Other design activities we've tried

Alongside the design activities being presented in lecture, our team has tried out some additional activities over the course of the past few weeks:

Pinterest board

• Intended to be used as an image or mood board. Our team has used it as a source of design inspiration, and to explore existing products.

Parallel Prototyping

• We tested out multiple concepts concurrently during the bodystorming activity in Week 5. To do so we made paper/cardboard prototypes to act out scenarios, as well as explain concepts to other team members.
• Later on we also used paper prototypes to explain our concepts to users during the user evaluation phase. We found that having something 3D in front of a person was much more effective than simply communicating our idea verbally, or just asking someone to read about it on a concept card.
• All in all, we made paper/cardboard prototypes for four of our concepts, excluding the final prototype for Pirate Ship: 'Grid It', 'Asobu Box', 'Pirate Ship' (paper version), and 'Barnyard Bounce'.

Design Studio Methodology

• See our previous blog post
• Based on a workshop conducted at a UX BNE meetup. More information on the method available here.
• Intended as an iterative way to generate, present and refine ideas by combining group and individual brainstorming in one session.
• Structure of the method (we ended up altering the time and structure for our own purposes)
• 5 minutes individual idea generation
• 3 minutes presenting ideas to a group and refining them through group discussion
• 5 minutes individual idea generation, this time borrowing from concepts that have been presented in the previous group discussion.
• Pros of using this method:
• Allows for cross-pollination of ideas without tendency towards group-think (one person within a group dominating a discussion)
• Fast & flexible method
• Allows team members who have different modes of expression to present their ideas. A team member who is a highly verbal thinker can present their ideas in the group discussion, while a team member who works better by internally going through thoughts in their heads first can take some time to do this before contributing their ideas.

Designing4Kids' Experience with Bodystorming

This week saw our team using bodystorming to present one of our concepts in Thursday's workshop. It was definitely an interesting experience (to say the least), but I think it helped us to consider a number of issues/problems with the design of some of our concepts.

We initially had three different concepts we were considering for the bodystorm: Grid It, Asobu Box, and Barnyard Bounce. Since we haven't gone through a specific concept selection process yet, we decided to quickly chart the concepts against a number of different factors to help us decide on an appropriate concept to present (e.g. How easily can we bodystorm it? What materials/props do we need to aid us?)

At the end of this however, we still remained a little undecided over which concept to choose. We decided to quickly bodystorm through all three, as we had props for both Barnyard Bounce and Asobu Box already made. Grid It just required some tape.

Props for Asobu Box 

Props for Asobu Box

Props for Barnyard Bounce

Although we started off intending to quickly bodystorm each concept just as a way to choose a concept to present, going through each in this way helped to flag a couple of additional issues we probably would have overlooked. Ultimately (and rather ironically), I think our indecision over which concept to brainstorm helped us to refine a greater range of ideas even more than we would have otherwise done. Some of the concepts were ones which we hadn't revisited in a while, and having to go back to them by acting them out tested how self-explanatory some of them were/were not.

Alongside this, I am currently reading a handbook called 'Universal Methods of Design' - a sort of reference book that summarises 100 commonly used research and design methods - and I came across a section on bodystorming. I thought it would be interesting to finish this post by using the information in this reference book to reflect on how we can further use the bodystorming activity to develop our concepts, and where it sits within the design process.

The section describes bodystorming as:

"...physical brainstorming [emphasis mine] - dynamic, experiential, and generative - situated in methods of informance...combining active role-play with simple prototypes."

The book situates bodystorming as part of "Stage 3" of the design process (Concept Generation and Early Prototype Iteration), and describes it as a 'generative' activity opposed to more exploratory or evaluative design activities. An interesting point the book raised in relation to this, is that unlike traditional role-playing activities which encourage empathy with the user by putting yourself in their shoes, bodystorming is more about encouraging active design ideation, concept generation and potentially testing of these ideas. The latter part of this definitely happened during our bodystorming process - we encountered a number of problems as we acted out each concept, which required us to alter the concept and re-bodystorm it, which led to another problem that required altering, and so on and so forth.

The section finishes by describing "well-executed" bodystorming as:

"[capturing] a realistic scenario of use through immersive acting in a simulated context, and the process is seamlessly empathic."

Building on all of these things, there are a couple of points our team can consider as we move forward into the refining, testing and evaluation stages of the design process.

