Helping user to improve their experience in storage areas for better organizing storage
Hello all, I’m Omkar Raut.
I will take you through the Design thinking project guided by UX Anudeep. This project was mainly focused to understand the design thinking process. How to approach while solving problems and what are the important factors necessary to consider while solving problem. We were made to think like designer by following the design thinking principles. It was really great to have these principles learnt in practical approach than textbook manner. So what is design thinking.? lets get onto it!!!
What is Design Thinking ?
The design thinking process is defined as per the interaction design foundation
“Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test”
What does it means? It means that we take into consideration users and problems which they are facing by having conversation with them getting inputs from them and understanding their pain points. Then defining problems based on scope of business, which will solve the users problems. And will bring better experience for users. Ideating solutions on the defined problems. Testing the solutions with the users and getting feedback from them. This is the iterative process which is a continuous process as the behavior of users changes by the time.
So here are the stages which we use to define design thinking process
Now you got the idea about design thinking lets get back to project which I worked on. For our design thinking project we were given several areas in house to select, there were 11 areas to pick from and applying design thinking process to make the experience better in that specific area for the users.
I selected storage areas as my topic for Design thinking project, we were advised by Anudeep to select the topic to which you are not familiar with.
Or select a topic which is out of comfort zone to solve the problem. For me it was storage areas so I decided to work on the problems faced by users in this area and enhancing their experience w.r.t this area.
Empathizing User :- Understanding what users have to say !
It is really important how you interact with user and get the details from user. One needs to be good listener to be able to understand what user is trying to tell, understanding users pain points. Here I framed questions around the storage areas or how user will interact with storage areas. I tried to be as conversational as I can so that users will feel comfortable to have a conversation with me and can share their problems without hesitation. Below are the question which I asked them by converting into conversation or based on their usage of storage areas.
After interviewing all my users I noted down all the problems which users are facing. And at this point you will realize why it is important to have conversation with user and not directly ask the question as you will not get more information from users. So here’s to my first unlearning
“Don’t ask direct question to users to avoid yes or no answers from user”
After interviewing users I got to know their problems with respect to the storage areas, I have noted down few
There is not enough storage available to store craft and art material and it is not feasible to get the materials once stored at a place.
Not able to store books in one place and to be able to get them easily when required.
Finding it difficult to store all stationery available in the house, and when required most not able to find them easily
Kids not able to store toys at one place, even if stored at one place it is not easily accessible for them
Not sure where the important documents are stored. And not able to recognize which document is stored where
Not able to store bigger art materials like big canvases and colors used
Even if a storage room is available not able to get bigger utensils easily
Not able to find things from storage room easily as no shelf are available or things not organized in a way to be able to determine easily
All miscellaneous things like news paper, remote and other stuff available in the house is kept on flat surface available in house making it difficult to get at times
While noting down the problems I understood it is really important to know the why’s of the problems statements. As these why’s of the problems will help you in further steps and yes this was another unlearning and learning for me
“Understanding the why’s of the problem faced by the users”
So here are the why’s of the problems which my users were facing
As an artist users find it difficult to store the art materials and not getting motivation to do more art, which leads to procrastination
Kids are finding it difficult to store books and get them when required. In the end, they have to reach their mom for help.
Kids do not have space to store their toys and they have a difficult time remembering where the last time they put the toys.
It is becoming difficult to get stationary organized as no space is allocated, and they tend to be found on the floor or anywhere in the house.
Not able to store bigger canvas and colors in the house making it difficult to get them and takes extra effort to start painting
Not able to recall where and which important documents have been kept at times, which causes delay in required situations
During the festival season, not able to get those big utensils stored in the storage room easily, causing chaos in the function
Not being able to recognize which things have been kept in a storage room, making it difficult and taking more time than required to get the things
All miscellaneous stuff put on either a table or any flat surface makes it messy and becomes hard to get things from it.
Ideate stage:- Ideating | Brainstorming ideas
This is stage where you put your ideas to solve the problems. It is really important to understand what issue user are facing, and it depends on how you interview user and get insights from users. This is why listening to user is more important than asking users more questions directly.
Here we used “crazy 8” techniques to get the ideas out from our brain. I like the approach of crazy 8 technique where you take a problem and set a timer of 8 minutes and then try to put as many as solutions you get within those 8 minutes. One can try to get at least 8 ideas in 8 minutes. How vague the idea may be just represent or note is down on a paper so that it becomes easy to put down what you are thinking.
