OF YOUR
HEAD

65.
WHAT FIDELITY?
• Low fidelity
• Paper
• Medium fidelity
• Axure
• Omnigraffle
• Indigo Studio
• Clickable Wireframes
• High Fidelity
• Twitter Bootstrap
• jQueryUI
• Zurb Foundation
Beware of “endowment effect,”
also called the divestiture
aversion.
Once people invest time/effort
“sketching with code,” its very
difficult to throw the concept
away and explore new options.”
Identify what you want to learn,
pick the least effort to go through
Build > Measure > Learn

66.
MAXIMIZE OPTIONALITY
From insights, you can create multiple problem & solution
hypotheses sets.
It's not about designing the one right solution and refining.
It's about testing many solutions to multiple problem
hypotheses.
It's about many small bets.

67.
Conclusions

68.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative Ideation
Prototyping & validation

69.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative Ideation
Prototyping & validation

70.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative Ideation
Prototyping & validation

71.
4 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
We have this problem, lets jump in and brainstorm a solution
We have a new technology, what can we possibly use it for?
Our competitors just launched X; how quickly can we also do X?
•
•
•
•
Empathy through research
Framing the problem
Generative Ideation
Prototyping & validation

72.
DESIGNER’S MANTRA
We cannot think about solutions until we
understand the problem.

73.
DESIGNER’S PARADOX
We cannot think about solutions until we
understand the problem.
AND
We cannot understand a problem until we think
about solutions.

74.

75.
THOMAS WENDT
WILL EVANS
@thomas_wendt
thomas@srsg.co
@semanticwill
will@tlclabs.co
Thanks!