One topic covered in this week’s lecture caught my attention and seemed like something I would like to look at more deeply before diving into my healthcare research. This was design methods or processes, while I am very familiar with the double-diamond approach I was interested to look at two other approaches introduced in the lecture: Human-Centered Design Methodology and D.School Design Thinking.

I wanted to look at both these approaches and see how they could influence and improve my own design process.

Human-Centered Design Methodology

Human-Centered Design Methodology is a design method created by industry leader IDEO as a design process that can be followed to develop ideas and solutions to problems while keeping your users at the front of mind and remaining human focused in all your design decisions.

Source: https://blog.adplist.org/post/what-is-human-centered-design (Last Accessed 06/02/23)

The process is split into three main sections:

1. Inspiration: Initial research and discovery into the problem you have discovered, this section will include defining the problem, conducting desk research, conducting research with target users to discover their needs, developing user personas, user stories, empathy maps etc. and really gaining a deep understanding of the problem that requires a solution.
2. Ideation: This is where you take all that you have learned in the inspiration phase and start to create ideas for potential solutions. You may use ideation techniques such as crazy eights or develop sketches and lo-fi prototypes. You will discover issues with your ideas through design critiques or early user testing and iterate to improved these ideas.
3. Implementation: Once you have iterated and reached a point where the idea can be formed into a hi-fi prototype you can now look to continue user testing to iron out any final issues as you move to developing the final design for release. Again, throughout this process you will iterate on your design as problems or potential improvements are discovered. Even after delivery of the final product you will still iterate as information from how the design is performing in use comes in.

Above is my description of the stages of the HCD methodology and I can see similarities with the double-diamond method. We can see in the illustration the use of the words diverge and converge where you spread your net of research or idea generation wide at first and then bring it back into sharper focus with your final ideas. This is a key component of the double-diamond method and one that IDEO clearly want to maintain within their methodology as well. I believe this is to ensure that as designers we are giving ourselves the widest possible viewpoint rather than limiting ourselves too early in the design process and potentially missing out on vital insights which could develop creative solutions. This is an easy trap to fall into while designing but using a clearly defined design methodology could really help to avoid this.

I feel I could use this methodology in my designs, it is very open and allows you to use different methods within the three sections rather than clearly defining that you must create user personas for example, it definitely allows for you to adapt how you carry out each section depending on the project at hand. However, I do feel this strength could also be a weakness as this open nature could lead you to skip important steps and still claim to be following the process. To use this process it would be important to plan out at the beginning which methods you are going to use at each stage to ensure proper research, discovery, ideation and iteration.

D.School Design Thinking

D.School Design Thinking was developed by the Institute of Design at Stanford University in the United States and offers another design process that can be followed while working on a design problem.

Source: https://www.theagileelephant.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Design-Thinking.png (Last Accessed 06/02/23)

The D.School process is split into five sections and that are followed to develop a final solution.

1. Empathise: The first step is to empathise, this is a research and discovery stage where you try and see the problem from the point of view of those facing the problem. You are trying to discover the nature of the problem but also what facilities the users have available, and what their needs are.
2. Define: At this stage you take all the learning you have done at the previous empathise stage and use it to define the problem your design needs to solve. Through your understanding of the users gained in the previous stage you are able to have the information and knowledge necessary to ensure you are looking at the right problem and through the viewpoint of your users.
3. Ideate: Now you have defined the problem you can start to develop ideas to solve it, it is important to consider a wide range of ideas at this point and not to limit yourself. Once you have a wide range of possible solutions you can start to look at each and see if they are viable and worth pursuing any further.