DESIGN THINKING
Week 2: Learning about qualitative research & observation methods
EMPATHIZE
DEFINE
PROBLEM
IDEATION
PROTO
TYPING
USER
TESTING
REFLECT
Primary research is research you conduct yourself (or hire someone to do for you.) It involves going directly to a source – usually customers and prospective customers in your target market – to ask questions and gather information.
Google surveys and face to face survey research done with potential customers and target market. Below are the survey results:
Observation using AEIOU: Activities, Environment, Interaction, Objects, Users
Activities - Actions that people develop related with the analysed situation
Environment - Identifying the environment
Interaction - Observe the in-dept behaviours and action
Objects - Elements related with the studies, context and physical things
Users - Perception users have related with the situation and interaction.
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Turning observations to Insights > Creating a What, Who, Why, When, Where, How chart.
This chart really helped me to lay out my problem and develop it further. It helps me to analyse the problem or issue by asking me a series of questions. The questions let me ponder and with 'how' at the end it allows me to address the issue by asking 'do we fix this problem'.
What is the problem?
effects of producing denim such as labour process, sandblasting, water consumption, chemicals & dye and waste.
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What would we like to know?
Ways in reducing the effects of denim production
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What are the assumptions that are scrutinised?
Throwing away one or two of your clothes, will not affect the environment.
Who is involved?
denim consumers, fast fashion consumers.
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Who is affected by the situation?
labour workers who are exposed to harmful chemicals and are paid poorly for it.
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Who decides?
Us as consumer decide our buying intention. The needs and wants of consumers.
When did the problem begin?
6 BILLION jeans are produced a year, and 30% of those (1.8 billion jeans) never even get worn.
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When do people want to see the results?
Educating them while shopping through labels that show ethical and sustainable production of garment.
Where?
The problem occurs in the fashion industry around the world.
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Where was it already resolved before?
slow fashion brands that are using ethical ways to produce denim.
e.g. E.L.V Denim, EB denim, Denim label: Mother
Why is the problem important?
Denim requires a lot in terms of water, energy and labor, at the same time compromising human and the environment's health through toxic dyes, herbicides, fertilisers and pesticides.
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Why does it occur?
Demand for denim is high, consumers are buying more than what is required, unethical production of denim.
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Why was it not yet solved?
Demand for jeans in the industry is high, overproducing each year to meet consumer demands.
How could this problem be an opportunity?
This problem can be an opportunity to reduce the effects of denim production by producing up-cycled garments that are durable so that consumers buy less.
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How could it be solved?
- Buying from second-hand preloved stores, thrift shopping
- Donating clothes instead of throwing them away to land waste.
- Buying products made from recycled materials.
- Buying less and what is needed
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What has already been tried to resolve the problem?
- zero waste and sustainable
- using 100% cotton and cut up jeans that cannot be salvaged
- bringing vintage jeans to modern style
- building better infrastructure
Week 3: Identifying your persona and creating an empathy map
Demographics and Psychographics:
Demographics refers to statistical data (age, gender, income, etc.) collected for a particular population. Psychographics refers to information about a particular population's attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria.
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Creating a PERSONA based on my research, a fictional character that represents my different user types that would use my product.
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My empathy map, I used this to gain deeper insights into my customers. I used the empathy map that represents a group of users whom I want to target to use my product. Through this mapping I was able to understand the reason behind some actions a user takes deeply. It helps build empathy towards the users and helps me to focus on the users who are going to use my product.
Week 4: Creating a problem statement
HOW MIGHT WE...
Problem statement:
Users are throwing away their denim garments when they become old and ugly. These actions are repercussions of other events that leads to denim pollution. Users wants to have a garment that does not go out of style and yet helping the environment through the up-cycling?
My final design question:
How might i up-cycle denim in ways that is practical, budget friendly but yet unique for each person?
Week 5: Stakeholders
Stakeholder mapping is the visual process of laying out all the stakeholders of a product, project, or idea on one map. Analyze and understand who is involved in a project or organization, and how these people, organisations and aspects are connected. Most projects are influenced by a large number of different organisations.
User:
fashion enthusiasts aged 21-27 who are working individuals
Community:
slow fashion brands and consumers.
(thrift stores, up-cycled brands)
Service:
up-cycling denim garment and converting them to a wardrobe staple.
Institution: Local fashion industry
The key outcome that my design solution is working toward is:
To up-cycle the denim and reduce textile wastage due to the effects of denim production.
The lasting social change I would like to contribute to is:
Reduce waste by up-cycling denim garments into one-offs, giving the customers a unique garment experience that convinces consumers to not throw away unwanted garments.
Week 6: Meta-model & Vision Cone
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This is my vision cone, it helped me to connect the current innovative developments that the current fashion industry has been trying to solve my problem. It also helped me to connect the past with the future. The overall vision cone divides into feasible steps and helps in projecting a plausible, possible, preferred or bizarre future accurately.
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Class Activity: Creative writing
We did a class activity where each person around the table contributes a sentence to the story without knowing the next outcome or result. This activity was really interesting and when we read the final outcome which was a story somehow it all made sense. Even though the story was not something of a design background, I learnt a lot from the process. First would be team work of course, the more brains around the project the more ideas and better outcome. The next thing I learnt was to of course have a vision and goal but to not anticipate the final outcome. It was interesting to read the sentences and see different person's creative output to the story.
