Design Thinking
for Open Research & Education
A quick introduction for OpenCon Activities
Resource by Lorraine Chuen (October, 2017)
with contributions from Joe McArthur
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
In this resource, we’ll cover …
Design thinking is structured common sense! It’s a set of tools to design thoughtful solutions to problems with humans, empathy, and the bigger picture in mind.
Empathize/understand the users.
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Adapted from Design Thinking 101 NNGROUP.COM
Understand a system + define the problem.
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
Design thinking is an iterative process. With new learnings, you can (and should!) always go back to the drawing board.
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Adapted from Design Thinking 101 NNGROUP.COM
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Don’t worry! The “design” in “design thinking” has nothing to do with making things look pretty.
It refers to the process.
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
Designing solutions in Open Research & Education involves recognizing that ....
Designing solutions in Open Research & Education involves recognizing that ....
APPROACH .
Understanding Systems
What institutions and stakeholders are involved in the broad issue at hand, and how are they related to each other?
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
Step 1) Understand the issue, what system it’s located in, and the people involved.
We’re going to start by taking a bird’s eye view of the system. This will help us zone in on a set of problems.
An exercise in visually describing the actors, institutions and the flow of money, labour, knowledge, influence, and/or power between these nodes. Mapping can help us:
→ see a system from a macro level
→ identify connections that weren’t previously obvious
→ identify potential points for intervention
→ better understand what the problem(s) really are
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS.
Methods
Systems Mapping
Adapted from: ServiceDesignTools.org
A very very rough (and overly simplified example) of the scholarly communication system as it revolves around the university.
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS.
Methods
Try using chart paper and post it notes to work together to connect the different pieces of a system together. It doesn’t need to be perfect!
Possible
intervention
Point? Could I reframe the problem around this point?
Adapted from: ServiceDesignTools.org
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS.
Methods
Once you’ve noted all the different parts of the system, what problems can you identify?
Do any stand out?
UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS.
Methods
→ Researchers aren’t using the institutional repository
→ Undergraduate students are using tools like Sci-hub without seeing the bigger issue.
Etc…. which brings us to….
Problem Framing
Know what the problem(s) is before diving into a solution!
APPROACH .
“How might we __________?”
Methods
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
“How might we” statements encourage us to:
** Feel free to generate a number of problem statements before zoning in on one! The
problem statement will also likely change as you gain a better understanding of the issue.
Adapted from: How Might We, Interaction Design Foundation
Methods
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
Methods
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
E.g. How might we increase the use of institutional repositories by researchers at universities?
Methods
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
E.g. How might we create offline Open Educational Resources that can be used and adopted in regions without steady internet connection?
Methods
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
Methods
E.g. How might we encourage more institutions to include requirements for Open practices in their Promotion and Tenure guidelines?
PROBLEM FRAMING. .
APPROACH .
Understanding Users
Understand who is involved in the problem, and who the problem affects. Who are you designing a solution for? Whose behaviours and actions need to be changed?
Resource compiled by: Lorraine Chuen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
Step 1) Understand the issue, what system it’s located in, and the people involved.
After you’ve identified an issue, we can try to better understand the people the problem affects — the stakeholders or “users”.
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Think of personas as “profiles” describing the different stakeholders involved or affected by the issue at hand. This will be helpful to reference when ideating and creating a solution - but also to narrow down the problem you are trying to fix.
Methods
Personas
Adapted from: Open Design Kit
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Name: Anita
Age: mid-20s
Occupation: PhD student in Biology
Background: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Goals & Needs:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Adapted from: Open Design Kit
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Name: Anita
Age: mid-20s
Occupation: PhD student in Biology
Background:
Anita is in her final year of a computational biology PhD. She’s currently writing her dissertation and has a couple of publications under her belt!
Goals & Needs:
Anita wants to continue publishing in well-reputed journals and is currently hunting for a post-doc position.
Don’t make assumptions about people. Talk to them - have a conversation with them - and get to know their needs & challenges.
Not a student? Interview a variety of students to understand their experience more deeply. Not a researcher? Talk to these people or conduct a survey to gain their perspective.
*Goal: collect information that will feed into empathy maps & journey maps.
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
User Interviews
Design with humans in mind allow us to understand a person’s unique wants, need, struggles, and how their behaviour and thought process might be influenced.
Whenever possible, use the information collected from research / your user interviews to build an empathy map!
Don’t depend on stereotypes or assumptions.
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Empathy Maps
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Empathy Maps
THINK, FEEL & WANT?
PAINS & GAINS?
INFLUENCED?
SEE?
WHAT DO THEY
What are their
WHAT DO THEY
What do they hear? How are they
Anita
PhD Student,
Biologist
[ describe their environment ]
[ pains: frustrations & challenges]
[ gains: desires & measures of success ]
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
THINK, FEEL & WANT?
WHAT DO THEY
Empathy Maps
PAINS & GAINS?
INFLUENCED?
THINK & FEEL?
