Category Archives: Resources

Creating personas and empathy mapping.

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After conversations with the groups last week, we thought it would be useful to provide you with some helpful tools in your journey towards innovation. It is important when tackling these big challenges to approach them with fresh perspectives. In order to be innovative you must firstly understand the motivations and needs of your user(s) and importantly, be able to empathise with these motivations and needs.

Personas and empathy maps are important tools in creating empathy with your user(s).      A persona is a fictional character, created through research and audience interaction, that represents a typical user for a product or service. Creating personas is a way to better understand your audience and stakeholders, allowing for specific focus on “who this is for.” Creating personas also helps to challenge existing  assumptions about users or groups along the way. Creating personas helps you to consider the motivations of your users, and focus on a human centered approach to challenges. As a group you might like to create a persona or personas shaped by your visits to your organisation and its users.

This 3 minute watch on personas provides context on what personas are; why they are important tools and how to use them…

“Personas are the handle you use to grab hold of what you learned from your research. They humanize the context, background, and motivations of your users.” Alan Cooper
To create your own personas download the Nesta Persona sheet here: https://www.nesta.org.uk/toolkit/personas/

Empathy mapping is another incredibly valuable tool in understanding users. The value of empathy mapping is that it allows you to gain a rich understanding of your users and spot new areas of opportunity.  By mapping out what users say, do, think and feel, we can begin to better understand our users and empathise with their actions and thoughts.

As a group you could discuss and map out; What did your user say? Did anything stick out as a quote or phrase? What actions and behaviors did you observe? What might your user be thinking about? What does this tell you about your user? And; what emotions might your user be feeling?

Some useful links for creating personas:

http://opendesignkit.org/methods/personas/

https://uxknowledgebase.com/creating-personas-part-1-cf1bef5b7eba

Some useful links for getting started with empathy mapping:

https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/groups/k12/wiki/3d994/empathy_map.html

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/making-digital-work-toolkit

https://sites.dundee.ac.uk/dundeeghc/2016/10/31/empathy-maps/

Pecha Kucha

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The Global Health Challenge culminates in a series of Pecha Kucha presentations given by each team, showcasing their process and idea(s) for making a change and having an impact.

In this post we offer a brief introduction to the presentation format known as ‘Pecha Kucha’ with helpful links to find further information.

‘What is Pecha Kucha 20×20?’

PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images.

Powerpoint is advised as it is easy to set-up so that the images advance automatically.

Preparation is key and rehearsals are necessary.

Further Information about Pecha Kucha and examples of them, can be found at: http://www.pechakucha.org/ Their Daily Blog is filled with inspiring examples

 

Helpful Tips when Preparing a Pecha Kucha for GHC

1. Practice, Practice, Practice! Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!

Share and feedback with your team as you build. Be inclusive, but keep that balanced. Decisions need to be made (within the short time frame you have) in order to create a completed Pecha Kucha.  It takes practice to ensure the image/information on your slide connects with the point you are verbally making, and how each slide connects to each other to create a story and a great presentation. Time literally runs away! The more you practice and rehearse, the better prepared and more confident you will become.

2. Reflect

Consider your experiences over the weeks, sift and edit through them to include the most relevant ones and the unexpected insights.

3. Have fun! Take regular short breaks

While time can be short and a few things to juggle…don’t be scared to walk away from the computer for 10 minutes while you are creating your Pecha Kucha before coming back to it. Things can often make more sense once you’ve had some fresh air/ time away/food/drink.

4. Start Building Early

You’ve gained lots of experiences and insights over the past few weeks in the GHC. These  you can be used to help build and develop the front end of your team presentation, whilst the final touches to your are being made to the conclusion/end output of the innovative idea.

5. Be confident!

Much of the hard work has been done. As you prepare to create your PK, remember the task is to share your story.

 

Good Luck!!

Let’s Create a Culture of Collaboration

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“Create a Collaborative Mind-set”

– IDEO

As GHC17 problem solvers, you’ve been tasked in identifying insights and opportunities to bring about positive change for real people experiencing very real and complex issues. Key to the success of this will be teamwork.

Let’s look to IDEO co-founder David Kelly for some advice whilst working towards innovation as multidisciplinary teams:

  1. Every team member should be given the same amount of respect
  2. Take advantage of individual skill sets: throw egos out the window
  3. Embrace the opportunity afforded by bringing together people with different backgrounds and expertise – you’ll have more resources, insight, and experience to draw from

In other words, let’s create a culture of collaboration and recognise the strengths afforded to your teams brought by the various backgrounds and fields of your members. The next five weeks are yours to explore, discover and ideate and embracing the opportunity to do this together will really make your project sing.

Building on this thinking and echoing some of the advice shared by GHC16 winners Open Ears in our induction session, here are some final top tips from your GHC facilitators for successful teamwork:

  • COMMUNICATE: Establish and use somewhere central, like Facebook or the GHC webmail platform to communicate with your group. Share where you’re at and discuss progress in between meetings.
  • BE MINDFUL of the commitment you have made to the team. It is good professional practice to give this your full attention – if meetings are arranged, attend them. 
  • PROJECT PLAN & DELEGATE: Compile a task list – who does what and when?
  • PREPARE for your final presentation. Make sure every team member is clear on their role within the presentation and collect and compile visuals to communicate your project well.

