Design Thinking for Everyday Life
Who says we can only use it in the workplace? The story of how I utilized this framework to solve my everyday problem (and you can do it too!).
Design thinking is a framework for creative problem solving that first introduced by IDEO. In their page, IDEO mentioned about how Design Thinking can transform the way organizations develop products — which I agree — but not only that:
I also think that utilizing this framework in our everyday problems could also lead to fruitful results: make our lives ̵m̵o̵r̵e̵ ̵a̵g̵i̵l̵e̵ better in general.
Here comes my story:
I start working at a retail company which focused on empowering micro-scale business with better management and technology as UX Researcher. I was very enthusiastic back then: knowing that I would not only do my work, but also helped transforming the grass-root.
Unexpectedly, a month after I start working there, I feel more tired than ever. I wonder what’s wrong with my self, what’s wrong with this new workplace. Is it my job? Is it my coworkers? Is it the rules? I couldn’t know the answer in an instant, and that’s how I start thinking in the way designers think: using Design Thinking — but also in everyday life.
1. Empathize
Before I jump into the conclusion about what’s wrong, I need to empathize to myself more to understand what was I really feeling, also when and where did I felt it more intense.
And turned out, it was…
…happening especially in the morning, when I just woke up and tried to get out of the bed. I felt that it’s not only very hard for me to wake up, but also I frequently got sudden bad mood, fatigue, and loss of interest.
2. Define
In this phase, after I tried to understand my feeling, I made a list of possible causes to figure out what my problem really is. For example:
- I sleep late the night before
- Lack of exercise
- I hate meeting my coworker
- Or… Gue emang mo rebahan aja sih lol (I just want a lazy-day anyway)
Until I realize that what made me really tired is the thought of having to commute from Tebet to my work in Kebayoran Baru. The distance (8.9 km) is not a big deal, actually, but the traffic-craziness is the real deal.
I used to take the Transjakarta bus from Tebet-Casablanca-Patra Kuningan-Flyover Tendean-Kebayoran aaaand it was crazy, especially from Tebet to Patra Kuningan. It took a lot of my time and energy, and it’s not even a half of my way to work. But after I transit at Patra Kuningan, my emotion would be less intense because the rest of my trip will be using the flyover for Transjakarta only.
3. Ideate
After I knew the real problem, I start to brainstorm to generate as many ideas as possible. The mistakes we often do is jump into ideation process and skip the phase 1 and 2 (empathize and define), hence the problem is never really solved as well. For this phase, I threw these ideas:
- Move and rent other room closer to my work
- Search for other work closer to my rent room (it’s ridiculous but I swear I love my rent room this much)
- Using Gojek/Grab bike instead of Transjakarta
4. Prototype
I choose the last idea: using Gojek/Grab to went to my work because I thought I could arrive at work faster and I didn’t have to worry about not having a seat in Transjakarta.
Turns out I was wrong about it. I still felt lazy to go to my work even after several times using Gojek/Grab. What I got is just higher cost (around 7x more costly than using Transjakarta). And I got rejected a lot from the drivers because they didn’t like the distance and route.
Also, I’m still tired because I still experience the traffic-craziness, even more actual, because you know — uh, motorcycle vs motorcycle thing. I said “f*ck you guys!” multiple times on my way work everytime there’s other vehicle which almost hit my leg.
This-does-not-work. So I need to came out with better idea — and better plan. Then, I started making a plan to combine both Gojek/Grab and Transjakarta to make it cheaper and faster.
The route I made: go with Grab/Gojek from Tebet to Patra Kuningan. From there, I’d take a bus which use the Flyover Tendean. My expectation was to get less affected by the traffic even though the traffic will always be there.
5. Test
The next day, I tested myself to take a route that I’ve made, and…
Yay, I can finally woke up feeling light and easy!
Firstly, it’s easy to get driver without being rejected because the distance from my rent room to Patra Kuningan is quite close.
Secondly, save a lot of time because I could arrive at Patra Kuningan faster and Flyover Tendean doesn’t have any traffic (or even any vehicle other than Transjakarta) at all.
Third, it’s quite expensive than taking a Transjakarta only but far more cheaper than using Gojek/Grab only.
The idea works well until now becauseI’m still using this method to go to my work. Never I use another method since then.
Overall, I was happy to solve my problem by using Design Thinking framework. Will you try to use this framework for your everyday life as well? 😉
