How to Conduct Effective Discovery Interviews During the Design Thinking Process

Transcription

1 How to Conduct Effective Discovery Interviews During the Design Thinking Process Presented By: Katrin Robertson Wholemindesign Ann Arbor, Michigan Presented at: ACLEA 52 nd Annual Meeting July 30 th August 2 nd, 2016 Seattle, Washington

2 Katrin Robertson Wholemindesign Ann Arbor, Michigan Katrin Oddleifson Robertson received her B.A. in 1984 in studio art and art history from Oberlin College, and her M.A. in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University in Katrin has been a teacher educator at the University of Michigan for the last 15 years. She is also a founding member and co director of Wholemindesign Studio, a professional development organization in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In her work as an educator she helps others learn to think like a designer in order to improve their performance in all aspects of their lives.

3 Getting Started With the First Step of Design Thinking: Discovery! If you are seeking innovative solutions to challenges in your organization, Design Thinking is an effective, step-by-step process that helps you generate creative solutions to any kind of problem. In this handout you will find information about how to take the first steps as a Design Thinker, Discovery. STEP ONE: UNDERSTAND YOUR CHALLENGE Design Thinking begins with a well-articulated challenge. For example: Design a way to help everyone in our organization understand and appreciate the contributions that each department makes to the productive functioning of the organization as a whole. Design a way to use social media (or enhance our existing on-line presence and community) to help lawyers develop and sustain important professional relationships. Design a way to make our instructional videos more engaging and purposeful for our customers. STEP TWO: CONDUCT YOUR DISCOVERY Once you have named your challenged, the next step in the Design Thinking process is called Discovery. The purpose of Discovery is to understand another s perspective on or experience with the challenge you are trying to solve. Your job is to EMPATHIZE and think out from another s point of view so as to collect meaningful data and insights regarding how to meet their needs with your product or service. There are many ways to conduct Discovery. One of the most powerful is to interview people directly (in-person or over the phone). Before getting started you will need to create a set of open-ended questions designed to elicit your users thinking and feeling related to your challenge, as well as practice deeply listening to and following up on what they say. Discovery questions are intended to function as guides and not scripts. Feel free to ask other questions if you are moved to do so. During the interview, capture your data in a variety of forms if possible - notes, video, audio, and photos are all excellent ways to document and communicate your findings. The big idea during Discovery is to collect a rich set of data that you can draw from moving forward. The following graphic can be a helpful way of visualizing the structure of your interview. 1

4 NOTE: it is very important to remember that you are NOT interpreting the data you collect during the Discovery process, you are simply gathering it. Making meaning out of the data you collect is what you will be doing next in the designing process, so do your best to remain in objective observation and empathy mode, and resist the temptation to interpret what is being said or talk about your own experience. You should be DEEPLY LISTENING. Below is an example of the interviewing process related to the challenge: Design a way to use social media (or enhance our existing on-line presence and community) to help lawyers develop and sustain important professional relationships. Example: Begin your interview by introducing yourself, sharing the reason for the interview, and establishing rapport with your interviewee. It can be helpful to set time parameters as well, for example: this should take no more than 15 minutes of your time. Tell the interviewee the purpose of the interview, to better understand his/her needs regarding your challenge, and that his/her individual responses will be kept confidential. 2

5 The questions below follow an arc, moving in order from simple to more complex. Each question includes a possible follow-up question designed to deepen the response of the interviewee (see parenthesis). 1. Please tell me a little bit about your practice and how long you have been working in this area of the law. 2. What kinds of connections with other attorneys are most valuable to you at this point in your career? (And why do you think that is?) 3. In a broad sense how has social media impacted your connections with other practicing attorneys (what makes you say that?) 4. What are your patterns of social media use across a whole day (at work and at home)? (I noticed you mentioned.could you tell me more about that?) 5. What are the words/phrases you would use to describe your feelings regarding using social media? (Why do you say that?) 6. What do you believe are the biggest advantages of social media in your life? (Can you elaborate/tell me more about.) 7. What do you see to be the biggest challenges involving your use of social media; what frustrations do you have? (You mentioned could you tell me more about that?) 8. Are you a subscriber to our online community? If so: a. How does the on-line community meet your needs for building professional connections with other lawyers? b. What challenges exist for you with regard to using ICLE's on-line platform for developing and maintaining connections with other lawyers? 9. As an attorney, what would you want a designer of social media to know about your need to build and sustain your professional (or otherwise) connections? Wrap up the interview by thanking the interviewee, and assuring him or her that the information s/he provided will be kept confidential and that his/her name will not be associated with any data provided. Other ways to conduct Discovery are: I. Create and distribute a survey: 3

6 Create an online (or hardcopy) survey for each of your constituent groups (contributing attorneys, subscribers, ICLE technical staff, and even the ICLE staff). Be sure to create questions that are specifically focused on each sub-group and how they are oriented to your work (see example questions on the last page). Process for designing the survey 1. Discuss with your team who you will survey and what kind of information will be important to gather. What are you curious about regarding their feelings, thoughts, experiences, etc., as a member of the ICLE (or other) community? What might you need to know in order to understand their needs more fully? 2. Next, brainstorm as many questions as possible that evoke the kind of information you are seeking. Be sure to include indirect and open-ended questions whenever possible that allow both thoughts and emotions to be revealed, and not just opinions. Once you have a good set of questions to choose from, select the best 3-6 to use in your survey. Be mindful of choosing questions that are the right grain-size - not too big ( Describe your experience as a client of ICLE ) and not too narrow ( notifications? ) 3. Prioritize the questions so that you are asking them in an order that makes sense to your team. 4. Publish the survey (Survey Monkey is a great tool) and do an blast requesting participation. II. Observation Ask a few clients if you could observe him or her using your product (customer) or recording a video session (contributing attorney). Take notes about things like: What you notice the person doing as they watch or tape a video. What kinds of emotions you observe the person expressing during the experience. What is his or her body language telling you? The kind of vibe or tone you detect about context as a whole. How the arrangement of the physical environment they are in contributes to or inhibits the experience for the customer or the contributor. Feel free to take photographs to document your observations (although not of people without their permission). Capture quotes if possible and keep track of questions that occur as you experience the life from another s perspective. III. Study an analogous situation; find out what others know that you don t yet. 4

7 Think about what other organizations are doing as they work on the same kind of challenge that you have (legal or otherwise), and learn how they are addressing it. IV. You could also conduct a literature review related to your challenge or speak to people with expertise that you can build on. 5