Tag Archives: communication

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/

Peer to Peer Learning – Open Ears

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2016 saw the launch of the University of Dundee’s Global Health Challenge, and in 2017 as part of the Induction we invited ‘Open Ears’ to present their project and its process.

Open Ears were voted the winners of 2016 by all of the GHC 2016 participants, rather than a small panel of “expert judges”. In this way the decision was unanimous and wholesomely democratic.

Here is their final idea as captured in a short 8 minute film, with a short Q&A session with some members of the team to help others with their future journey.

 

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.

Global Health Challenge 2017 is Go!

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Day one of 2017’s Global Health Challenge kicked off with vim and vigour this week as students, sponsors and staff considered challenges from eight innovative local organisations; The Archie Foundation; Deaf Links; Dundee International Women’s Centre; Faith in Community; Hearing Voices Network Dundee; PAMIS; Parkinson’s UK; and NHS Tayside Primary Care Services. Applicants from across the University’s nine schools gathered to discover, question and ruminate eight impactful challenges about health and wellbeing. Tasked with tackling issues such as awareness, stigma, and understanding, these challenges invite this year’s problem solvers to focus on being empathic and ‘walk for a little in someone else’s shoes’ to create products or tools, spaces or services that promote, support and enable healthier futures.

Working in DUSA’s Air Bar for the afternoon, the fantastic Linsay Duncan led our ice-breaker and energised us with something a little different; Northern Soul Dancing! We learned how to jump and spin and to ‘Keep on, keeping on’; valuable training in going forward over the next five weeks of the GHC as we strive to be agile, focused and dedicated in addressing the challenges posed.

Invigorated from dancing, we then heard from the eight project sponsors as they pitched and framed challenges inspired by the work they do and the real people they work with. Coming together in a BarCamp style we worked on being present, questioning our experts, contributing to discussion and generating questions and key themes to begin to explore each challenge. We worked quickly as students’ self-selected four challenges to investigate, capturing key words, themes and questions on post-its, which were then clustered together to build a picture of the problems faced. We then took some time to reflect and recap before students identified and signed up to the challenges they will work on for the duration of the GHC. The final formed groups consist of around seven members who represent various disciplines from across the University including; Art and Design, Dentistry, Education and Social Work, Humanities, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Science and Engineering and Social Sciences. These groups worked with their project sponsors to curate a set of initial questions and inquiries to drive their thinking over the next week, the aim being to begin to develop understanding of their subject area, of their group mates and of how they will work together during this creative process.

We then heard from last year’s GHC winners, Open Ears, who created a toolkit that aims to educate and raise awareness of the everyday issues experienced by people who are hard of hearing. Team members Alice, Charlie and Simran shared lessons learned and advice with this year’s cohort including; Visit your partner organisations as soon as possible to better inform understanding and collaborate with experts; Outline weekly goals and make the most of your Wednesday afternoon GHC sessions together; Communicate in between meetings using tools like Facebook; and Plan for your final presentations early as you want this to fully represent your hard work.

To close, Alice of Open Ears, shared the inspiring evolution of the team’s project since winning GHC16. Following their final presentation, Open Ears secured funding to further develop their prototype working with NHS Tayside and Deaf Hub. Through this Alice has successfully iterated the Open Ears toolkit and attained a Top 5 position in Converge Challenge 2017. This experience has not only helped to develop the toolkit to the benefit of its’ future users but also afforded Alice the opportunity to undertake entrepreneurial training and showcase the toolkit to a wider audience. There is much to be learned from Alice and her fellow Open Ears members. See Alice’s blog for more of this story: http://www.alicehorton.co.uk/

And on this particular high note, the Induction session wrapped up leaving the teams armed with inspiration and energy for their first week of GHC17.

A visual snapshot of the session:

Thinking Differently

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thinking differntly quote Einstein quote

The pressing global health challenges we face today demand that we think differently, and the University of Dundee’s Global Health Challenge initiative is fuelled by this exigency, this need. Indeed, it’s one of the reasons why a process of knowledge exchange – through ambitious interdisciplinary workings – is adopted as the means of exploring new routes to meaningful innovation.

The project culminates in a series of Pecha Kucha presentations given by each of the teams, showcasing their process and idea(s) for making a change and having an impact. The projects are judged against six criteria* and these criteria are to be addressed by each team within their final Pecha Kucha presentations:

  1. Social and Environmental Benefit
    How does your design benefit society and/or the environment?
  1. Research and Insights
    How did you investigate this issue? What were your key insights?
  1. Design Thinking
    How did your research and insights inform your solution? 
How did you develop,
    test, iterate and refine your concept? 
Demonstrate the journey you’ve been
    through to the end result
  1. Commercial Awareness
    Does your journey make sense from a financial point of view?
    What is the competitive environment your solution would sit within?
  1. Execution
    We are looking for a design that is pleasing and looks and feels well-resolve,
    with consideration given to its sustainability
  1. Magic
    We are looking for a bit of ‘magic’ – a surprising or lateral design solution
    that delights

think different

‘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 where 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/

timetothinkdifferently

*The Judging Criteria is guided and inspired by ambitious competitions and projects, and specifically we are adopting the RSA Design Briefs criteria.