What are their
How do they
How are they
Anita
PhD Student,
Biologist
→ Not super familiar with alternative publishing models
→ Doesn’t know about her library’s institutional repository
→ Goes to biology conferences regularly to network & learn
→ Ambition: Looking for a post-doc and eventually a faculty teaching position.
→ Wants research to make real-world impact, to reach lots of people
→ cares about the world: does some activism work on the side (e.g. March for Science)
→ Supervisor tells her where to publish; they already have a contentious relationship & difficult to challenge supervisor’s thinking
→ Traditional metrics (e.g. impact factor) pressure to publish in prestigious journal
→ FRUSTRATED: Burnt out, stressed, not a lot of extra time beyond research schedule
→ CHALLENGED: bad academic job market, rocky relationship with supervisor
→ DESIRES: finishing PhD, work-life balance
→ MEASURES OF SUCCESS: citation counts, good relationships & positive impact on students she TAs, media attention about her research’s real world impact
Your “How might we” problem statement will probably change after you have a better understanding of the user and their specific challenges.
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Remember — design thinking is an iterative, cyclical process.
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
Has your problem changed now that you understand your user better? What can you carry over to ideation?
Methods
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
We should be able to generate more specific problems now that we better understand Anita:
What new “How might we” statements can we generate from the empathy map?
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
THINK, FEEL & WANT?
WHAT DO THEY
Empathy Maps
PAINS & GAINS?
INFLUENCED?
THINK & FEEL?
What are their
How do they
How are they
Anita
PhD Student,
Biologist
→ Not super familiar with alternative publishing models
→ Doesn’t know about her library’s institutional repository
→ Goes to biology conferences regularly to network & learn
→ Ambition: Looking for a post-doc and eventually a faculty teaching position.
→ Wants research to make real-world impact, to reach lots of people
→ cares about the world: does some activism work on the side (e.g. March for Science)
→ Supervisor tells her where to publish; they already have a contentious relationship & difficult to challenge supervisor’s thinking
→ Traditional metrics (e.g. impact factor) pressure to publish in prestigious journal
→ FRUSTRATED: Burnt out, stressed, not a lot of extra time beyond research schedule
→ CHALLENGED: bad academic job market, rocky relationship with supervisor
→ DESIRES: finishing PhD, work-life balance
→ MEASURES OF SUCCESS: citation counts, good relationships & positive impact on students she TAs, media attention about her research’s real world impact
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
THINK, FEEL & WANT?
WHAT DO THEY
Empathy Maps
PAINS & GAINS?
INFLUENCED?
THINK & FEEL?
What are their
How do they
How are they
Anita
PhD Student,
Biologist
→ Not super familiar with alternative publishing models
→ Doesn’t know about her library’s institutional repository
→ Goes to biology conferences regularly to network & learn
→ Ambition: Looking for a post-doc and eventually a faculty teaching position.
→ Wants research to make real-world impact, to reach lots of people
→ cares about the world: does some activism work on the side (e.g. March for Science)
→ Supervisor tells her where to publish; they already have a contentious relationship & difficult to challenge supervisor’s thinking
→ Traditional metrics (e.g. impact factor) pressure to publish in prestigious journal
→ FRUSTRATED: Burnt out, stressed, not a lot of extra time beyond research schedule
→ CHALLENGED: bad academic job market, rocky relationship with supervisor
→ DESIRES: finishing PhD, work-life balance
→ MEASURES OF SUCCESS: citation counts, good relationships & positive impact on students she TAs, media attention about her research’s real world impact
How might we leverage traditional academic conferences as a space to promote open practices?
How might we emphasize the importance of Open research with respect to equitable information sharing & public good?
How might we support junior researchers to work openly under more traditional supervision?
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
We should be able to generate more specific problems now that we better understand Anita:
→ How might we leverage traditional academic conferences as a space to promote open research practices?
→ How might we make it less confusing - and super easy - for graduate students to self-archive their work?
→ How might we encourage graduate students to use open resources in the classes they TA?
Develop a better understanding of a stakeholder’s experience navigating a system — or in working to complete a particular task — by visually sketching out their “journey”.
Identify where potential barriers and challenges are, and what points in their experience may be most effective to design a solution.
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
User Journey Maps
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
User Journey Maps: [ Frame the journey around an issue or problem statement ]
TIME
DOING
FEELING
Name: ____________
Occupation: _____________
Adapted from: Methods - Journey Map, DesignKit.org
Methods
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
User Journey Maps: How might we encourage more researchers to self archive their work?
TIME
DOING
FEELING
Submits for review through a journal submission platform.
Shares paper on lab website or Academia.edu instead of self-archiving in repository
Anita
PhD Biology Student
Writes article with others. Shares versions over email. Struggling to keep track of edits.
Article accepted after peer review. Emailed a copy from the submission system.
Working on another project now. Final version published (6 months after submission, 12 months after work finished)
Proud of final, pretty version! It’s DONE!
Now stressed with another project, got to get another in!
Nervous! A lot rides on this.
Wants to show friends / family the final version with branding. That’s how they know it’s real!
