Design Think in Action
This semester, we have put the knowledge about the Design Think Process into action in our prototyping class, EDUC 761: Emerging Technologies. In groups, we came up with a wicked problem, verified this wicked problem through surveys and interviews with our target population, and prototyped a solution to help solve this wicked problem. The experience, was a lot of work and fun, and we will have the chance to showcase this work in a “conference” style symposium with other faculty and students. In this post, I while summarize my team’s steps in the design thinking process; but, if you would like to read further about our journey, please head to https://www.coffeecompassion.com/.
Our Wicked Problem
My group comprised of a current teacher, two previous teachers, and me. I have never taught before, so I wasn’t really sure how I could contribute to our wicked problem. My team members, however, had many ideas regarding mental health support for teachers. That is where we started.
Our Target Population
In trying to understand our target population better, we conducted surveys and interviews with many teachers across a variety of different focuses, from high school dual language programs to preschool teachers. Through collecting this data, we determined that the best way to support teachers was to provide them something that they could do on their time in short spurts that wouldn’t break the bank. Many teachers told us that teaching is overwhelming because of all the demands placed on them, and they don’t have time to do the many things that they need to take care of themselves and their students. In addition, they were not super welcome to mindfulness training for teachers; however, they did say that they would implement it in their classrooms and teach it to their students. This is what we carried with us as our focus as we ideated a solution for teachers.
Our Ideation
After analyzing data collected from surveys and interviews with many teachers, we began putting down ideas on paper for how we could best meet teacher needs. Many rounds of brainstorming later, we decided to prototype an app like Headspace or Calm made specifically for teachers.
Our Prototype
We went through many iterations of our prototype. We collected feedback from former and current teachers at each stage of development up until our last version. Eventually, we got to a point in prototyping that we felt we would need to begin creating a functional prototype or MVP; however, that is beyond the scope of this class. Please, watch this video if you would like to see some of the functionality of our prototype: https://youtu.be/iG4DvCEP0KE.
To interact with the whole prototype, please visit this link: https://www.figma.com/proto/b5sUaXa9s0x5tAREAJo0No/coffee-with-compassion-prototype?node-id=1-2&scaling=scale-down&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=1%3A2
Our Presentation
To showcase our work, we presented the following Canva slide deck to our class. After many hours refining our wicked problem, collecting data, and testing our prototype, we created this slide deck to capture it all. In the slide show, there are two videos, one being a walk through of our prototype, and the second being a storyboard come to life. Please, enjoy our presentation!