Empathy, Observation & Shadowing

“I hear what you say, but I my ideas are coming from what I see before me”

Do you think you put people first?

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Visual Design

• Visual design, also commonly known as graphic design, communication design or visual communication, represents the aesthetics or “look-and-feel” of the front end of any User Interface.

• Graphic treatment of interface elements, such as the “look” in the term look-and-feel is often perceived as the visual design.

• The purpose of visual design is to use visual elements like colors, images, typography and symbols to convey a message to its audience.

• Fundamentals of Gestalt psychology and Visual Perception give cognitive perspective on how to create effective visual communication.[5]

User Experience Design (UXD or UED)

• Used to explain all aspects of a person’s experience

– Interface

– Graphics

– Industrial design

– Physical interaction

– Manual.

Empathic design process

[Flashback] Leonard and Rayport identify the five key steps in empathic design as:

• Observation

• Capturing Data

• Reflection and Analysis

• Brainstorming for solutions

• Developing possible solutions

People experience

• Jan Chipchase, a user anthropologist at Nokia, thinks that at some point we may well be able to delegate entertainment experiences to other people, to be enjoyed at your leisure at a later time and date. – “Experience shifting raises all sorts of interesting

questions about empathic design, where from an physiological-emotional perspective experience designers will literally be able put themselves in someone else’s shoes…. [circa 2007]

Innovation for the Common Good

Because we understand that taking an imaginative leap into the future is a beginning and not an end in itself, we develop tools and processes for identifying, and then capitalizing on, opportunities in the present.

http://vimeo.com/28650859

Creative observation

• Thinkers/designers observe real-life situations to understand how people behave within a given context.

• This uncovers the reality of what people do - as opposed to what they say they do.

We don’t know what we don’t know

• Learning a person’s [unarticulated] needs through a process of observation and interpretation often leads to breakthrough designs.

Exercise

Let’s think

Exercise. Let’s think

• Consider a location

– (within walking distance to where you are)

• Write down your assumptions

• Write down how you expect people will behave.

We don’t know what we don’t know

Until we watch and observe.

Deszca et al.

• Deszca et al. argue that market forces and competitive pressures in today's fast paced world are augmenting the importance of product innovation as a source of competitive advantage. – ^ Deszca, G., Munro, H., and Noori, H.,

"Developing Breakthrough Products: Challenges and Options for Market Assessment", Journal of Operations Management, Vol 17, 1999, pp613-630

Creative shadowing

• Shadowing an individual on a journey or activity can be used to identify opportunities for design and quickly understand a particular design context.

• Generally, there are three types of observation: – natural (covert) - no interference from the

investigator; – controlled (overt) - the designer sets a task and

observes it being carried out; – and participatory - the designer actively joins in the

activity being observed to gain a firsthand perspective.

Task Observe

Capture

Reflect

How might we

Writer Warren Berger "the secret phrase top innovators use."

"How" assumes that solutions exist and provides the creative confidence needed to identify and solve for unmet needs. "Might" says that we can put ideas out there that might work or might not—either way, we'll learn something useful. "We" signals that we're going to collaborate and build on each other's ideas to find creative solutions together.

Asking "How might we" at the start of a team project is a creative problem-solving tool that can be applied to almost any ambitious, achievable challenge.

Creative confidence

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_kelley_how_to_build_your_creative_confidence.html