SEED Guide

Empathizing: Tools

Tasks and Steps

Warming up for Brainstorming

https://lucidspark.com/blog/brainstorming-warm-up-exercises

1. Warm-ups are fun! And in the discipline and on-going practice to become a pro.

2. In addition to the six linked exercises, try Self-portrait and Crazy 8s.

Brainstorming

As the most well-known technique, some rules are important to follow:

1. Create a space that is conducive to brainstorming, free from distractions and with ample space for collaboration.

2. Do not judge at this point of exploration: suspend judgment, defer criticism, and build on each other's ideas. Consider the storm of ideas as an activity aiming for quantity. Later you will have opportunities to curate your list.

3. Writing ALL of the ideas is important to engage visualization and tracking of these ideas. Why not dedicate a column or a wall, even a table to getting all of the ideas written down? Teams may appreciate tools such as whiteboards, sticky notes, markers, and flip charts to facilitate idea generation and visualization.

4. This activity should help the team to gain a deeper understanding of the problem, its root causes, and potential solutions.

5. Start the brainstorming session with a warm-up exercise to stimulate creativity and get participants into a creative mindset.

User Interviews

(see template below)

1. To clearly define the objectives of the user interviews. consider the following before you begin:

➢     What specific information are you seeking to gather?

➢     What are your goals for conducting these interviews?

➢     Who is the target audience or user group for the product or service?

Consider demographics, behaviors, and needs to ensure that your interviews represent the diversity of your user base.

2. Align the objectives with the overall goals of your design project. Whenever possible, a qualitative interview should be conducted with two interviewers.

3. Contact your interviewees and set a schedule that is convenient for them in a comfortable and neutral environment where they can feel relaxed and open to sharing their thoughts and experiences.

4. Structure an Interview Guide beginning with broad, open-ended questions to build rapport with the participant. When the interaction has been positively charged, the interview can move into more specific areas of interest.

4. Prepare questions that address new user-centered needs.

5. Be open-minded so that you can exercise empathy and truly learn what you need to know from the user’s stories. Listen holistically so that you do not exclusively focus on people, action, content, or time.

6. After conducting the interviews, synthesize the findings to identify common themes, patterns, and insights across participants.

Surveys and Questionnaires

1. Clearly define the objectives of the survey or questionnaire.

➢     What specific information are you trying to gather?

➢     What are your research goals?

Align these objectives with the broader goals of the team’s design project to ensure relevance.

2. Identify the target audience or user group for the survey or questionnaire.

3. Prepare clear, concise, and unambiguous questions to determine more specific information about the user and the user experience (UX), like

●        Who is the user?

●        What do we know about them?

●        What are their needs?

●        What do they actually do?

●        Do the existing processes meet their needs?

Avoid influencing the responses with leading or biased questions.

4. Structure these questions logically, moving from general questions to more specific topics.

5. The format for the survey/questionnaire can be online, paper-based, or in-person but, with enough time. testing it with a focus group can help to identify any issues with clarity, wording, or response options.

6. Distribute the survey/questionnaire to your target audience through appropriate channels. Communicate the purpose of the survey/questionnaire and provide instructions for completing it.

User Motivation Analysis

(see template below)

1. To discover needs and obstacles from the data you collect about the user, complete the template.

2. When the explanations for each question take form, the follow-up for a thorough investigation includes templates for techniques like Building a User Persona.

Opportunity Statements

1. Formulate this statement where you fill in the missing parts [xx] for the user(s) you have identified:

“For [adjective] [people] who [current state],
there must be a better way to [user’s dilemma].”

2. Criteria for this Opportunity Statement:

➢     Is it human-centered?

➢     Does it address an unmet need?

➢     Does it spark curiosity to learn more?

➢     Are you sure that the solution is not obvious? (if obvious, then you have not selected a wicked challenge… Begin again!)

➢     Could the statement be made more fun?

Color Psychology

Color palette generator, Hubspot.com, https://www.hubspot.com/brand-kit-generator/color-palette-generator

Free Logo Creator & Brand Identity Design, Hubspot.com, https://www.hubspot.com/brand-kit-generator?hubs_content=www.hubspot.com%2Fbrand-kit-generator%2Fcolor-palette-generator&hubs_content-cta=free%20color%20palette%20generator

1. Color is useful in design thinking when the colors are used strategically in visual materials to represent different emotions or characteristics associated with users.

2. To enhance the team’s understanding of users' emotions, preferences, and behaviors, color psychology can help to gain insights into how color influences user behavior and perception.

3. During user interviews, teams may notice reactions to different colors in the environment. The cultural significance of colors, their varying meanings and associations, are nuances to verify. Any patterns or preferences that emerge can provide insight into emotional responses, needs, and preferences that can be used in ideating and prototyping.

Empathy Map template

(see template below)

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/

1. Empathy maps are collaborative visualizations that can articulate what the team knows about a particular type of user. Start by defining the target user persona in the center of the four quadrants on seeing, thinking, feeling, and doing so that the empathy map provides a glimpse of who this user is as a whole. Do not try to be chronological or sequential in the descriptions.

2. Teams may choose to engage directly with users or stakeholders to understand their needs, motivations, frustrations, and aspirations through user interviews, questionnaires, and surveys.

3. Complete each quadrant of the empathy map for seeing, thinking, feeling, and doing with insights on the emotions, thoughts, and behaviors identified in the team research.

4. Reflect on the empathy map to identify any gaps or discrepancies between what the user says, thinks, feels, and does and synthesize these insights.

Analogies and Metaphors

1. Imagine a meal that reflects the user experience. When and where would it be eaten and by whom?

2. Find a sound that represents the user experience. When and where would this sound be heard and by whom?

3. Choose a sequence of emoticons, logos, and/or symbols that represent the user’s journey.

4. Share these creations to develop the team’s understanding of the challenge(s) facing the user.

Build a User Persona

(see template below)

https://designthinking.nusselder.org/persona

1. To build a holistic view of the user, identify all the conditions connected to your potential user(s). As an amalgam of everyperson, the persona is not really a single person but a synthesis of your awareness of a specific fictional user.

2. Teams that have used the empathy map will recognize the center column identifying what the user sees, hears, thinks, and does. Include the information from your user interviews as well to analyze the most relevant insights and create a concise and vibrant description.

3. With enough time to develop more than one, creating different personas gives the team the opportunity to characterize the specific needs, circumstances, joys, challenges, desires, and passions of the users they have identified.

4. The completed persona can serve as inspiration as the team goes through the design thinking steps. Your collective innovation will aim specifically to help the persona you have profiled.