WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.267 --> 00:00:02.370 All right, last but not least for this week 2 00:00:02.370 --> 00:00:04.800 I wanna talk about design thinking. 3 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:09.570 So, design thinking is the name of a process, 4 00:00:09.570 --> 00:00:11.513 essentially, a way of thinking about 5 00:00:11.513 --> 00:00:13.440 doing any sort of design. 6 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:15.225 It comes from Stanford, 7 00:00:15.225 --> 00:00:18.270 and the basic idea is it's a process 8 00:00:18.270 --> 00:00:21.360 for creative problem-solving, as it says here, 9 00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:24.180 and it has three primary components. 10 00:00:24.180 --> 00:00:28.770 The first part of it is all about empathy. 11 00:00:28.770 --> 00:00:33.690 It's empathy for your audience, for your stakeholders. 12 00:00:33.690 --> 00:00:37.080 It's essentially really thinking about them, 13 00:00:37.080 --> 00:00:40.200 and what they need, so quienthe, right, 14 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:42.180 very much aligned with that. 15 00:00:42.180 --> 00:00:44.280 Once you have empathy for your audience 16 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:46.320 and you really have a human-centered approach 17 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:48.300 to whatever it is that you're creating, 18 00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:49.950 then that makes it much more likely you're gonna 19 00:00:49.950 --> 00:00:53.970 create a solution for them that is actually helpful, right? 20 00:00:53.970 --> 00:00:56.550 The old way of doing design without this approach, 21 00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:58.320 and maybe I shouldn't call it the old way, 22 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:00.570 but you know, the thoughtless way, let's call it, 23 00:01:00.570 --> 00:01:02.592 of doing design is looking more like 24 00:01:02.592 --> 00:01:04.080 at the stuff you have, right? 25 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:07.470 Like, I have a pile of steel, what can I make with it? 26 00:01:07.470 --> 00:01:10.710 But, you know, design thinking, user-focused approach 27 00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:14.160 and empathetic approach is, what does my audience need? 28 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:18.030 They need a place where they can sit and do work. 29 00:01:18.030 --> 00:01:20.190 Ah, maybe with this steel I could build a structure 30 00:01:20.190 --> 00:01:24.600 to which I could then attach, you know, a sheltering glass, 31 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:26.730 and we can put chairs inside and that's where people 32 00:01:26.730 --> 00:01:28.800 can do that work that they so wanna do, right? 33 00:01:28.800 --> 00:01:31.260 So, you know, I think you get the point. 34 00:01:31.260 --> 00:01:34.620 The second part, after you've have your design empathy, 35 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:36.120 you've really thought through what you're doing 36 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:40.350 in a very human way, is you can brainstorm, you can ideate. 37 00:01:40.350 --> 00:01:43.680 And the basic idea in a design thinking approach 38 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:46.590 is that you work at this for a little while, right? 39 00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:49.080 You go past the initial thought. 40 00:01:49.080 --> 00:01:51.060 The initial thought is probably gonna be 41 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:53.280 the most obvious solution, and listen, 42 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:55.770 sometimes the obvious solution is gonna work. 43 00:01:55.770 --> 00:01:57.000 That's great. 44 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.160 But oftentimes you want to go broader, right? 45 00:01:59.160 --> 00:02:02.130 You want to try to think of more ideas 46 00:02:02.130 --> 00:02:04.230 because sometimes, you know, the thing 47 00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:06.870 you're trying to solve, the solution 48 00:02:06.870 --> 00:02:09.540 you're trying to come up with is more nuanced. 49 00:02:09.540 --> 00:02:12.960 It's more complex, it's a little bit nichier 50 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.750 than the initial obvious thought, 51 00:02:15.750 --> 00:02:18.990 and a little bit more of a nuanced approach will bear fruit. 52 00:02:18.990 --> 00:02:22.350 So, that brainstorming ideation process, 53 00:02:22.350 --> 00:02:25.830 which can only happen after empathy, can take some time. 54 00:02:25.830 --> 00:02:29.430 And then, finally, you can do the last part, 55 00:02:29.430 --> 00:02:31.170 which is really broken into multiple parts, 56 00:02:31.170 --> 00:02:33.510 but, you know, just for structural purposes 57 00:02:33.510 --> 00:02:35.730 you can think of these three parts, 58 00:02:35.730 --> 00:02:39.390 the last bit being, prototyping, experimenting, 59 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:40.650 and incrementing. 60 00:02:40.650 --> 00:02:42.840 So, you know, you came up with an idea 61 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:44.820 based on your empathetic approach 62 00:02:44.820 --> 00:02:46.620 to your thoughts about your audience. 63 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:48.989 You think this thing is gonna work. 64 00:02:48.989 --> 00:02:51.480 You do a quick prototype of it, as quick 65 00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:54.450 and simple as you possibly can, and then you test it. 66 00:02:54.450 --> 00:02:56.250 You try to see if it works for your audience, 67 00:02:56.250 --> 00:02:57.900 and if it does, fantastic. 68 00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:00.631 If it doesn't, then you incrementally improve it 69 00:03:00.631 --> 00:03:03.450 until it delivers what they need. 70 00:03:03.450 --> 00:03:06.000 And the incrementing also can happen, 71 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:07.680 not just to solve the problem, 72 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:10.440 but to continue to iterate and make the solution 73 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:12.810 better and better and better over time. 74 00:03:12.810 --> 00:03:15.630 So, that's the basic idea of design thinking, 75 00:03:15.630 --> 00:03:19.290 those three parts, but it's really important to acknowledge 76 00:03:19.290 --> 00:03:22.530 that design thinking requires curiosity. 