Thinks they’re sharing with everyone, legally! It’s theirs.
Exhausted. Just need to get this done and Jeff won’t review the final copy!
1st paper through peer review, that’s a big deal! Now it’s science.
Glad they caught that typo. Would’ve been embarrassing to see that.
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
Can we identify a specific place to intervene based on the person’s experience trying to get a task done, or navigating a system?
UNDERSTANDING USERS. .
APPROACH .
Exploring & Testing
Solutions
Now that you have a better understanding of your user’s unique challenges, the barriers in a given system, and where the most efficient places to intervene might be — let’s start brainstorming some solutions!
Try thinking about solutions in all sorts of different ways - feel free to get a bit wild and think outside the box! The goal is to go from our how might we statements and personas to concrete ideas on addressing the issues.
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Ideation
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
How might we leverage traditional academic conferences as a space to promote open research practices?
From how might we? → ideas!
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
If you’re still feeling stuck …. try some prompts:
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Exercise: Fast Idea Generator (adapted from Nesta)
INVERT IT
Take a common idea/practice and do the opposite.
Think of an idea at it’s most extreme - even if it’s nearly impossible.
SUBTRACT IT
EXAGGERATE IT
Take a common idea/practice - and pretend it didn’t exist.
TRANSLATION
Take a practice from one field/discipline - and apply it to another.
ADD TO IT
Add a new element to an existing service / product.
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
SUBTRACT IT
Take a common idea/practice - and pretend it didn’t exist.
What if there were no more academic journals?
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
What if the only textbooks (from K-12 to post-secondary) in the world were OER?
Think of an idea at it’s most extreme - even if it’s nearly impossible.
EXAGGERATE IT
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
What if the peer review process also evaluated research transparency and reproducibility?
EXAGGERATE IT
ADD TO IT
Add a new element to an existing service / product.
Create a quick, low-commitment, low-effort, cheap version of your solution to learn more about how it would work in practice. Use it to test ideas and assumptions you have.
Warning! Don’t feel attached to your prototype, as testing may help you realize it’s an ineffective idea.
But because it’s low-fidelity, you won’t have sunk much time or resources into it, but you have enough feedback to know whether or not it will work, & go back to the drawing board!
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Simple “prototype”
→ Wireframes / Interface Sketches (for designing a website or app)
→ Draw it! Make a paper prototype! Worry about the details later.
→ Draft messaging / copy (for creating a campaign)
→ Google form / Google Spreadsheet (e.g. for building a database)
→ Storyboard (e.g. process for implementing policy strategy)
→ Anything else that you can make easily & test!
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
What do simple prototypes look like?
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Example 1: Super low fidelity OpenCon Do-a-thon Site Paper Prototype
DESIGNING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Example 2: Slightly higher fidelity OpenCon do-a-thon site prototype
Bring back the earlier design thinking methods to test your solution!
→ Interview users → Ask what people think! Does it make sense?
→ Create a journey map of a user’s experience using the new solution. Where might it fall through?
→ If the prototype itself has functionality, get people to use it!
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
Testing & Iteration
Ideate & brainstorm solutions.
Prototype a solution.
Test the prototype.
Implement in the real world.
EXPLORING & TESTING SOLUTIONS .
Methods
If the prototype doesn’t work, take those learnings back to the drawing board. Go back earlier in the design process.
Empathize/understand the users.
Understand a system + define the problem.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION.
The Ethics in Design
Thinking & Creating “Solutions”
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
1) As someone brainstorming a solution, you will bring your own biases—and blind spots.
What happens when groups designing services or products aren’t diverse?
“A predominantly male group of engineers tailored the first generation of automotive airbags to adult male bodies, resulting in avoidable deaths for women and children” (Margolis & Fisher, 2002)
“The soap dispenser is another example of technology not recognising different body types, in 2010 Gadgetwise reported that the Xbox Kinect did not recognize the faces of dark-skinned gamers, Hewlett-Packard’s uneven facial recognition software also had problems.”
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
2) Ask yourself who your design process is excluding.
Are people from diverse backgrounds involved with the brainstorming process?
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
3) Your biases and social position will affect how you perceive others. Create personas responsibly and in collaboration with the people the personas represent — not from stereotypes and assumptions.
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
4) There is a power dynamic in creating solutions for other communities. Without appropriate context or understanding, we can create serious harm for other communities by making assumptions on what is best.
So — whenever possible, design with (in collaboration with communities) instead of for.
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
5) All design, projects, and campaigns have a social impact. That impact can be helpful or harmful.
Ask yourself if your solution causes harm for anyone. What effects are there downstream?
Further reading: 10 ways designers can support social justice
Finally...
Know when it’s
not appropriate for
you to design a solution.
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
In conclusion: Design thinking tools can be a useful tool for thinking through problems and coming up with solutions — but please use them responsibly and ethically!
Questions? Email lorraine@sparcopen.org
ETHICS, POWER & PRIVILEGE .
Visit doathon.opencon2017.org for more details!