+Acumen HCD Workshop 1

An introduction to human-centered design

Workshop Guide
THE Design process

discover

ideate

prototype

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Table of contents

Weekly Leader's Guide

Before the Workshop Agenda & Materials

Activities & Dicussions

01 02 03 04 05 Introductions Ice Breaker Course Logistics Human-Centered Design Discussion Mini Design Challenge: Design a Better Commute

Homework
06 Prepare for Week 2 07 Participate in the Google+ Community

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Weekly Leader's Guide

Before the Week 1 Workshop

CONFIRM that you have a meeting space. This should be a dedicated room, table, or even just a wall where the group can post ideas and inspiration. The design process involves a lot of talking and group collaboration, so you will want to choose a location where your group can talk in an undisturbed manner and not disturb others around you too much. CONFIRM that everyone on your design team can make the Week 1 workshop. If some members of the team will be missing, consider rescheduling or have a plan in place to proceed with a smaller number of team members for the week. PRINT this Week 1 Workshop Guide. To save paper, it is not required to print the Week 1 Readings. Check with your team members and encourage them to print the Week 1 Workshop Guide as well. COORDINATE with your team to bring supplies for brainstorming and Week 1 activities. Blank paper, pens, felt markers, Post-it Notes (or their equivalent), and printed Week 1 Workshop Guide should be sufficient. LEAD the workshop. This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions and assignments for Week 1. You will also want to keep time so that your group makes it through the full workshop in 2 hours. Make sure to read the Week 1 Readings thoroughly so that you can effectively lead your team this week.

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Weekly Leader's Guide

Agenda 01 Introductions 15 minutes 02 Ice Breaker 15 minutes 03 Course Logistics 10 minutes 04 Human-Centered Design discussion 15 minutes Break 10 minutes 05 Mini Design Challenge 50 minutes 06 Preparation for Week 2 5 minutes

Materials needed Blank paper, pens, Week 1 Workshop Guide, Post-it Notes (or their equivalent)

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Activity
01
15 minutes

introductions & beginner's mind

As human-centered designers, its important to embrace your beginners mind; to approach problems as a novice even when you already know a lot about them. Your beginners mind is eager to learn and willing to experiment! Take a few minutes to answer the questions below and then discuss your answers with your team. Be sure to tap into your beginners mind for the last question below. Fill out the questions below
1) What is your name?

2) Where do you work?

3) Why are you taking this course?

4) What would you like to learn during the course?

5) What would you like to be doing in 5 years?

6)  Tell a story about the last activity that you tried for the first time? Was it exciting or scary? How did being a novice help you?

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Activity
02
15 minutes

icebreaker: Visual telephone

Its very important to be visual as a human-centered designer. Thinking visually activates different parts of your brain and can help you get unstuck at key points in the creative process. This ice breaker will help you get visual. Complete the exercise
Note You will need at least three team members for this activity. Each team member will need a blank piece of paper and pen.

1
- Everyone in the group should write one sentence (silly or serious) on the top of your piece of paper - Fold over the top of the paper to hide the sentence - Pass your paper to the person on your right

4
- Unfold the paper you just received to reveal only the last sentence - Draw a picture based on what you see. - Fold the paper four times - Pass it to the right
Repeat until your original paper returns to you Unfold it and see how much the story has changed

2
- Unfold the paper you just received to reveal the sentence - Draw a picture of what you see -  Fold your paper to hide the sentence at the top, then fold it again to hide the picture below it - Pass the piece of paper to the right

3
- Unfold the paper you just received to reveal only the picture (not the sentence) - Write a new sentence below the picture, describing what you see - Fold the paper three times to hide the first sentence, then the picture, then the last sentence - Pass it to the right

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discussion
03
10 minutes

Logisitics

The Weekly Leader should guide this discussion. This course has a group-guided learning structure and will be most successful if you follow as closely as possible to the guidelines below. Discuss each of these guidelines and determine if there will be any problems and map out potential solutions. Discuss
Time
Each workshop is scheduled to last two hours. Youll have about 1-2 hours of readings each week in advance of the Workshop. After Weeks 2+4, youll have homework assignments as you practice the human-centered design process in your community.

Leadership
Each week, a member of your team will serve as the Weekly Leader. This person will lead the weekly discussion and facilitate the various activities. They are also responsible for coordinating with team members to bring required supplies.

