Design Thinking Warm Up

In groups of two people.

Part One
1. Imagine a product, process or system that presented problems or difficulties for you.
Your experience might have produced feelings of frustration, confusion, anger, fear, exhaustion
or some other negative emotion.
Briefly describe the situation and your experience:

2. Once you have identified the focal situation and experience for this exercise, think
through the following questions:
a. What were you trying to accomplish?
b. What were the specific problems or frustrations that your interaction with
the product, experience or system produced?
c. With respect to design, do you believe that the difficulties that you
encountered were intentional or accidental? Why?

3. Can you envision any changes to the product, process or system that might improve
your experience with it? If so, describe the changes and how might they be implemented.

4. What practical steps could a designer take to prototype and test any of your proposed
design changes?

Part Two
1. Imagine a product, process or system that exceeded your expectations. Your experience
might have produced feelings of relief, pleasure, joy, satisfaction, enthusiasm, relaxation or
some other positive emotion.
Briefly describe the situation and your experience:

2. Once you have identified the focal situation and experience for this exercise, think
through the following questions:
a. What were you trying to accomplish?
b. What were the specific design elements of the product, experience or
system that worked well?
c. Do you believe that your positive experience with the design was an
intentional or accidental aspect of the design? Why?

3. What process do you believe led to the development of the aspects of the design that
worked well?