DEFINE optional plan 5 – 10 minute talk (examples, mini-activity?) 50 minutes define activity

sign up front for how we need them set up and what we need them to have (pens, a bit of space? a partner maybe)

WHAT is define? A COMPELLING REFRAMING OF THE DESIGN CHALLENGE BASED ON YOUR NEW UNDERSTANDING

WHY define?

WHY define?

HOW TO define: unpack & space saturation

HOW TO define: activity

HOW TO define: activity

NEEDS are human emotional and physical necessities and desires capture the motivations and emotions of the person for whom you are designing are verbs

INSIGHTS are compelling realizations about your user and the design space are often surprising, but usually resonate with your gut sense If you say to yourself “huh, I never thought about it that way but that totally makes sense” that’s probably a good sign. Great insights are hard to some by (arguably harder than great solutions) – and require keeping your eyes and ears open and a lot of synthesis work to process what you learned.

Watch out for solutions disguised as needs. Think verbs

sign up front for how we need them set up and what we need them to have (pens, a bit of space? a partner maybe)

how to DEFINE: point of view is a concise problem statement which reframes the challenge is your launchpad for developing meaningful solutions to a design challenge is your guiding and grounding force as you develop your solution

how to DEFINE: point of view insight has empathetic language about the user Identifies a need that is deep! Emotional! (hint:verb) Incorporates insights about the user that are unexpected (think observation + interpretation) need user

USER Focus on a single user Look for passion

POV MADLIB [USER . . . (descriptive)] needs [NEED . . . (verb)] because [INSIGHT . . . (compelling)]

POV tips Talk about gut feelings Have good questions at this point (not answers) Short - distill your findings… don’t be afraid to put some details in the parking lot for later Singular - focus on an individual user rather than everyone Sexy - use bold, specific diction… have fun with words!

Reiren: Organic Farm at the Marin Zen Center “Safeway apples are all the same size and color. But that’s just not how things grow. Things that look machine made are not organic. Those apples look sad to me.”

Steve: Organic Produce Farmer “If you want to find the good apples at the farmer’s market, walk around and look for the batch of apples that are all different shapes and sizes.”

OUR INSIGHT: OUR CHALLENGE: Imperfections and variations are visual indicators of purity. OUR CHALLENGE: How might we leverage this when creating a cleaning product?

A wellness-conscious Zen-seeking woman needs to see a link between a product and the process that created it because for her imperfections are visual indicators of purity