Supplies
Each team member should print out the Workshop Guide and bring it to each meeting. Remember, it isn't necessary to print out the Weekly Readings, just the Workshop Guide. The Weekly Leader will be responsible for organizing with the team to provide: - Pens, pencils, markers, blank paper - Post-it notes if theyre available; if not, cut scrap paper into squares and bring tape to stick them on the wall. During Weeks 4+5, your team will need to gather and bring protoptyping supplies to the meeting. You'll get more details later on this.

Calendar
Plot the workshop sessions on a calendar. Mark dates that members might miss and plan accordingly or reschedule. You will be conducting community research in Weeks 2 and 4. Weekend meetings might be best for these two sessions.

Set ground rules

We recommend that your group takes a moment to set a few rules or norms for how you would like the weekly workshops to function. Here are some questions to get you going: - How can you structure the weekly workshop to ensure that an environment of mutual trust and respect is created? - How should feedback (both positive and negative) be communicated so that each individual and the group get the most out of it? - Are there other rules that you can think of which will make the weekly workshops run more smoothly?

Space
Try to secure a meeting space for the full 5 weeks of the workshop. Can you hold the weekly workshop at someones house, your school, office, church?

Sharing
We've created a Google+ Community where you'll post updates from your design team and learn what other workshop groups around the world are doing. See page 14 of this document for instructions on how to sign up.

Write Your Team Name

Your team should select a name. Have fun with the name and choose something that is distinctive and represents your team. You'll use this team name to post updates to the Google+ Groups community.
Team Name

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discussion
04
15 minutes

Human centered-design

The Weekly Leader should guide this discussion. These questions are based upon the Week 1 Readings. Feel free to refer back to the readings on your computer (or if you printed them out) to refresh your memory.

Overview
The first reading ("An Introduction to Human-Centered Design") provided an overview of human-centered design. The second reading ("Design-Thinking for Social Innovation") discussed the human-centered design process and its application to social challenges. Some examples within the second reading as well as the third reading ("Clean Team Case Study") provided you with specific examples of how the human-centered design process has been used to create innovative solutions to real world challenges.

Discuss 1
Depending on your previous experience and knowledge, your learnings from these readings will be slightly different from the other members of the group. Take a few minutes to briefly share your three most interesting takeaways (that you prepared in the workshop prep for this week) and any questions youre still trying to figure out.

A Note for the weekly leader Please prompt the group with references back to the Week 1 Readings if your group needs a boost during the discussion below.

2
As a group, analyze what makes "Human-Centered Design" unique from other problem-solving frameworks. What aspects are similar to other frameworks for problem solving? What aspects are different?

3
As a group, share ideas on various social challenges that you think could benefit from the application of human-centered design. Are there types of challenges where you think it would be more difficult to apply the human-centered design process? Why?

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Activity
05
Page 1 of 3

Design a better commute

The best way to begin learning the human-centered design process is to do it ourselves. Divide into groups of two people. If your workshop team has an odd number of people, one group can have three people. Interview your partner and then switch. Someone should be keeping track of time and keeping the group on schedule with each portion of the activity.
Step 1

Interview: 10 minutes (spend 5 minutes interviewing your partner and then switch roles)

Discover

Interview your partner. Begin by understanding their morning commute. Not just about how they get there learn about how they feel, what they wish for, what gets in their way, ideas for how they would go about improving their commute. Your job is to ask great questions, listen, learn and don't be afraid to ask Why?.

A few techniques you might try: - Try asking "Why?" in response to five consectuive answers from your partner. - Ask your partner to visualize their morning commute with a drawing or a diagram

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Activity
05
Page 2 of 3

Design a better commute

Step 2

Interpreting needs: 5 minutes

Take five minutes to read over your notes from the interview with your partner. Write down answers to the questions below.
IDEATE

What are 3 unique aspects of your partners commute?

What are 3 needs that your partner faces each morning?

Step 3

Brainstorm: 10 minutes

IDEATE

Nows your chance to imagine new solutions to make someone elses life better! Work with your partner and sketch 4-6 radical new ways to improve the commute. You should focus on ideas for your partner and your partner should focus on ideas for you. However, work collaboratively and try to come up with a few ideas that might improve the commute for both of you. Dont worry about being perfect, draw your ideas quickly to capture them. Use more paper if you need it!

