by Jiawen Fang, China, ELP 2014
Written on July 21, 2014.
The synthesis and reflections of the IDEO.org workshop
I am very interested in creative design for city slums, or some ways out of urban poverty. The workshop on July 17th by IDEO.org really inspired me a lot. The workshop contained two parts. In the first part, faculty from IDEO.org gave us a brief, but important introduction about human centered design, including its definition, principles and processes. In the second part, we were provided a great chance to design a wallet in group work.
What is IDEO.org?
IDEO.org is a nonprofit design organization that works to empower the poor. They believe that by understanding and working alongside those in the greatest need, they can design solutions that create prosperity. Partnering with nonprofits, social enterprises, and foundations, IDEO.org practices human-centered design to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems.
Part 1: Introduction of Human Centered Design
Having done some design projects before, I found it really helpful and inspiring. Here are the summary of principles and process:
Principles:
- Get out there: go where your designs locate or somewhere you are crazy about.
- Talk to extremes: the needs of the extremes decide how human centered your design is.
- Understand and observe: be sure to pay equal attention to both reality and aspiration. Gather inspiration from unexpected places. Keep your eyes and your heart open.
- Work with disciplines: cooperation between different fields.
- Prototype early and often: problems will never emerge before design put into practice.
- Consider the system: where people system, technical system and business system overlapped is where design thinking begins. See Fig. 1