Meta-Model
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Week 7 Consultation: During consultation with my lecturer, I was told that I was going on the right track but I should also be careful on how I would want to present my problem and the choice of words I use. I tend to mix the words 'recycle' and 'up-cycle' together, when these two words are two different process. I needed to research more on up-cycling as a process and how it is sustainable. I also had to be sure to not hurry into the final outcome and really develop my ideas and have proper research done on my problem. Since I have a good design question to work on, I should research more on the past history, on present development plans and the future.
Week9: Research Journey - Don't Mind if (talk)
Working in communication design industry and community
Don’t Mind If is an independent ground-up initiative that seeks to understand, demystify and uplift the communication design industry. It is run by industry volunteers, it is designed to be a community effort and seeks to put the collective interests of the initiative above that of any one person or group. The team comprises of creative professionals who share an interest and passion for the future of the communications design industry and community in Singapore.
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As someone from a creative background, it was interesting to see their creative journey and how it is run by volunteers who are really passionate about what they do and they also give back to the community. I really liked that they shared the process of the book (DON'T MIND IF I ASK), they had so much of developments, research and prototype to show that they really understood their vision, their target market and the value they add to a good collaborative project. They understood the needs and wants of their audience, I think it was really interesting to allow the readers who read the book to see creative images of data and not just boring excel sheets. Through this talk, I learnt on how to creatively lay out the information and data we collect and relate back to the community and target market.
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Week 10: Ideation methods (Class exercise)
Design question: How can companies introduce more end-of-life schemes that empower consumers to repair their items of clothing – and help sustain more emotional relationships with products – instead of throwing them away?
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For this activity, we first started with 3 ideas that answered the design questions and my classmates in the group took turns to develop that one idea into further ideas. I think this was really helpful to me because there were many instance during my semester project where I was stuck and out of ideas. Through brain-writing, I can develop one idea from another idea and keep developing it until it is a narrow path and I am satisfied with the final results. The activity forces connection and gives us linking images from one idea to another.
Week 11 & 12 : Ideation methods: Brain-writing
Brain storming
- strive for quality
- withhold judgement
- open to diversity
- make connection
- playfullness
Forced connection : Brain's ability to link two disparate items
Brain-writing activity with my concept and allowing my classmates to participate in it:
upcycled denim
one-offs unique to each person, one of a kind streetwear
Denim in ways that are not just a pair of pants
making denim not look like denim? e.g. color, structure
can use different characteristics denims add into one garment
Easy to match
and breathable
incorporating a mixture of other fabric to make it more tactile and interesting.
Denim customisation
with painting
add embellishments, surface deco, fringe etc.
sashiko embroidery
Denim up-cycled one-offs that is breathable, budget friendly and unique with cut outs.
Week 13: Prototype & User test
Learning about - Storyboards?
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Purpose of storyboards helps us to clearly convey how the story will flow and how your ideas fit into your user's world. It also allows you to see potential problems in your design.
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They are great for creating a low-fidelity narrative that focus on people, their actions, thoughts, goals, emotions and relationships.
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Learning about - Prototypes and user testings?
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Prototype is something a user can experience. It's a simple scaled down cheap early version of the product. It can be a storyboard, paper cut out, cardboard, digital mockup, miniature model, a short skit where you act out the experience.
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Important things to take note when your user looks at your prototype?
- You are testing the prototype not the user
- Context and scenario
(Observe how the user interacts with the prototype and think of possible scenarios where problems might arise)
- Interaction with the user
(Do not over explain let the user experience by themselves)
- Observe and capture
(Observe user behaviour and capture feedbacks, try not to disrupt the user's interaction with the prototype)
- Criticise the design yourself
(Users will be free to express their judgment without being fearful of being judged)
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Week 14: Prototype week
Prototype week was really exciting for me and I was really happy to hear all the different types of feedbacks I got. It was really amazing to realise that some of the users that came by could understand my project and the problem I am trying to solve by looking at my creative process journal and prototypes. I gave the users the time to go through my process journal and understand the development and research stages of my project. Most of them really loved the idea of the cut outs on my vest knowing that I took into considerations of denim in Singapore weather conditions and with the holes it will solve the pains of my user. Some pains that were brought forward by my user was the use of pockets, since I do not have a functional pocket in both my garments, they suggested having one would be useful. That is maybe something I would like to consider and improve on my design. Also, some suggested that since denim comes with a social rebellion history it would be quite cool to go for a mini effect for the dress and suggested the dress to be shorter. Overall, I loved the constructive feedbacks given by the users and I am happy to apply them and develop my project further.
REFLECTIONS FROM LSN ARTICLES (Week 1 & Week 8)
What have I learnt from design thinking this semester?
Design thinking helped me to understand the process of a design development and understanding the product from a customer point view. It is always important to enjoy the process starting from empathy, defining the problem and then moving to ideation, prototype and reflection. Research is very important when starting a design, we need to have sufficient primary and secondary evidence to design a good product for the target market. A good design is innovation, useful, makes a product understandable, durable, honest and is thorough down to the last detail.