Category Archives: Design Thinking Framework

What? So What?

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Artboard 3

what?
I am planning to design a workshop that will use drama and the design itself as means of communication tool. Men and boys have been taught to express themselves with aggression and any other emotion has been considered weak, female or homosexual. This association of emotion with aggression causes various ways of sexual violence as well as harming individuals themselves by pushing them to live with a mask. If we are talking about design becoming an essential course for the education of everyone then why not use it as a communication tool? Instead of feeling trapped by language and not being able to express ourselves because of feeling ashamed in talking in public that almost everyone faces for at least once in their lifetime, we can use different medium.

so what?
The importance of this workshop is the fact that it challenges gender norms. We have been talking how to end violence against women by governmental solutions but what about ourselves? How do we raise boys and how do men perceive themselves? As women, how do we define a “man”? What are our expectations, our biases, our heterosexual norms? If we don’t start from ourselves then how come we can blame friends making sexist jokes, parents and partners expecting fulfillment of gender roles, or anyone for not speaking up about violence they have experienced.

 

Design Thinking Framework_a reverse engineering tool

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ARTIFACTArtifact

Vision

I remember Initially we started the project with a vision. The idea was how can we create a product experience that creates a special bond with the user and also help them appreciate the concept of time. The time is the most important thing that drives our ecosystem. Not only it’s a most valuable unit and currency, it is also a 4th dimension in our world.

To summarise the vision with a quick analogy is –  ‘Artifact’ is to time what Poetry is to Language

 

Objective

After working on the vision part, we started the investigating the subject area deeper, trying to understand the theory behind the concept of time. After studying the insights and some user research we started to define the scope by asking a lot of WH type questions – who is that we are designing this product? what is the purpose? who would be the target audience? why would they buy it? why would the use it? how is it different from what they are already using and what is it so unique about our product that sets it apart? After the introspection in our work, we came up with a brief and a problem statement for the topic.

 

Opportunities & Challenges

Challenge was how do we make a product that is useful at the same time discreet, something that can be personal to the owner at the same time initiates a dialogue with strangers, Something that seems just aesthetic yet functional and something that is quiet yet intriguingly loud enough.

Setting up the objective made us re-examine the problem statement. We started looking for the challenges and opportunities available in the domain. At that time, an interactive household object was an opportunity for the kind of product we were thinking.

 

Forms

Form here was a physical tangible device that people can interact with.

Conceptualising was an interesting phase in this process. Ideas were vague and the possibilities were immense, it was easy to get lost in the concepts. This is when we went back revisited the objective and opportunities which helped us stay focussed. When we froze the idea of time telling vases, it was a crucial form exploration ahead of us which was going to define the appeal of the product. Creating that precise hierarchy between hours vase & minutes vase. Defining those shapes such that they can incorporate the technology at the same time look aesthetically pleasing.

 

Image of the world

I envisioned a product that breaks away from people’s conventional notion of reading time.

I believe that creativity and innovation lies in looking at something from a different perspective. To address our current global issues we need to step back & relook at the problems in an unconventional way, validate them from different lenses. Artefact encourages people to read and perceive at time from a different perspective. It may initiate a dialogue in their mind to rethink about something ordinary in their life in an extraordinary way.

 

My thoughts

While applying this framework to the project, I realised this framework is very fluid and dynamic. There is no starting point and no ending point. You can start the project from any node and move across the circle in any direction till you end up with a satisfactory design solution that you intended. More I think about it, it makes me realise that if I had taken another path how it would have shape the final design, its appeal, its value.

Design thinking framework applied to school structure!

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Form- A physical form is a good way to explore the world and what-if the form is already familiar but and we use that in different scenario. I remember when we were conceptualising the ‘stand’ for microscope, the first form that stuck me was to start with a letter shape. In the upcoming week we had to think on different shape of letters and how to apply them with a camera. We finally ended up with ’S’ shape and the reason behind that was choosing the mild steel as a material. There were other shapes also that were to be tested out like ‘H, A but ’S’was the easiest to hold in mild steel to we decided to go with it.

Objective- The main objective was to connect some of the poorest schools in Bombay with technology. We wanted give these slum schools a new way to start engaging with their students. A ‘third eye’ that can fuel up the imagination of a student and may inspire a future.

