How might we apply User Experience Research and Design to solving our day-today problems, both at home and at work?

What use is a professional education, if it does not become your way of life? What use is a professional degree if you can not apply the knowledge gained to solve problems — not just projects at work but those in your society, your neighborhood and in your home?

Because this is not an attempt to present a professional case study, I will keep it fluid and casual but equally effective in solving. Let us not waste more time, straighten up from the italics and jump in to today’s short but smart case study …

5 stage iterative Design Thinking process ( Image courtesy: Author)

My purpose here is to encourage everyone — be they trained UX professionals or non-UX professionals to benefit from the Design Thinking technique, may I quickly state here that DESIGN THINKING is a 5 stage iterative problem solving technique/ design method based on empathizing with the end-user.

Empathizing with the problem: — My 8 year old daughter, used to come back home forgetting things at school on a regular basis. She is academically quite bright, but is the artistic, thoughtful creative kind who do not really think much about the importance of being disciplined and organized. As a result the poor little child was getting told off continuously both at school and back at home. She even got some sort of a RED card from her class teacher, which helped her be more mindful about things that the grown-ups wanted her to be mindful of, for some time…. but then with the passage of time the SNOWBALLING effect kicked back in, and she was back to her normal disorganized and forgetful self. I realized that the kid needed empathy, rather than telling-off. May be a casual application of the Design Thinking method could do the trick!!!

Kid gets told off by parents and teachers for forgetting things. We need empathy instead of undermining the user. ( Illustration by the Author)

User survey in this case was a bit of a challenge. The users after all were 8 year olds! Getting questionnaires filled up was not going to work with such young kids. Contextual enquiry, a method where you shadow the users, too would not work given the limitations of my access to the target user group during school hours. The only method left was some sort of a semi structured interview, by talking to my daughter and the parents of her classmates during pick-up and drop or in the common class WhatsApp group. This is what I did, based on which I did my personas, empathy maps and journey maps … the usual best known tools to analyze findings of an empathy based research. (Due to age of the user group involved and other confidentiality issues further details on personas, empathy and journey maps can not be shared).

Defining the problem precisely: — After journey mapping her activities on a day by day activities for a FULL WEEK, I was in a much better position to define the problem with more precision and accuracy.

Defining the problem precisely ( Image courtesy: Pixabay)

I realized that she was not really as disorganized and forgetful as the impression that everyone had about her! I I am a part of a WhatsApp parent’s group ( parents of all the kids in her class). This group had become more of a “Lost and Found” or a “Lost but NEVER Found” group. So it was not just her.

Identifying and Defining the problem in the System: — The kids had to carry a big PE bag on every Monday containing their PE uniform, hockey uniform, swimming uniform and so on. They had to get it back on Fridays, get it washed and return bag with it next Monday. They had to go to school in their usual school uniform and change in to these specialized uniforms as and when required in school. This was the place where they usually lost their uniform related stuff. All this was apart from their regular school bag which had their books, stationary etc. Remembering so many things was just too much for the kids. It was a systemic problem and it needed a systemic solution. The kids had too much to remember, but no smart tool to help them!

Ideating — that is the fun bit: — Having identified the problem, I started brainstorming ideas.

A bright and simple idea ( Image courtesy: Pixabay)

I involved my kid as well in this activity. I also floated a request for ideas in the parents group and before I knew we had a ideas flowing in from all quarters. Collaborative and Creative parenting at it’s best. There were ideas like — making a forgetful child sit with a disciplined one, requesting school authorities to allow children to wear just one uniform a day — which meant on a sports/ PE day, they wear that uniform from home, so that they do not have to change when in school, which is why many kids were losing bits of their uniform. However, they were also losing stationary, prep books, reading record books, homework exercise books and so on. The bright idea that I finally liked was that of having a detailed day by day checklist of items that need to taken to school and back.

Prototype — shall we? Having zeroed in on an idea, it was now time to prototype. The only item which the kids had to take everyday and back and which had to be signed both by their class-teacher and by their parents, every single day was their Prep book. We decided to stick our checklist on to the back of this Prep book.

School PrepBook ( Image courtesy: Pixabay)

I teamed up with my kid, and together we made an extensive list of each an every item on a day by day basis, for every day of the week, that needed to be taken in to and brought back from the school. All that the kids had to do was to refer to the checklist at the end of school hours everyday. This exceptionally simple and obvious solution had somehow been missed by everyone, while we were all busy blaming the kids ( users of the schedule) designed by us grown ups. The flaw was in the design and not in the users, as any UX-Designer worth her or his salt would tell you.

Time to test — It was finally time to put our little idea to test. In a usual UX cycle all of these steps are iterative. You test, you find flaws, you go back again to the previous stages — improve — repeat.

I requested a few parents to download the checklist, I had created and stick it on the back their child’s Prep book. So they did. The test ran for 3 weeks and there was hardly any incident of any of these children losing or forgetting any of their belongings. The idea had worked. The class-teacher too appreciated our idea as it took off a lot of burden of her shoulder to help kids keep a track of things.

All parties involved — Parents, Teachers and of course the Kids came out happy at the other end of this simple yet effective Design Thinking intervention.

Job nicely done. Hurraaayyyy!!!!