Design Thinking Final Reflection

Design thinking is the process of understanding a problem: why it occurs and what needs to be done in order to solve it. Its end goal is to curate a solution for a specific group of users, and as such, multiple factors of the problem need to be understood. What are the assumptions that lie around the problem? Who is affected by the problem? What are the main causes of the problem? What else is connected to the problem? Who will this solution be targeted towards? All of these questions, and more, need to be answered in order to properly design an effective solution.

Systems thinking is a subset of design thinking. In general, it is understanding all the interactions and connections that make up a system. When I first started this class, I believed that systems thinking was simply identifying a problem and then finding a solution. However, during these past few weeks, I realized that it is much more than that. The first step of systems thinking is identifying a problem that a group of individuals face and making sure that they would like it to be solved. There have been cases where designers will “find” a problem and design a solution to it, and afterwards, realize that no one is actually interested in their final product. This occurs because they did not actually talk to members of the community that they are seeking to serve, and it shows how important the research component of design thinking is. While researching, it is important to do both primary and secondary desk research (complete basic research and then delve deeper into it). This research is then used to create models that help visualize the flow of data and to understand the connections between different data points. Below are the rough and final drafts of model that I created with information on how humans can reduce the usage of plastic:

Designers also need to ensure that they are interviewing and observing members of the community in order to understand their needs and components of daily life such as socio-economic background, culture, morals, values, religion, and anything else that could impact their current behavior and motivating factors. This allows designers to observe how different factors and systems interact to create the bigger picture as well as focus on small details. For example, while working on a project for Air New Zealand, members of the IDEO team actually traveled on the same flights as customers. They interacted closely with and learned about the customers’ opinions about the airplane and service onboard the flight. As a result, the IDEO team was able to accurately identify consumer pain-points and create new plane designs that effectively revamped the cabin and service designs. There is great value and strength to design research, since by delving deep into the lifestyle of the community that your product is geared towards, a designer is properly able to understand their needs and desires. Therefore, the final product is more likely to be one that solves a valid problem in a manner that is respected by the prospective clients, and as a result, will be more efficient in solving the problem along with being more successful in terms of sales and profits. It is important to remember that the steps that make up systems thinking are not done once and then completed: they may have to be done repeatedly until a final solution is found.

An important part of this process is design research. I have used systems thinking and design research throughout the work I have done for our group project in class. At first, I made the mistake of trying to find a solution for food insecurity without fully understanding the problem or the needs of various communities who are facing food insecurity. I was entirely focused on trying to figure out how to directly connect farmers to customers. I thought that this would help reduce the costs of fresh produce and therefore decrease food insecurity, but this was a conclusion that I had come to without doing any basic research or speaking to individuals who face food insecurity. I had failed to properly utilize systems thinking, and after realizing this, I put my ideas aside and focused on completing my desk research in order to better understand the causes of food insecurity, current solutions to food insecurity, and issues that are a result of food insecurity. The desk research helped me learn about how covid and inflation have caused food insecurity to increase, the benefits of urban and community gardens, and solutions that various nonprofit organizations and companies have used to combat food insecurity. One solution that I found particularly fascinating is the combination of programs that City Harvest has created. They cover multiple aspects of the food industry (food rescue, nutrition education, mobile markets, an app to help people find food, and collaborations with supermarkets) to ensure that more people can have access to fresh, healthy produce. Here is an image of some of the notes from my desk research:

After completing my desk research, I moved on to the next step in the design research process: interviews. I decided to interview multiple experts, in this case, professors that specialize in food studies and nutrition, in order to understand their views on various facets of food insecurity. Something surprising that I learned is that these experts believe that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, and the main problem is the unequal distribution of food and money. A key takeaway from my research is that although urban and community gardens can be effective in reducing food insecurity in small communities, they are not very popular right now. This made me wonder, how can we increase the usage of urban and community gardens in order to help people gain access to fresh produce? What are the potential benefits and barriers of doing so? Specifically, through one of the interviews, I learned that expecting people to give up living space for gardens is impractical, especially in NYC, where high rent and housing shortages are common. Does this mean that it would be better to design a product that could be used to grow fresh produce at home? Would people even be interested in such a product, considering that it would be highly time intensive? Here is an image of some of the data I collected on this topic, as well as an image of how I incorporated it as part of my individual synthesis model:

