Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Design Thinking: Day 7: Extraordinaires Design Lab & WonderWalk Unpack

Hey folks,

On Day 6, we attended a presentation about growing up black in Maine with an exceptional speaker from UMaine.  She discussed race and gender identity in Maine and the challenges with growing up without being able to identify with those around you — and those folks being unable to identify with you.  It was powerful and we didn’t get a chance to talk about it on Day 7.  So Day 8?  Day 8 you will participate in another collaborative conversation — your second opportunity to demonstrate your speaking and listening skills.  One of your goals running throughout the class is building up evidence of understanding — every activity, every experience can be evidence of your ability to meet or exceed the standard, if you choose to take advantage of those opportunities.

DAY 7 Here’s what we did!  

We played Extraordinaires!  It’s a design game intended to help people understand the design process while having a fantastic go of it.  We co-opted the rules a little bit for our purposes and to tighten up the time frame, but you got the gist.

Here’s a video that explains a little more.


From there we unpacked our WonderWalks.  Now, at this moment I realize I left my list of notes from the wonderwalk back in the SIC and right now I cannot get them.  So here’s what I recall.

Doorbell.  Front office staff dealing with folks who aren’t ringing the doorbell to let them know they are there.  Also just trying the door without ringing the door bell at all.  

Foot mats.  The carpets in the entryway are not absorbent enough to deal with the volume of water and sand and salt from outside, creating slippery hallways.

Blank walls.  The walls around the music rooms and Main office are blank and uninspiring. 

Food court.  3rd lunch.  There isn’t any food left. That’s a problem for kids in third lunch and a problem that admin thinks has been resolved.

2nd Floor Landing B-Wing.  People are misusing the space making it impossible for people who are actually allowed to be there to use it well.

Stairwells.  See through stairwells are creating an unsafe environment for people wearing skirts as well as people in general whose privacy may be violated.

Social behavior.  At least one of the students in special education on campus is in need of videos that help him better understand how to behave appropriately.

I feel like I’m definitely forgetting one or more of the ideas on the table, but those are what I can recall at the moment.

On Thursday, during Class 8, you will need to identify the challenge you want to tackle and the design team with whom you most want to work.  You can work in a group of 1, 2 or 3 designers for this challenge.  These numbers maximize the likelihood of a successful design SINCE you will only have three days to complete the challenge!   The Monday, Wednesday and Friday after break.  Yup.  That will be our time for the design sprint. By that Friday you will have come up with a feedback worthy prototype.



 Also during Class 8 you will do a little more empathy analysis work by examining two poems, one by Shane Koyczan and one by Lucille Clifton.  My internet is acting up so I’ll have to send those along to you at a later time.

Make sure you TURN IN YOUR EMPATHY STORY!   It was due Tuesday after being pushed back because of weather and such.  Stay on pace. To turn it in, place it in your Design Thinking Google Drive INBOX folder.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Design Thinking: Spring 18: Day 5: WonderWalk & Problem Hunting

Quick Day 4 recap!

Watched a terrific episode of the design documentary series, Abstract, featuring shoe design legend, Tinker Hatfield.  (Hatfield designed the iconic editions of the Air Jordan amongst a slew of other shoes for Nike.) 

You participated in your first collaborative conversation -- centered around the ideas of the documentary as well as empathy and the "how might we . . . ?" mindset possibilities.

And got a reminder that your empathy story is due this Friday, February 9th.

You will have some time to work on that story in class today -- we'll do a little writer's maker workshop to generate ideas build out possible structures for your stories.

Most importantly today!  We are going on a WonderWalk, an exploration of the campus looking for tension points, problem spots, and doing some on the fly empathy interviews so we might better understand the needs of our campus.  This is going to lay the ground work for our first major design challenge:  How might we improve the Mt. Blue Campus experience?  (That HMW is wayyyyy too broad -- hence why we need to WonderWalk and see how we might narrow it down AND design for a particular group of users.)

We will start as whole group and then break into smaller teams, hunt things down, take pictures, video and more.  Wednesday, we will unpack our walks -- see what trends exist.

During your WonderWalk, your team must do the following.

1. Create a map that tracks your movements and identifies the locations/spaces/environments on campus where you went hunting.
2. Take photos and/or video of evidence of the problems you encounter. 
3. Record at least one rapid empathy interview (audio is fine, video would be great) with a member of the campus community who is facing a particular challenge.
4. Brainstorm a list of How Might We . . .?  questions inspired by your walk.  The more the better, so I'm looking for at least ten from your group.  Don't worry about how good they are -- focus more on the generation.

Wednesday, we'll also experience the beauty that is "Yes/And," the importance of adding more and more ideas, validating contributions of others, and solving by growing rather than correcting and negating (no/but). 

FOR FRIDAY:  Story of a Design.  The RUBRIC IS COMING!  I SWEAR!  (Today!  It might even be here before you know it!  The creative constraints were here.

FIRST MAJOR WRITING ASSESSMENT

After the debrief, we will assign your first major writing assessment: A Design Story of Empathy.   Storytelling is a

Creative Constraints and Expectation.

Prompt: Tell the story of an individual using empathy to solve a problem.

Show the conflicts this individual faces in the problem.

Demonstrate the extent to which you understand empathy as a tool for meaningful problem solving.

The story may be a piece of fiction of any genre or creative non-fiction about you or someone you know.  The goal is to tell a great story.

Use one or more of the following storytelling elements/devices to enhance your piece
  • Dialogue
  • Point of View
  • Symbolism
1st Submission Draft for Feedback:  Due FRIDAY, FEB 9.





Thursday, February 1, 2018



Today, we watched the second episode of Abstract: The Art of Design.  This episode tells the story of footwear designer, Tinker Hatfield's, experience with designing Air Jordans.  After viewing, we had a collaborative conversation based on these guiding questions:
  • What does Tinker's design process look like?
  • Where does Tinker draw inspiration from?
  • What are some of Tinker's design goals?
  • How does Tinker conduct research for his designs?
  • How does Tinker use empathy in his design work?
  • What challenges does Tinker face in his design work?
  • How does Tinker encounter failure?  Success?
We wrote down evidence of what we said during discussion for assessment purposes:


Afterward, we began work on our empathy stories--remember, those are due next Friday!

-Ms. Audy