Design thinking | Hyper Island
“How might we improve the gift giving experience?” An exercise in design thinking.
Design thinking is an iterative, human-centered approach for innovation and problem solving. “How might we…” (HMW) is a design thinking technique for brainstorming new ideas. By using these methods we will look for ways to improve the experience of giving gifts. This challenge originates from Stanford d.school and is a project they developed to quickly introduce people to the cycle of design thinking.
The 5 stages of design thinking
Although the stages are lined up, the process is not linear. You always start by empathizing with the user, but after that the process can switch back and forth between all stages depending on the findings and feedback you get from the users. It is an iterative process until you have reached a product or service that fulfills all the user needs you have identified during the process.
1. Empathize: Understanding the user
Empathy is essential to the design thinking process. It allows us to step outside our own assumptions and gain insight and understanding of the actual needs of the user. To do this we gather information by talking to and observing the actual users of the product/service. Only by doing this can we uncover what the real problem is with an existing product/service or find out what the needs are in regards to a new product or service.
2. Define the problem or possibly an opportunity
During this phase, we gather all the info we collected during the first phase (both qualitative and quantitative data). Then we begin synthesizing and analyzing the data. We look for patterns and common themes to see if there are any challenges or needs that keeps popping up. Based on these findings we formulate one or several problem statement(s) that we will address in the next phases. All of the statements needs to be from the users perspective.
3. Ideate: Generating ideas
Now that we understand the user and have the problem statements we can start generating ideas for possible solutions. This is a judgement free stage phase where we try to look at the problem from many perspectives. No ideas are wrong at this point. There are a lot of techniques to quickly generate ideas. Here are some examples: https://www.innovationchampions.com.au
Before entering the next stage we need to narrow down the best ideas. This is done by using various selection methods, some of which are explained here: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-3-in-the-design-thinking-process-ideate
4. Prototyping
In this phase, we create a mock ups of the ideas using a simple drawing, a paper mock or a digital mock up. The point is that at this stage it should be very simple and focus on the functionality and not the design. This can then be tested on a sample of the intended users.
5. Testing / iterating / refining
This is when the prototype will be tested on a selection of real users to see how well or not well the solution is working. Although this is the final stage, we can still discover problems that could cause us to go back to one of the earlier stages of the process to refine the product further.
How might we (HMW)
This technique is often used in the 3rd stage. Its a way to frame questions to launch a brainstorming session. It sparks creativity and opens up for opportunities by emphasizing that there can be many different solutions to the problem. Here is a detailed explanation of the HMW method from the Board of innovation:
Assignment: How might we improve the gift giving experience?
This was a short exercise, so we went through all the steps quite fast.
1. Emphasize: Interview (5 min)
To gain insight and understanding we started by interviewing a peer about a gift giving experience they had. My peer told me about a time he got a piece of wood with a nice smell, from a girl when traveling. He brought it with him on his travels and whenever he smelled the wood, it reminded him of both the girl and the place he visited.
2. Define the problem or opportunity (10 min)
Insight: Smell reminds the user of an experience or a person.
As I didn't uncover any problems with the experience, I decided to frame this as an opportunity using the “How Might We…(HMW)” format mentioned earlier. A properly framed “How Might We” doesn’t suggest a particular solution, but gives you the perfect frame for innovative thinking. So my statement then became:
How might we use the insight that objects affect our senses (smell, hearing, taste, sight, touch), as a way to improve the gift giving experience?
3. Ideate (15 min)
Framing it as a HMW statement gave me enough of a creative spark to come up with the following idea:
Create an app where the receiver can list a specified number of tastes, smells, sounds, sights and textures that reminds them of something or someone good. Next time they have a birthday, wedding etc., and a friend asks them what sort of gifts they would like, they can send the buyer a generated list of words that trigger their own senses and memories.The gift buyer can then choose to either use the list as an inspiration when going gift shopping or they can let the app generate gift ideas based on the words listed.
This will give the buyer freedom and inspiration when deciding what to buy, while at the same time they can be quite sure the receiver will appreciate the gift because of the connection to their memories. The receiver will hopefully also be more surprised by a gift bought this way, than if they had just handed over a specified wish list.
4. Prototype (20 min)
I then made a simple sketch in Whimsical just to get the basic idea across.
5. Testing (10 min)
I tested the idea on some users. The feedback I got was that the idea was quite unique, however they found it weird that the gift receiver would already have a list ready (I agree, its pretty bold). So based on this feedback I switched the process around so the gift buyer have to send the link to the gift receiver so they can fill out the words.
It was also suggested that maybe the app could include the possibility to upload images and sound. Based on this feedback I revised the prototype to include the new user flow.
Reflections
It was fun to see how, in so little time, I came up with an idea only based off a 4 minute interview. Right after the interview I felt stuck, thinking I got nothing to go on. I didn't uncover any problems, but when I realized we could also look for opportunities for innovation by using the “How might we…” statement, it really opened up my brain.
It was also nice to see how a little feedback quickly makes a difference in improving the idea. Although the idea is still basic and unfinished, the core idea seemed to trigger positive reactions, so it could definitely be developed further.