Another key takeaway from the interviews is that nutritional education is extremely important while trying to combat food insecurity. Many people do not understand the importance of eating nutritional food. Even if they do understand, a lack of budget means that they will prefer food that is filling over food that is healthy. This completely makes sense: there’s no time for someone to worry about what kind of food they’re eating if they don’t know if they’ll be able to get food in the first place. However, my interview with Professor Hannah Husby made me realize that education on how to prepare healthy food and prevent medical issues such as diabetes through good nutrition is extremely important. She believes that eliminating the stigma around food insecurity and teaching those who face food insecurity how to choose healthy produce and create healthy meals is vital in trying to reduce food insecurity. This brings me to another question: how might we educate people on healthy cooking and eating while taking cultural differences into account? People with different backgrounds desire different meals, and even if a meal is “healthy,” if it is something that they do not desire, it is unlikely that they will eat it. I have experienced this myself after coming to NYU. The only healthy food I can find at the dining halls are the vegetables at the salad bar. However, at home, I am used to eating cooked and seasoned vegetables. Although I know I should eat the vegetables from the salad bar, oftentimes, I simply don’t feel like it because they do not appeal to me. Similarly, if someone who is facing food insecurity is asked to eat specific types of meals that do not relate to their cultural background, it will not be effective. Here is an image of some of the current data I have on this topic, as well as an image of how I incorporated it as part of my individual synthesis model:

Overall, the research and interview process has opened my eyes to multiple facets of food insecurity that I had never even considered previously. Below is an image of the process map that I created with all of my data (a clearer version can be seen on Miro):

Afterwards, during ideation and solution exploration, I learned that the different perspectives my teammates and I had made it hard for us to agree on one solution. One was focused on bulk buying, another one on farmers’ markers and CSA (community supported agriculture) alternatives, and I was interested in designing a solution that was related to urban agriculture and community gardens. We all had multiple ideas, but we also had to figure out if they were the right solutions. Were the ideas feasible? Were they solving the solution in a way that would benefit the intended users? It was difficult to talk through our ideas and find one that we thought would work best, since everyone had different opinions. We had to run through a large number of ideas and merge aspects of each that we thought worked best. At the end, we decided to create a delivery app that provided fresh produce boxes from farmers and sent them straight to the consumers’ doorstep. Here is an image from our ideation process on Miro:

The next step was prototyping and testing. Our original product prototype was a produce box. The people who agreed to test the prototype for us paid $25 dollars to receive a bag of fresh produce that we would then deliver to their house. We scheduled the delivery times with them in advance. However, they were not able to choose the produce that was in the box, which we later learned would be a problem. After receiving kohlrabi in their produce boxes, many of them were disgruntled and unsure of what to do with it. As a result, a lot of the kohlrabi was thrown away, leading to a loss of produce and money. Afterwards, we thought that we should only include common items in our produce boxes. But how do we define a “common” fruit or vegetable? Something that is known by one person may be new to another. As such, we decided to add a feature to our delivery app. The new app would have a chat and recipe feature, where consumers would speak to one another and share recipes. Through this, they would be able to meet new people and bond as a community, as well as learn new recipes to try. Through this process, I realized that designers and their prototypes have to be adaptable and willing to evolve. This way, as designers learn more about the impressions of their product and the pain points that consumers run into, they can focus on fixing them and improving the product. It is especially important to conduct multiple rounds of prototyping and testing so that designers can get the opinions of multiple groups/types of people. Here is an image of a slide from our final presentation which shows the physical prototypes as well as the app:

