A Student’s take on the Design Thinking Mobfest

Posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2016

mobfest

Ayah Shadid (left) collaborates with fellow design thinkers. (Pic via twitter.com/pattichurch)

Written by Ayah Shadid, Public Relations Student

We are always told that taking a step back from a situation gives us a different perspective that changes our standpoint. I always believed in that statement, but never have I practiced it as objectively as I did last week at the Design Thinking MobFest event held by Algonquin College’s Entrepreneurship Office. The purpose of this event was to use design thinking to initiate creative solutions to make the student commons a better space for both students and staff members.

A sharpie marker, yellow post it notes, and a nametag with different coloured dots next to our names is what we were given as we walked into the student commons lounge. I had no idea what to expect next! We were all chatting and guessing what these coloured dots next to our name tags would mean, being the only person with a red dot, I was eager to find out. We were then divided into groups; each group chose a student commons’ user such as social students, mature students, homework groups, etc.

‘Draw a vase’ and ‘Draw a way in which people could experience flowers differently’ was our first task, given to us by one of the facilitators, Kevin Grignon, a representative from IBM. The point of this exercise was to help us understand the concept that differentiates the two tasks, empathy; empathy is a core component of design thinking.

Empathy is only the first step in design thinking. After learning about our audiences, we had to define what the user feels, does, says and thinks. Through that, groups were able to pin points what problems the user may have. Next, we brainstormed and came up with as many solutions as possible to their problems. Keep in mind this is all using our sharpies and post it notes!

Following that step, was building a representation of our solutions. There was play dough, glitter, popsicle sticks, and all sorts of craft materials laid out on the table for us. This step was probably the most enjoyable and engaging part of design thinking, with the limited materials we had, each group thought of unusual and imaginative ways to build their solutions.

And finally, came testing these ideas. This is where the groups shared their ideas with the users themselves, and evaluated whether their solutions are valuable to the users or not. In this case, teams would walk around student commons, present their ideas to their users, and get feedback on the ideas that they have shaped.

The biggest takeaway for me was that stories are important. Humanizing problems, putting a name, face, and emotions to a user of a service is vital in understanding what they want changed. It truly was a great experience, we came together as students from different programs and fields of study, which by the way, is what those coloured dots represented! Since design thinking encourages a diverse group with different experiences and viewpoints to tackle problems creatively.

The Design Thinking MobFest was a wonderful event! Big thanks to faculty team for engaging students and allowing us to contribute our ideas!


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