Round 2: Conceptual Blockbusting
During an in-class activity, the class was asked to split up into groups to use conceptual blockbusting to think about how we would tackle our semester-long design project. We were asked to view the problem from a variety of stakeholders’ perspectives. Going through this process really helped our group identify many different problems and opportunities that we weren’t thinking of before we did the exercise. It helped us challenge our ideas and assumptions about different groups of people. It also helped push us out of our knee-jerk reactions and made us think about the root of the problem.
We saw many connections and overlap within the goals and problems for the different groups. We were able to identify competing goals, but also goals that worked well for all of the groups. Some of the questions were difficult to answer based on the information we had, but we made note of those questions to ask our client in the future. This was helpful for looking at information gaps within the problem space.
After we finished the exercise, we talked about how the experience went. I was glad to hear that our group wasn’t the only one that felt overwhelmed. There is some much to think about and consider when designing a project of this scope. Stacie shared a technique that we could use to help use focus in on a particular problem after exhausting the questions about each group. The technique starts with identifying the users and perspective, after that narrowing in a specific problem, then defining the current level of knowledge that the user has, and finally thinking about the knowledge and skills that the user may need to address their initial problem.
