Ripping the Design Brief
… and diving (way to) deep
tl;dr: In which the author does a “deep dive” into the Design Brief and finally emerges smelling like a huge pile of unstructured research findings.
Guiding Question
I have set myself a design challenge. How do I know I am on the right track?
Purpose
… ask the questions that help define the right problem to solve and provide insight in how to solve it.
Week 1
I started the week re-reading Dan Nessler’s “How to apply a design thinking, HCD, UX or any creative process from scratch”.
tl;dr: 4 phases from “Don’t know” to “Do know”: Research, Synthesize, Ideate, and Implement
Dan Nessler, a participant in one of Hyper Island’s design programs, developed the tool for those involved with design challenges and projects. Nessler’ s “Double Diamond revamped” frames a challenge/project in 2 Stages — “Designing the right thing” and “Designing things right” — and 4 Phases — Research, Synthesis, Ideation, and Implementation.
The Research Phase
The phrase “Rip the Brief” stuck with me (hence, the title). I took it to mean I should explode and challenge every part of my initial Guiding Question: Redefining what current definition? Which classroom/classes ? What do I mean by school planning? Why a design challenge? What principles? What frameworks? Who am I designing for? What do I want to get out of it?
As I prepared to answer these questions, I tried to find themes and clusters of topics to shape the research I would have to do: Flipped Classroom, Constructivism, Project-Based Learning & the Purpose of Education; Agile & Lean methodologies; Design & Design Thinking; Online Writing (Best) Practices; Tools and Supports;
The next step was to “Dive” into the research;
Deep Dive
tl;dr: total immersion into the job at hand; enlightened trial & error in an environment of focused chaos — IDEO
IDEO, a global design firm that takes “a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations” demonstrates its process for innovation in a 1999 episode of ABC’s late-night news show Nightline. The show, titled “The Deep Dive”, concentrated on IDEO’s design process as a team brainstormed, researched, and prototyped a new shopping cart design that went from an idea to a working model in four days.
Unfortunately, I dove a bit too “Deeply”. Ended up way down the Rabbit Hole. Consequently, I ran out of time to write. Dan Nessler suggested that “you might have to limit yourself in terms of the scope you want to research”. Yeah, I guess so.
Lesson (hopefully) learned.
Retrospective
Keep
T: Purpose; Retrospective.
Drop
P: 1 concept a day.
Add/Change
T: a project Backlog.
T: having a hard copy helps.
P: a writing partner, to keep me on track.
Commit
P: better job of “scoping” the weeks work.
P: Time-boxed research, tl;dr and summary; End each session with KDAC.
Next Steps
Reporting Week 1 findings.
Discover Who; Who am I designing for? What do I want to get out of it?
