APRIL
Monday / Tues / Wednesday / Thursday / Fri. / Saturday/Sunday
5 / 6 / 7 / 8/9
Introduction – Terry
Introduce team composition issues
Framing of issues, setting expectations for course
…something active…. [panel/debate?]
Get them thinking about design, customers, empathy… / Saturday or Sunday experience ended with social event – Jane? ?? Pam/Meg
10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15/16
building empathy 1. – Pam/Meg (form teams)
1.Additional debriefing (and putting into context) the weekend exercise.
2.Form teams
3.On this first day of “empathy skills,” we thought we could have students observe a task being done by a small group (perhaps by the teaching staff). After careful observation, they would then need to recreate this activity (or experience?). The goal of the exercise would be to help students to see how challenging it can be to observe the complexity (particularly tacit knowledge, cognitive activities, emotional experiences) of group work. This would lead into the next few classes which provide more richness around ways to understand/capture group activity.
4.The students should get an overview of methods and techniques for getting empathy that will be taught in this course as well as pointers to other “traditional” methods for field studies and user-oriented design / design practices – Terry/Uri/Meg
P&T: we think that this should include the perspective that
- design is work
- design is professional, knowledgeable work
- and that much of the work takes place in people’s heads and in communication with others
These characteristics are important for the what and how of getting empathy.
?? should some concepts about work or human activity in general be introduced?
[Their report-backs]
provide some readings (summarize)
Designers of different stripes - ??
P&T: Preparing for the transition part of the course it could be useful to discuss
- design as solving a problem (making a solution) vs design as looking for possibilities (finding a problem to a solution).
- design for a use context where the designer can be a user (e.g. shopping cart) vs design for a use context where the user has competence that the designer cannot possibly understand or learn (e.g. hospitals).
Does these distinctions matter? How? / Mentor mixer - Uri??
Form teams
Begin arranging for observations/interviews with designers
17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22/23
Observation/empathy skills – Pam/Tone??
[come with initial observation plan – review in class?]
[Get started on observation with interviewing / low tech methods]
On this second day of “empathy skills,” we propose teaching observation skills. This would flow directly from last Monday’s experience with
1.a lecture about ethnographic methods/observation skills
2.a quick exercise / more empathy skills – Pam/Tone??
[initial POV and second observation plan [review in class?]
On this third day of “empathy skills,” we propose teaching interviewing skills. This would be pretty interactive with lots of examples (from NPR, Dateline, etc.) and would include interviewing practice exercises.
Observe/interview (generally gain empathy) with designers
HOMEWORK: cameras & diaries
24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29/30
[Terry at CHI]– Pam/Tone
On this fourth day of “empathy skills,” we propose talking about methods of gaining insights from the user’s point of view. The first half of class, we propose talking about (as a large group) what was learned from the process of having people use cameras to capture their experience. What could/could not be learned? What types of things were learned from the pictures/from the interviews afterward (the point of this discussion is on the process, not the content of what was learned). We want to end this discussion with the question “What do you understand differently now about the experience of being a designer?”
For the second half of the class, we propose focusing on diaries, starting with a discussion of what the experience was like of keeping a diary, what would they do differently, then leading into a short lecture on diary techniques, what they are, what they buy you, etc. / [Terry at CHI]– Pam/Tone
In approaching these “transitions” days, we’re thinking in terms of making sense of the data/empathy collected earlier, drawing ideas from it, and also communicating insights back to users for their additional input. We see these are interwoven and would like these themes interwoven throughout the 4 “transition” days.
For the first “transitions” day, we propose a panel discussion that includes people such as:
- Jeanette Blomberg (someone who uses more traditional “data coding” techniques?)
- Don Norman?
- A “designer” chef (JeremiahTower, Wolfgang Puck, Joey Altman)
- The designer of the Watercourse Way Spa
- Someone who designs “experiences” at Disneyland
- A technologist
We have two problems with this. First, Terry mentioned that he didn’t think it was a good idea (didn’t have time to discuss). Also, Terry will be at CHI.
Observe/interview (generally gain empathy) with designers
MAY
Monday / Tues / Wednesday / Thursday / Fri. / Saturday/Sunday
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6/7
brainstorming/synthesizing - Meg??
Session on brainstorming, identifying opportunities.
Possible Speakers:
Charles Warren (IDEO) has a “How might we?” process and he might be a good person to facilitate this process.
The session might go something like
1) generate the top 10 needs (bug list) from your observations
2) turn these into “how might we?” statements
3) vote on opportunity areas (narrow down to 3-5)
4) present “rules of brainstorming” (lecture)
5) for each of the opportunity areas, spent 10 minutes brainstorming
6) use post-it note voting, vote for 3-5 of those ideas
(this then leads into prototyping, and other forms of elaboration) / [Pam in Chicago] – technology opportunities – Terry/Uri / Technology kiosks [or attach to class on Wed] – Terry/Uri??
Observe/interview (generally gain empathy) with designers
Begin synthesizing data and determining opportunities
8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13/14
prototyping – Terry/Tone??
prototype process – POV on prototyping - ??
Various ways of making and using prototypes
Something from Participatory Design
Discussion of how this is an iterative process / Pam/Meg??
On this fifth day of “empathy skills,” we propose that they class be devoted to experience prototyping.
Guest Speakers:
Ideally, we’d like Jane or Marion B. to lead this session. / [present prototype plans/ideas/initial probes]
External reviewers, food, ….- Uri/Meg??
Continue synthesizing data & developing opportunities
Begin creating “prototypes” as basis for communicating with informants
15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20/21
getting user feedback on prototypes – Terry/Tone?
HCI methods for user feedback
Participatory Design on working with users
KRISTIAN MAY BE ABLE TO HELP HERE…
Homework:
Student teams create a persona relevant for their project. / Personas – Terry??
Perhaps we could get Alan Cooper to come in and provide feedback on the personas that were created by the project teams?? What do we do with scenarios though? Maybe we should replace “storytelling” with scenarios? / Global perspective Meg/Pam
Create “prototypes” as basis for communicating with informants, get input from informants and iterate on this cycle.
22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27/28
Pam/Meg
On this forth “transitions” day, we propose that Kristian come in and do a workshop on bodystorming. / Prototyping?? Do we want anything on actually creating a thing to which users repond?? Terry/Uri??
Guest Speakers:
David Blakely (IDEO) evidently gives a great talk on prototyping, although it is fairly ME oriented.
(ASK KRISTIN, WE MAY WANT TO SWITCH BODYSTORMING AND PROTOTYPING) / Technologies for creating /illustrating, personas & scenarios
Create “prototypes” as basis for communicating with informants, get input from informants and iterate on this cycle.
JUNE
Monday / Tues / Wednesday / Thursday / Fri. / Saturday/Sunday
May 29 / May 30 / May 31 / 1 / 2 / 3/4
HOLIDAY / Storytelling OR SCENARIOS? Terry/ Meg??
Since storytelling was covered in “bootcamp,” maybe we do a deeper dive into scenarios. If so, it connects nicely with bodystorming since bodystorming is a type of scenario. / Designing for future/unknown technologies (Paul Saffo??)
AT THIS TIME OF THE QUARTER, WILL STUDENTS COME??
Create “prototypes” as basis for communicating with informants, get input from informants and iterate on this cycle.
Start preparing final presentation.
5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10/11
Final Presentations / Debrief & wrap up
12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17/18
Final Grades Due