How might we engage users in an asychronous design thinking experience?

 

Organizers of the Ignite 2015 conference in Denver, CO invited me to present and bring an item for participant "swag bags."  

 

Constraints:  The product should

-Be representative of my work with The Disruption Department.

-Provide an opportunity for users to further engage with our work (a "call-to-action").

-Be small enough to carry 20 of them on a plane.

-Cost less than $1 each.

 

Empathy:  I started by researching swag bag style give-a-ways.  These include things like USB drives, water bottles, and t-shirts.  It was obvious that typical items were not going to meet budgetary contraints.  This led to a focus on design thinking.  Would it be possible to provide a swag bag item that inspired asynchrounous action?  I recalled an activity I do with students in Makerspace called Ready, Set, Design. Could this be iterated to inpire facilitator-free work?

 

Ideate:  The guiding star of our work at The Disruption Department is design thinking, but within that framework there are many potential focus areas that could make great swag bag giveaways.

 

-An "empathy bag" that calls for folks to interview each other about an experience.

-A "define bag" that has participants document "bugs" to squash.

-A "prototyping bag" with materials to make something.

-An "iterate bag" that engages users in the process of improving something (a drawing, etc.)

 

I also pinged friends and asked for ideas.  These included Rubik's Cubes and 3D printed items like business card holders, puzzles, and even door stops.

 

Prototype:  I decided to commit to a prototyping-centric bag, and designed a quick prototype by hand-writing instructions on a piece of oragami paper.  I user-tested within minutes.  One thing to note was that though hand-writing the instructions made geting started easier, it definitely made iteration more difficult & time-consuming.  I quickly switched over to typed instructions.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test & Iterate:  I soon realized that the biggest challenge of this project would be designing a bag that inspired users to dive in to the process unprompted.  Writing clear & concise instructions would be key.

 

My second iteration revamped many of the stumbling areas discovered after the first test.  Most of the changes were related to the wording of the instructions.

 

I also realized an innate flaw in my testing method.  Approaching a participant and asking him to test the bag was much different than the experience of receiving the bag in a conference swag bag.  How might I replicate that process better while still validating the design?

 

Presenting in Denver posed a unique opportunity to test.  How might I track engagement?  In my third iteration I added a call-to-action to post the resulting prototype on social media with a hashtag.  This would allow me to see how many participants engaged with the process, and a Disruption Department donor even offered to contribute for each picture posted!  

 

Further testing revealed that even while I was standing there, participants were reluctant to post their prototypes on social media.  Perhaps an bug related to Creative Confidence?  To provide an example and potentially help users feel more comfortable, I included a screenshot of an instagram post on the instructions.

 

Reluctance to post publicly was further confirmed by results post-Denver.  Out of the twenty bags distributed, zero participants posted a public tagged picture on their Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts.  Additionally, there has been limited engagement on our website from Denver. 

 

Meta Learnings:  

-Designing a way to validate a design is as important as the design itself.

-Hand-written text encourages a #biastowardaction, but typed instructions are easier to tweak & iterate.  

 

Next Steps:  How might we enhance the willingness of users to post their prototypes on social media?