Empathy Maps

Design and Innovation, Uncategorized

“Good design is grounded in a deep understanding of the person for whom you are designing. Designers have many techniques for developing this sort of empathy. An Empathy Map is one tool to help you synthesize your observations and draw out unexpected insights.”

-d.School Method Cards, Institute for Design at Stanford

Empathy Maps are useful tools in allowing us to gain a richer understanding of the lives of our user(s); what are their lives like; what is important to them; what do they need and want? Having this level of understanding is key for effective design. As a group you might like to map your users’ key issues and insights relevant to your developing design concepts to ensure you are considering both the intrinsic and wider impacts that your ideas and solutions may have within your chosen GHC theme.

Screen Shot 2016-10-31 at 13.42.06
Team OAPortunity use an empathy map to better understand the people they are designing for

Some great resources:

d.School Empathy Map Method Card

Nesta’s Empathy Mapper template

Strategyzer’s Customer Value Proposition Canvas

Using Change Cards to Consider Your Challenge

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In a previous post we shared some advice and links to helpful resources on how to go out about framing the challenge your team is working on.  Once you’ve done this you might  find it useful to start to look at your challenge from different perspectives and one way you can do this is to use a set of change cards like the ones shared below developed by the Policy Lab.  These change cards are framed around six categories and you can use them to collectively explore your challenge further and to develop and deliver your project.  As you work through them they might inspire your team to frame some other questions and create your own change cards that can help shape and inform how you respond to the challenge you are addressing.  As you work through these cards you’ll find they get you thinking about how these challenges might be addressed in other locations, how different groups might approach the challenge and consider how you can be resourceful.

 

This second presentation from the Policy Lab gives an overview of the methods it adopts in its work with civil servants and others to help encourage more open and innovative strategies to developing policy and tackling different issues and challenges.    The Policy Lab makes effective use of user centred design-based approaches  to innovate and understand the problems individuals face and address these problems.  You’ll notice that the presentation talks about challenge setting, something we’re encouraging you to do by framing your challenge.  Another important concept presented here, which is relevant to all the challenges, is to consider and define different personas for the individuals affected by the problem you’re addressing.  This process helps you to build empathy with the people your project will be helping and to start you thinking about the journeys people take as they interact with different services and identify where things could be improved.

Loneliness and Social Isolation in Older People

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Loneliness is a distressing subjective psychological experience that may arise when an individual perceives a discrepancy in the quantity and quality of their social relationships. (It is possible for some to feel ‘alone in a room full of people’). Social isolation is the objective absence of social relationships and connectedness. Individuals experiencing social isolation may require practical help and resources (e.g. transport) whereas those experiencing loneliness may benefit from more social support and extended social networks.

People of all ages and circumstance are susceptible to loneliness and social isolation but older adults may be more vulnerable due to various age related changes or decline in health, mobility and social contacts or activities. 10% of UK adults aged 65 years and over are reported as feeling lonely all of the time and 40% name television as their primary source of company. Other risk factors include having cognitive or sensory impairment(s), being an older carer, having little or no contact with neighbours and living alone. Loneliness and isolation carry various health consequences (biological dysfunctions, psychological upset or behavioural issues) and individuals experiencing loneliness may develop negative habits such as excessive smoking, over eating and alcohol dependency. Many lonely people experience high blood pressure, sleep problems, anxiety, depression and cognitive decline and individuals who are lonely are 64% more likely to develop dementia than individuals who are not.

Noted strategies in tackling loneliness and isolation include improving social skills, enhancing social support, increasing opportunities for social interaction, and addressing poorly adaptive social cognition. But for those hard-to-reach individuals, who may feel discouraged in actively seeking support due to the stigma associated with loneliness and social isolation or who may be unaware of the services and support available to them, creative, innovative solutions are required. This challenge is an exciting opportunity to apply your skills and design for this highly impactful social issue.

Some Resources:

The Campaign to End Loneliness 

‘How societies can grow old better’ Jared Diamond, TED Talk

Elderly men and Social Isolation, Sky News 

‘1 in 5 Elderly have no-one to turn to’, BBC

‘Age of Loneliness’, Sue Bourne for BBC

‘Who is lonely and when?’, Prof Christina Victor

Inspiring Projects & Enterprises:

Nana’s Community Cafe, Nesta Ageing Well Challenge 2013

Nesta Ageing Well Challenge 2013 Prize finalists

 

 

 

Framing the Challenge

Design and Innovation, General

This first week is about exploring and one of the first tasks is to frame your team’s challenge. A number of questions were created during last week’s Barcamp which should help you to do this. We encourage all of the teams to build on this work, to explore more, conduct further research and continue engaging in mindful conversation with your partner organisation and facilitators.

We know that framing a challenge can be tough but we also know, that when it’s done right, it can inspire everyone who is involved to thoroughly search for creative solutions. Here are some resources to help you think about framing your challenge:

IDEO.ORG DesignKit: Frame Your Design Challenge
Available at: http://www.designkit.org/methods/60
Accessed 23 October 2016.

VanGundy, A. B. (2005) The Care and Framing of Strategic Innovation Challenges.
Available at: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/sgc1/faculty/business-project-management/documents/VanGundyFrameInnov.pdf
Accessed: 23 October 2016.