“When ideating, focus only on one problem at a time”
So after noting down all the ideas on the paper I sorted out ideas which I think are in more comprehensive manner and can solve my users problems
Creating a compartment below TV to store toys
Creating a adjustable shelf whose height can be adjusted easily
Creating a compartment below window, on which seating arrangement can be made
Creating a shelf next to the bed, having closed compartment below and open shelf above
Creating a vertical plywood and creating pockets in it to store stationery
Creating a small drawer below bed
A moving drawer which has wheels which can be placed anywhere in the house as required
In the passage area creating seating space below that creating storage compartment
A multipurpose stool which can store stationery and miscellaneous things
Creating a canvas holder vertically placed in wall
Creating a book shelf above desk at a height which can be easily reachable
Moving vertical storage in passage area
Creating a labeling system in a storage room.
Creating separate compartments based on utility of the materials in storage room
A corner table in the living room next to the couch to store miscellaneous things
Out of these 15 ideas I choose top 3 ideas and the reasons to choose them are as below
Idea 1 :- Creating a shelf whose divider height can be adjusted whenever required
By creating an adjusting divider it makes it easier to store things which can be of different heights or sizes. Without needing to create another compartment for every other need
Idea 2 :- Creating compartments in storage room based on utility of materials
It will make it easier to identify which item is placed at which location rather than looking in the whole storage room.
Idea 3 :- Vertically moving shelf
By using a vertical moving shelf we can use the ground area when the shelf is not in use.
Prototyping stage :- Creating a prototype of idea selected.
This is stage where you make prototypes of your idea which you are working on. I choose my first idea for prototyping stage. As the other two have their different significance based on the usage.
Most of my users were having the storage allocated but were not able to use the allocated storage in efficient way. Or in a way that they can organize things properly. Few of them had shelf created in the house but were not able to store different things properly, and it was left unorganized and making it difficult to get them whenever required. And as the height between compartment was fixed they were not able to place different things which have different sizes like pots, bigger canvas and books. So user will need different storages for different purposes. Which will even take more space than using the already available space. This got me thinking to have shelf whose compartment heights can be adjusted easily. Below is the prototype of my shelf which has compartment adjustable
Here I have made the wood sliders which can be removed easily and placed at any other slots available to adjust within compartment height. To adjust height one just need to pull out the plywood and place at the other slots available to customize the height within compartment. Considering my user, one of them want to store bigger canvas so he/she can easily pull out the plywood and make space of the height of which canvas is and place the canvas there. I have created a separation vertically to have more stability to the shelf, so that it can take more weight. And users will have more freedom to choose the correct in between compartment height as per their requirement.
Testing stage :- Getting feedback from users.
In this stage we test our prototype with our users. I took a call with all my users and presented my idea. And provided my reasoning for creating the product which I did to solve their problems. It is really important how you present your idea to users and explain them the reasoning so that they will be able to understand your solution. Else users will not get satisfied with the solution which you are providing.
I got the feedback from my users which really helped me to understand the various perspective while solving problems, which are as below
1 How to put the stationery in the open flat surface of plywood, they will be lost or roll up and fall down and as these are small materials they might scatter all over the compartment
2 If Shelf not in use can it be easily removed, so that the place can be used for other purposes
3 The compartments which are not in use can be made foldable to reduce the size of the shelf so that the area above/below shelf can be used for different purpose.
4 Can we have option to cover the front side if things are kept which are not visually pleasing may not look good
5 Can add the support from back to avoid things from falling backside
After getting my feedback from users I reiterated the prototype and made changes as per the suggestion. I added a closed compartment at bottom to store important document, paper and stationery so that they don’t fall and scatter. And above adjustable height of compartment to have more choices for the user to store things.
Future Scope of project
I would like to add a slider which can minimize the height of the shelf as required and the plywood can be placed accordingly in the slots available. So when a shelf is not in use we can minimize it and use the above remaining space for other purposes. The slider will be on the rigid support to be able to adjust the height of the whole shelf.
This is the end of the Design thinking project but the learning will be with me forever. It was really a new way of learning the design thinking. This way I got to learn a lot of things which are important in design process apart from the process. I have summarized my learnings from this project
First thing I learned from this is “You are not a user”, you need to think and solve the problems for the users
It is really important to understand (why’s) of the problems which users are facing. It will help to get the root cause of the problem making it easier to understand and solve the problems
It is important you listen to your users when you interview them and not make assumptions before they speak. And trying to have interviews in more conversational way so get more insights from user
It is important how you define the problem statements, if they are unclear then it makes difficult to get the solution and ideas
Don’t consult users in an interview by providing solution in interview
While ideating solutions don’t try to club the problems together
“Your imperfection is your uniqueness”
Thank you for reading till end !!!
Feedback would be appreciated. If you want to connect with me you can send me an email on rautomkar21076@gmail.com
Connect via LinkedIn :- Omkar Raut