Vision- What-if you know your area of interest since childhood and could start exploring at an early stage. Technology is not bound with age, place and gender and adopting technologies can solve issues. Why everyone is running after scoring full marks, why anyone cannot see an interest in childhood? The vision is clear in these statement that explore beyond what is already being told  and keep pursuing it. I see this as a report card for current system and how can we improve the grades by applying modified course structure.

Challenge/opportunities- The real challenge is to come up with an economical change/shift. Many high end schools in society have these gadgets that can have the same impact. Everyone is not able to afford them or they are only for an elite class. What-if we could reduce the cost of these technologies and provide them to everyone. There is a challenge and at the same time an opportunity for this problem. This pushes us back to drawing board and criticises in a way to select only those options that have a cost reduction scope in the future.

Image of the world- The world is very limited to those people who are very well established. What about that one-third population that is left behind, can we think within all communities and solve a problem. The image of anything is how we see observe it.

Design Thinking Framework Applied to Gaze

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Form
For the graduation project we had several options as form. Some of the forms that we could use included a documentary, short film, pr campaign, research paper. At the time I was having a senior student crisis, didn’t know what to do with all I have, a degree in communication design and graphic design, some background in media theory and personal interests and concerns. So I ended up choosing video as a medium with a popular culture content. Animation part came later as an area that I have always wanted to explore but didn’t have the courage to do so. (I still don’t consider myself capable of producing an animation though since rotoscope animation feels like cheating.) I started searching for styles and ended up trying rotoscope animation since it included the traditional means of video production before drawing phase.

Objective
I had a Film Theory and Criticism class at my last semester where I was introduced to feminist film theory. Before covering it in class I started searching about it and came up with the idea of feminist criticism of a popular culture product, Hollywood movie based on a book. Text in the book was already a criticism to the industry and with animation I wanted to separate it from its context and locate it to a daily basis of sexism.

Vision
I can’t really think of a metaphor for the project since the content itself is a metaphor for personal life of most women. Maybe you are not forced to be a cool girl but a wife or a mother for example.

Challenges – Opportunities
The opportunity of the video is that it creates the illusion of character speaking to the audience instead of me as the creator. So receiver is communicating with the form that is not capable of answering. Therefore dialogue turns into a monologue at some point hopefully leading into questioning. On the other hand since I can’t communicate with the receiver so video is all I have to reflect my thoughts and transmit my intentions.

Image of the World
My image of the world, most probably depending on my cultural background, have always been pessimistic. However what keeps us alive is the ability to make fun of things and that is what I tried to achieve in Gaze. I take the inequality, objectification and violence in all terms very seriously and it bothers me constantly but in order to be able to deal with them I need humor.

Design thinking framework to Artifact – I

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Artifact
ARTIFACT

Vision
I remember Initially we started the project with a vision. The idea was how can we create a product experience that creates a special bond with the user and also help them appreciate the concept of time. The time is the most important thing that drives our ecosystem. Not only it’s a most valuable unit and currency, it is also a 4th dimension in our world.

 

Objective
After working on the vision part, we started the investigating the subject area deeper, trying to understand the theory behind the concept of time. After studying the insights and some user research we started to define the scope by asking a lot of WH type questions – who is that we are designing this product? what is the purpose? who would be the target audience? why would they buy it? why would the use it? how is it different from what they are already using and what is it so unique about our product that sets it apart? After the introspection in our work, we came up with a brief and a problem statement for the topic.

 

Opportunities
Setting up the objective made us re-examine the problem statement. We started looking for the challenges and opportunities available in the domain. At that time, an interactive house hold object was an opportunity for the kind of product we were thinking.

 

Forms
Conceptualising was an interesting phase in this process. Ideas were vague and the possibilities were immense, it was easy to get lost in the concepts. This is when we went back revisited the objective and opportunities which helped us stay focussed. When we froze the idea of time telling vases, it was a crucial form exploration ahead of us which was going to define the appeal of the product. Creating that precise hierarchy between hours vase & minutes vase. Defining those shapes such that they can incorporate the technology at the same time look aesthetically pleasing.

 

My thoughts
While applying this framework to the project, I realised this framework is very fluid and dynamic. There is no starting point and no ending point. You can start the project from any node and move across the circle in any direction till you end up with a satisfactory design solution that you intended. More I think about it, it makes me realise that if I had taken another path how it would have shape the final design, its appeal, its value.