•  Although we had to keep making changes to our concept and starting over every time we acted them out, this is part and parcel of generating ideas, and to an extent we should encourage going over some of our older ideas using a different lens/activity (i.e. not just discussing them, but acting them out etc).
• We need to continue to situate our designs (and redesigns) within a context of use, and then use activities like bodystorming to test out the feasibility of these scenarios.

Other outputs generated from the process:

• Discussed the possibility of organising a group outing to actually try out our concept on a trampoline, as a way to test out the safety of the product. This way we can answer back something concrete when anyone questions us on the safety of our Barnyard Bounce concept in the future.

Concept Selection

Concept selection is seen as filtering projects in a rational way based on the Project Design Specifications.

Initially we screened all the concepts developed to eliminate those that were not feasible or did not meet the all of the brief criteria and got 6 main concepts out of 21 ideas:

• Barnyard Bounce
• Balance It
• Hooping Around
• Pin the Pixels
• Asobu Box
• Grid it

In order to make concept selections, we will need a weighted method of analysis. This involves selecting criteria. It is essential that the criteria chosen are unambiguous, understood and accepted by all participants in the evaluation. Once the decision criteria are selected, several approaches can be used to evaluate concepts. We will be using a Decision Matrix. 

Decision Matrix (Weighted Pugh Method) 

- Qualitative & Quantitative

While the Pugh Method was originally purely qualitative, people have since added weighting to include a quantitative element. This method is simple and easy to use and understand and in terms of design, gives us a more visual approach to concept comparison when including product sketches.

The Pugh Matrix is also useful for the design process, as it can aid in improving a concept and refining designs. This is also considered in the method outlined below.

Method:

One concept is chosen as a “datum” (reference). An existing product is usually chosen as a first datum, but if all none exists or all concepts were developed internally, the first datum is usually the concept that the team is drawn to and intuitively chose as the ‘best’. 

Different alternative solutions are compared to the datum and then rated better (+) 

worse (-), or the same (S or 0) on each chosen criteria.

Converge Consulting Group (2011)

Dr Matthew Turner (2010) states that after the comparison, the following should be done:

1) Assess the individual concept scores. Certain concepts will exhibit exceptional strengths, while others will show weakness.

2) Look at the negatives of the strong concepts – 

What do you need to do to the design to improve it and reverse the negative?
Is it possible at all?
If so, in achieving the improvement and reversal, do you in fact reverse one or more of the existing positives?

If it is possible to introduce a modified concept into the matrix do so, do NOT just modify the one you have got and leave it there, as you may wish to go back to it later. This expands the matrix. 

3) Look at the weak concepts and attack their negatives to see whether they can be improved upon (relative to the datum concept – not to some elusive absolute). If they can be improved and other positives are not reversed in so doing, then introduce the revised concepts into the matrix. Eliminate the weak concepts.

4) Repeat the process until you have made a decision or changed a concept that meets the brief and criteria best.

References:

Turner, M 2010. Decision Tools (Lecture Notes). University of Alabama in Huntsville, [available online], accessed 08/04/2014 url:

http://matthewwturner.com/uah/IPT2010_spring/lectures_videos/06_Decision_Analysis.pdf 

Converge Consulting Group, 2011.Evaluative Decision Tools, [online], accessed 08/04/2014.  http://advmgmt.net/2011/06/09/evaluative-tools-techniques/  

Meeting 7 April 2014

Minutes

Design Thinking Group Meeting - 7 April 2014

All members present

Agenda:
1) Personas2) Individual Concept discussion3) Concept map4) Body storming

Desired Outcomes
Concept map 

20+ concepts

1) Personas

• Secondary Personas to be developed this week

• Final personas posted to blog by Mon 14/04

2) Individual concept discussion

• Each member presented the concepts they worked on during the week. 

• Concept cards to be posted on blog before Mon 14/04

3) Concept map
All concepts were placed on a concept map (to be posted by Fri 11/04)

4) Body Storming
We did a main sweep of all concepts to narrow down to most feasible concepts based on project brief.
Top 6 concepts were defined as

• Barnyard Bounce

• Balance It

• Hooping Around

• Pin the Pixels

• Grid It

• Asobu Box

Team meeting Thurs 9am to body storm top idea


To be done
Before Friday 11/04:
Concept map up on blog

Before Mon 14/04:
Concept cards and final personas on blog

Before Thurs 17/04:
Journal entry

"Balance It!"

"Balance It!" concept card

Design Sprint - Concept Card for Balance It

Concept Card for Balance It!