The fieldwork — from both research and prototype testing — taught me a lot about both myself and our targeted user base. While doing the fieldwork for research (the interviews) I realized that as an introvert, I needed to push myself to reach out to potential interviewees. I was worried about the exact wording of the emails I was sending out and whether or not they would make me seem inexperienced. However, I realized that although I am inexperienced, everyone has to start from somewhere. Later on, I learned a lot while conducting the interviews. Before this, I had only been an interviewee, and so I struggled to figure out what kind of questions I should be asking. In my first draft, the questions were too long or too specific, and in general, would have been extremely hard for the interviewees to answer. After receiving feedback, I was able to improve them. The answers to my new set of questions helped me understand how experts define food insecurity, what they think the causes of food insecurity are, how cultural differences impact the way families face food insecurity, and the role urban/community gardens play in combating food insecurity. Next time I conduct interviews, I want to try to ensure that I am not asking any leading questions. Although my original script did not include any leading questions, while attempting to go with the flow of the interview, I made up a few questions on the spot, and unfortunately, many of these were leading questions. I also want to try to ask more “why” questions; while I did ask my interviewees to expand on specific topics they mentioned, oftentimes, I forgot to use the actual “why” question framework. I believe that I would have received interesting information if I had simply asked “why” instead of trying to structure new questions while in the midst of the interview. Although I made some mistakes with the interviews, they were still extremely fruitful and I learned a lot from them.While doing the fieldwork for prototyping, I learned a lot about our targeted audience: young individuals in New York City. It was especially surprising to learn that many of them are extremely invested in eating healthy, nutritious food and living an active lifestyle. However, due to high prices at stores and lack of time due to schoolwork or jobs, they are often not able to eat the kinds of food that they would like to. Oftentimes, they resort to eating fast food; while it is not very nutritious, it is filling and easy to access. I also realized how hard it is to test a prototype: carrying the boxes around New York City in order to deliver them was extremely difficult. This makes me wonder, do companies with funding run their prototypes the same way that we did or would they just hire people to do the deliveries? It likely depends on the amount of funding they have, which also speaks on the tenacity of the company founders who do things like this themselves — I believe they have a lot of faith in their product and the changes that it will make in the world. In the future, I would test a larger number and a larger variety of people. This would help me understand more viewpoints and gain more opinions about our product, which in turn would help us improve it.

Throughout the course of this project and this class as a whole, I have spent a lot of time collaborating with others. Collaboration is meant to bring together people with different skills, backgrounds, thoughts, and opinions so that we can see the problem from different perspectives. This is also incredibly important while coming up with solutions, since the diversity of thought will lead to multiple possible solutions being formed. When working with my group in class, I have enjoyed discussing and coming up with new ideas together. It has been extremely valuable being able to learn from different perspectives and to see how one problem can be interpreted in multiple ways. However, it has been challenging to meet asynchronously, and even after we decided on a weekly meeting time, our meetings often get canceled. While some of the assigned work can be done separately, I often find that doing so makes it difficult for me to synthesize new ideas and fully understand the work that my group members have finished. This has made me realize the importance of communication and the benefits of real-time collaboration. I hoped that our communication would improve after the GRPI reviews where my team and I identified areas that we did well and areas that we could improve in. Unfortunately, that did not happen. In the future, I will try to stress the importance of weekly meetings at the beginning of the project. I hope that by doing so, all the group members will understand the role they play and the advantages of spending time working together and explaining ideas within the group, as well as being able to receive constructive feedback from them.

Overall, throughout this course, I have learned and grown a lot. The biggest shift in my thinking is that I have realized how much thought goes into the creation of a product. Previously, I thought that people just came up with a product idea one day and then decided to make and sell it. I never realized that all products are designed to solve a specific problem, or that the word “problem” could have such a broad definition. A problem can be a serious topic such as food insecurity or a more lighthearted one such as having boring toys, but what both have in common is that they can be solved by a proper design. The biggest challenge I faced in this course was getting rid of my own assumptions. My previous knowledge on food insecurity and those affected by it inhibited my progress, since I thought I knew more than I actually did. As a result, many of my original interview questions were leading questions, and were meant to prove points that I have already thought of. I was able to overcome this challenge through feedback in class about my questions and how to improve them. Receiving constructive criticism was extremely helpful since it helped me build on the work that I had already done. In the future, I would approach this problem in the same way: I would ask a mentor, professor, or peer to review my work and point out changes any assumptions that I might have had and let me know about changes that they think I could make. On the other hand, the biggest success that I had was becoming more comfortable with speaking to and in front of strangers. Conducting the interviews was originally difficult, but I gradually became more and more comfortable speaking to the professors about myself and my work. At the end of the course, I was only a little nervous while giving the final presentation, and I believe that I was able to express details about parts of my group’s journey well. Finally, my key takeaway from the work throughout this course is that I should begin all of my projects with a student’s mindset. By doing this, I will be able to start researching from scratch, without biases and assumptions. As a result, I will be able to get a clearer understanding of the problem as well as the humans who interact with it. I believe that the beginning of the project is especially important in determining the direction that it will move in, and maintaining a student’s mindset will allow me to move towards creating a solution that will benefit and improve the lives of the intended users.

In conclusion, so far in class I feel that I have been able to improve my understanding of both design thinking and systems thinking. I have used both of these processes throughout the course of my group project, and I look forward to using it again in the future regarding a problem that is related to environmental science. I believe that I will be able to use everything that I have learned throughout my career as well, and after having gone through the process once, I will be able to do it again with a good outcome.