How might we capture and share our thinking processes?

 

Constraints:

-For the working prototype of this website I set a time constraint of 2 hours.  I designated accountability buddies and said that I'd have a link to them by noon.  That upped the focus and drove me to design the most important parts of the site first (versus thinking about style, color, SEO, etc.)

 

Empathy:  

I started this project by looking through portfolios of designers and noting things I found to be user-friendly.  One unintended empathy-building experience was through selecting my template for this site.  Wix has a huge selection of portfolio website templates, and I was able to weigh pros & cons of each before designing my own.

 

Ideate:

The idea for a Maker portfolios came from Ron Berger's An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students. The hypothesis is that if students have a public audience for their reflections, they will push themselves to produce higher quality work.

 

Prototype:  

My intial protoype for this website was drawn on paper while flying to San Francisco for MakerFaire.  I knew that making an example portfolio would be part of my summer preparation work for 2015-2016.

 

Because the goal of this site is to serve as an exemplar for students to document their design thinking processes, the minimally viable version of this site would have one reflection.  Since my most recently developed product was the Design Thinking Swag Bags I opted to document that first.

 

Test & Iterate: 

At noon, after two hours of design, I handed over my laptop to Nate and watched him navigate the prototype site.  I learned a lot from watching him.  One immediate design flaw was that Nate initially didn't realize that the projects on the homepage were links - the meat of content is via those links!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was also helpful that Nate narrated his thinking as he scanned the site.  He said things like, "Ok, so you're making a portfolio for yourself" and "this is text heavy." 

 

As Nate reviewed the prototype site, I caught myself attempting to defend decisions I made.  It's such a vulnerable feeling to put a product in the hands of a user for the first time.  By siliently listening to his reflections on the site, he flet comfortable getting more specific with his feedback. 

 

Version 0.2 updates included deleting the homepage header image, changing the gallery link text, and switching the thumbnail for this page.

 

Version 0.3 integrates feedback from Allie which include underlining the section titles & a line directing visitors to click on the portfolio entries.

 

Meta Learnings:

-When receiving feedback on a design, shhhhhh!

-Time constraints & accountability buddies are helpful for having a bias toward action. 

 

Next Steps: 

-My portfolio design will be validated by the resulting student portfolios that are created this fall.  My hypothesis is that if I reflect on my projects publicly with a design thinking framework, the quality of their reflections will improve.