Design Sensing
What is Design Sensing about ?
Design sensing is a good alternative to Design Thinking or the U process of Theory U as it combines the advantages of both approaches. The Design Sensing process guides an innovation team from the perception of a problem or challenge to the tested and implemented idea. It is a very structured and straightforward process yet at the same time gives space for intuition, sensing and refined perception.
In order to call it Design Sensing, the following are important in the process:
- Appreciation of all that is good: Starting from gratitude, ending with gratitude.
- Human Centered Approach: exploring the needs of the target group with empathy and a real interest in their lives. We design for them and with them. We include their thoughts, ideas, and needs in a very early stage. We keep close contact with them throughout the whole process, checking again and again if the ideas are in alignment with them.
- An ideation phase which gives space for intuition and emerging solutions instead of "having" ideas - accessing more realms of ideation than just the brain.
- Prototyping and testing before the implementation in order to allow mistakes and playfulness and thus to keep ease in the process.
The process can be run through several times, each cycle with more focused questions, based on the insights from the previous cycle. The pace of one cycle can vary from one day to several weeks, depending on the complexity of the challenge, time and resources of the innovation team. Generally we recommend to run through the cycles several times but at a fast pace.
The purpose of this method is to develop and test new ideas that work for the users and affected stakeholders. It is especially useful if you are involved in a complex system with many stakeholders and want to ensure the best possible innovative results - for your users, but also for other stakeholders, including the natural environment.
Design Sensing can be used for short and focused design sprints on a specific challenge, as well as for longer and more complex innovation processes. If you are familiar with Design Thinking, you would use Design Sensing for the same purposes and situations as for Design Thinking, but it usually deepens the innovation team's connection - with the users and with their field of attention. Your innovation team should have an openness towards intuitive approaches though.
Audience
Is participant experience relevant for Design Sensing ?
Audience description for Design Sensing
Design Sensing is ideal for any kind of innovation team. Design Sensing also works very well with non-trained innovators, e.g. with a group or a collective who just want to solve a problem in their company, community or society. They should bring a certain amount of experimental spirit, empathic skills and curiosity to try out new things.
Requirements
You need a space that allows group work as well as a plenum with the whole innovation team.
Make sure you have easy access to your users / beneficiaries. Ideally your location is within, or close to the focal place of the people you are working with. Alternatively you can make sure you include a phase for your innovation team to meet with the users or arrange online appointments with them beforehand.
Online
You can hold the process online or as a blended experience, but it needs extra creativity and awareness to carefully discern what to do and what not to do online. Two phases, the inspiration phase and the prototyping phase, need close contact with those you’re designing for. So make sure you choose the appropriate means to work with the target group and the product or service you are developing. For example, in an online course on Social Innovation, we once had a creative challenge about homelessness. We ran whole learning and creative development process with the students online. But the research itself, especially speaking with homeless people, of course had to be done on-site in person, as well as the prototyping. After the on-site visits and interviews, we shared insights online again. It was very inspiring to see how different cities and countries dealt with homelessness in different ways, and therefore we gathered a huge range of impressions, ideas and best practices. This benefit arose because participants joined the online course from all over, but still could connect with their field on site.
If you design for people who are easy to reach via videoconference, and if it is about a digital product which you can prototype online, it might also work to do it totally online. But be aware that if you rely solely on online, you might miss out on very important nonverbal cues, which might be extremely relevant to understand the needs of the group you are designing for.
project
author(s)
ERASMUS +
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union. Find more information about the program and its goals here: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
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