77 00:03:22.530 --> 00:03:26.250 It requires that you approach problem-solving 78 00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:30.690 with a curious mind, and that you're there to ask questions. 79 00:03:30.690 --> 00:03:34.200 You don't come in with the idea to answer questions. 80 00:03:34.200 --> 00:03:36.270 You don't come in with the idea to solve problems 81 00:03:36.270 --> 00:03:37.620 from the get-go. 82 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:39.870 Your first task is to ask a lot of questions. 83 00:03:39.870 --> 00:03:42.150 It's only through questions that you can get 84 00:03:42.150 --> 00:03:44.520 to the actual solutions that are gonna make sense. 85 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:47.279 And so, it's really about critical thinking, right? 86 00:03:47.279 --> 00:03:49.727 So, you're gonna solve a problem. 87 00:03:49.727 --> 00:03:52.200 You gotta understand that problem deeply. 88 00:03:52.200 --> 00:03:53.820 You gotta understand your audience. 89 00:03:53.820 --> 00:03:55.740 You gotta understand what they really need 90 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:57.420 and not just the surface level things 91 00:03:57.420 --> 00:03:59.100 that they think that they need, 92 00:03:59.100 --> 00:04:03.060 and critically, essentially break all that down, 93 00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:06.720 piece by piece by piece, nuance by nuance, 94 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:09.240 and eventually you get to the real underlying problem. 95 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:11.550 Like I mentioned before, it's sort of like therapy, 96 00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:14.070 at which point you can actually start 97 00:04:14.070 --> 00:04:15.510 to come up with solutions. 98 00:04:15.510 --> 00:04:18.004 So, we talked about this during data analytics, 99 00:04:18.004 --> 00:04:20.490 the five why's from Toyota, 100 00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:23.190 one of the ways you can get to that underlying 101 00:04:23.190 --> 00:04:26.220 real need in a design process. 102 00:04:26.220 --> 00:04:27.960 And, by the way, the word design, you know, 103 00:04:27.960 --> 00:04:29.310 it's not about making things pretty. 104 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:30.510 It's about problem-solving. 105 00:04:30.510 --> 00:04:32.700 That's literally what design is. 106 00:04:32.700 --> 00:04:37.380 So, the entire goal is to really just shift your mindset, 107 00:04:37.380 --> 00:04:39.150 come at problem-solving 108 00:04:39.150 --> 00:04:41.700 and that's what data storytelling is. 109 00:04:41.700 --> 00:04:42.750 It's problem solving, right? 110 00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:44.730 We've looked at data for a reason. 111 00:04:44.730 --> 00:04:46.740 We're trying to understand why something is happening. 112 00:04:46.740 --> 00:04:48.000 We're trying to change things. 113 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:49.110 We're trying to find a solution. 114 00:04:49.110 --> 00:04:52.274 We're trying to, you know, solve some sort of a problem, 115 00:04:52.274 --> 00:04:54.570 and the only way to do that is to shift your mindset 116 00:04:54.570 --> 00:04:59.520 into this user human oriented approach. 117 00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:03.630 Design, you know, solutions, think broadly about them 118 00:05:03.630 --> 00:05:06.270 and then test and iterate, test and iterate, 119 00:05:06.270 --> 00:05:07.680 test and iterate. 120 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:10.980 Don't assume that, oh, you know, someone asked me 121 00:05:10.980 --> 00:05:13.350 for some data, I'm gonna throw it together in dashboard. 122 00:05:13.350 --> 00:05:14.760 Boom, I'm done. 123 00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:16.110 Just doesn't work that way. 124 00:05:16.110 --> 00:05:17.550 Think differently about it. 125 00:05:17.550 --> 00:05:19.380 And one of the best pieces of advice I can give you 126 00:05:19.380 --> 00:05:21.180 is to embrace the creative process. 127 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:25.260 So, this little illustration here is a visualization 128 00:05:25.260 --> 00:05:26.520 of the creative process. 129 00:05:26.520 --> 00:05:30.420 You start on the left and you start going around 130 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:32.040 and it goes around and around and around 131 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:33.030 and it gets kind of crazy, 132 00:05:33.030 --> 00:05:34.680 and, like, you get a little bit overwhelmed. 133 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:36.112 You're trying to do too many things at once. 134 00:05:36.112 --> 00:05:40.890 Eventually, you start to hone in, and eventually you end up 135 00:05:40.890 --> 00:05:43.200 at the other end with a nice straight line, 136 00:05:43.200 --> 00:05:46.560 a nice solution to the problem, but it can get messy. 137 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:49.830 It can be ugly and confusing during the process, 138 00:05:49.830 --> 00:05:51.060 but embrace it. 139 00:05:51.060 --> 00:05:55.020 Be okay with that expanding out into the craziness 140 00:05:55.020 --> 00:05:57.660 and then narrowing in to the final solution. 141 00:05:57.660 --> 00:06:01.350 It's gonna be overwhelming during that process. 142 00:06:01.350 --> 00:06:03.480 Allow that to happen. 143 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:05.850 And you're gonna experience this during this class 144 00:06:05.850 --> 00:06:07.800 as you explore your data. 145 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:10.050 That's gonna get crazy and overwhelming at times, 146 00:06:10.050 --> 00:06:12.540 as you think about what charts to use 147 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:14.880 and all the other things we're gonna do during this process. 148 00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:16.620 So, don't be overwhelmed. 149 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:17.770 Don't freak out. 150 00:06:17.770 --> 00:06:18.990 Embrace it. 151 00:06:18.990 --> 00:06:22.050 Just live through it and I promise you'll come out 152 00:06:22.050 --> 00:06:23.370 the other side with a final product 153 00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:24.670 that you'll be happy with.