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Activity
05
Page 3 of 3

Design a better commute

Step 4

Reality Check: 5 minutes

Share your favorite ideas with another team. Get feedback from them. Dont sell your ideas find out what they really think! See if you can find out what excites them about your ideas, and learn more about what they might wish for.
IDEATE

Notes

Step 5

Prototype: 10 minutes

Ok. You got some feedback from another team. How do you want to revise your design to reflect that feedback? Now it's time to prototype. Choose your favorite idea and work with your partner to quickly build a prototype.
Protot ype

Remember Your prototype can be a model, a diagram, or a more detailed drawing. Dont be shy about going tangible its great to grab some scissors, construction paper, tape and markers (or anything else around you!) and make that idea real. In any way you can. This way you can share your brilliant design(s) with others!

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discussion
06
10 minutes

REflect & Share

Congratulations on designing a great solution! Normally, you would continue to iterate on your idea, reconsidering elements of your design based on feedback you receive from the community. Because time is growing short in this week's workshop, let's take a few minutes to reflect on what you learned during this mini-challenge and during Week 1 as a whole.

Reflect
Take 5 minutes to individually reflect on the following questions and write your responses down quickly in your notebook or on some Post-it notes:  What feedback did you get from the other design team during the "Reality Check"? Did your design change as a result?  Based upon your experience during this mini design challenge, why might the human-centered design process be a useful problem solving methodology for tackling larger social sector challenges?  Acumen has a practice of sharing Ahas on a regular basis. It is a way to reflect on an experience and gain more insight into both the world around you and yourself. "Ahas" can bekey takeaways, new perspectives on an issue, memorable comments or questions, surprises, challenges, or parting thoughts from this workshop.Write down a few Ahas.

Share
Now come together with your full workshop group:  Share your prototype with the group. Do you have ideas for further refining your idea based upon the feedback you received?  Share and discuss your Ahas with the group. Were there similar or different takeaways?

Optional Take pictures of your prototypes from this design activity to share online later. See p. 14 of this document for instructions on how to participate in the Google+ Community.

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homework
06
5 minutes

Preparing for Week 2

CHOOSE
the Weekly Leader for next week.

REVIEW
materials needed for the Week 2 workshop: pens, paper, Post-it's, notebooks, camera/ mobile phone camera.

CONFIRM
location & time for the Week 2 workshop. A weekend meeting is advised for this session, as you will spend part of it out in the community, doing research.

DON'T FORGET
to do the following between today and your Week 2 workshop: - Join the "Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation" Google+ Community if you havent already done so (please see p.14 for instruction). - Share your individual "Ahas" from Week 1 and/or any photos from the Week 1 workshop on theGoogle+ Communityunder the category "Workshop Reflections/Pictures". We suggest the following title for your post: "Your team name_Your location_Week 1". - Read Google+ Community posts from the other participants around the world.

read
the Week 2 Readings in advance of the Week 2 workshop.

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homework
07
5 minutes

Participate in the Google+ Community

Participating in the online Google+ community will help you understand how teams around the world are implementing human-centered design as they learn about it during this course. Depending on your familiarity with Google+ we've outlined how you can sign up to participate.
If you DO NOT have a Google+ or gmail Account
1 Go tohttps://www.google.com/ 2 Find the red box that says "sign up" at the top right corner. 3 Fill in the required information and register for a Google account. 4 Once you are logged into your Google account, click on "+(your name)" that appears at the top left corner of your screen. For example if your first name is Jessica, it will appear as "+Jessica". 5 Once you have reached your Google+ profile page, you can either upload your picture by clicking "Snap a photo"/"upload an image" or simply move on by clicking on the blue box that says "Finish".

If you DO have an account and have used Google+ before

1a Clickhere* and "Ask to join" the Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation community. The full URL for the community is listed at the bottom of this page. 1b Or Look for a button that says "Home" at the top left of your Google+ profile page. Scroll down the menu until you reach "Communities" in green. Click on it. Within the box that says"Search for communities", type in Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation. Click on the button that says "Ask to join this community". 2 Wait for an email confirming you've been excepted into the Google+ Community.

Take a few minutes to orientate yourself to the Google+ Community

1 When joining the "Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation" Community, you must read the "About this community" section on the community home page. Please be sure to also read "A word from our legal team". We know the legal stuff isn't exciting, but it's important. Trust us. 2 Browse the various sections of the Google+ community under "All posts". Some categories that you might find useful include -"Tips for Google Community" (tips) -"Do's and Don'ts -"Syllabus" -"Homework"

Optional We have established a Google map to visualize who is taking this course around the world. The link to the Google Map of course participants and guidelines for how to participate in this dynamic map is posted under the category "Map - Who is taking this course?" from the Google+ community page.

* https://plus.google.com/communities/111202940490879949292