Design ThinkTank
Jan 2020 - May 2021
Background
Design ThinkTank (DTT) is a great example of “using design to design”. It brings my passions for technology, design thinking, and social impact together. As a University Innovation Fellow through the Stanford d.school, I gained deep foundational knowledge in design thinking. This experience inspired me to start DTT, a student organization at Ohio State University aiming to expose a diverse group of students to the design thinking framework and empower them to solve real-world problems with a social impact focus. Each semester, I began with guiding students through a Design Thinking workshop to challenge them to view problems through an empathetic, user-centered lens. Then, they applied their learnings as I led them through hands-on projects for social impact focused clients in the greater Columbus city area.
Role: Co-Founder and Co-President, Design Thinking Facilitator, and UX Designer
Skills: Design Thinking / Education / UX Design / Organizational Design / Leadership
Team Size: 18 members
I met a great friend and fellow design thinker in one of my core design thinking classes at Ohio State. Coming from different backgrounds in business (Caroline) and engineering (me), we quickly realized how design thinking thrives off of diverse perspectives. The unique problem-solving style is applicable to nearly any field of study, providing an ideal framework for solving social impact problems through empathy, design, and technology. Eager to engage the greater OSU community and expand our reach beyond the classroom, Design ThinkTank was born.
Executive Board Structure Design
I designed the executive board structure to have six people managing organizational needs spanning our design thinking workshops, client projects, media appearance, finances, and recruitment.
Design Thinking Workshop
I designed DTT to kickoff the first 3 weeks of each semester with a design thinking workshop. In partnership with DTLiveLAB, a design thinking consulting company that teaches a human-centered approach to innovation and customer engagement across large organizations, I guided students through each step of the design thinking framework as they solved a sample problem focused on minimizing the pain points of flossing. Since many students joining DTT were new to design thinking, this served as a perfect opportunity to expose them to the framework before tackling a client project later in the semester. Moreover, DTLiveLAB came with professional experience leading design thinking workshops, challenging me to hone my skills as a design thinking facilitator.
Inspiration
Organizational Design
Leading DTT during Covid, I enabled students to use Zoom and Miro to achieve seamless virtual collaboration throughout the workshop.
The intricate Miro board was broken up into four sections. Each section supported a team of 4-5 DTT members as they navigated each phase of the design thinking framework.
We performed empathy interviews with strangers to understand the key pain points of flossing, synthesized those insights into specific problem statements, and ideated unique solutions to address our users’ needs and desires.
This is a close-up of one group’s ideation phase as they learned to share wild ideas in a highly collaborative environment.
During each week of the workshop, DTLiveLAB rewarded great engagement and participation with a charity donation.
Client Project
I ensured the remaining 12-13 weeks of the semester were focused on allowing students to apply their newly acquired design thinking skills on a real-world client project in the social impact space. Members dive into a hands-on project in partnership with a local nonprofit or social enterprise. Each semester project is structured as follows, and one of my favorite client projects is highlighted is below.
DTT & 3Tree Project Highlight
During our Spring 2021 semester, I led a DTT partnership with 3Tree, a local startup with a vision to "propagate sustainable living by inspiring individuals to create a ripple effect through community action.” DTT helped them answer two core business questions:
Empathize
I divided my organizational team into small groups of 2-3 people (myself included) to conduct user interviews and identify pain points for the questions above. Some key insights are below:
Define
People need to feel empowered to act. Most agree sustainability is important, but they don’t know how to create impact at the individual level.
People need incentives to adopt sustainable habits. Feeling a sense of reward is essential for habit formation.
Users want to be entertained. They want sharing progress to be fun, minimal reminders, and a personalized experience.
Different age groups want to contribute differently. Younger users prefer lifestyle adoption while older users want to use their wallets more sustainably.
Based on our empathy interview insights, I split the DTT team up into four groups to tackle four key problems. I joined and led the Empowerment Team throughout the rest of the client project.
Note: HMW stands for “How might we” below.
Ideate
I used a combination of ideation methods for idea generation. As part of the Empowerment Team, I used three methods including Worst Ideas, Mentor Brands, and a Time vs. Cost Matrix shown below. This allowed my team to uncover a wide range of ideas for prototyping.
Prototype
Each of the four teams developed prototypes to share with the 3Tree team for feedback. The solutions ranged from mobile apps to viral challenges, each providing a unique way to engage with consumers and promote sustainable habit adoption.
Test
As a final step, each team presented their prototypes to the 3Tree team for feedback. After presentations, the prototypes were shared with the 3Tree team to continue improving upon the prototypes for later activation. Some highlight feedback for the DTT feedback is below:
Empowerment Team: “I love the branches and it is great visual for showing progress! Another idea is adding items you can redeem for prizes at different levels / branches.”
Incentives Team: “Love the stamps - how could we make it digital and loop it into the empowerment tracking tool?!”
User Growth Team: “Sustainability Wrapped is a fantastic idea. How long do you think this would take 3 tree to develop and launch?”
Profit Team: “Working with local businesses would be great for 3Tree. The sleek design makes the user want to buy more products. How might we be mindful of how much consumption we encourage, since that's a part of sustainability?”
Learnings
All forms of design require understanding people and what they value. While organizational design and product design differ in intended outcomes, both require understanding people and what they value.
Developing creative confidence is key. Innovating with design and design thinking requires bold, new-to-the-world ideas. Generating these ideas requires courage to reimagine the status quo and fearlessly try something new.
Designing while leading design teams is incredibly rewarding. I love getting into the knitty-gritty design details while empowering others to develop their own great ideas.
