01 Module 1 | Week 1

BRAINSTORMING

There is a notion that some people are CREATING AN IDEAL ANGANWADI

creative and some are not. Brainstorming
As a part of a Social Design workshop, in a group of 20 we were
is one such method which lets everyone be collectively working on creating better learning spaces and
as creative as possible. It is a method to experiences for children in an Anganwadi. We initially understood
solve a problem by having rapid solutions the existing Anganwadi situation and further started brainstorming
without discarding any idea and thinking with as many solutions came to our mind within the first 10 mins.
freely. As brainstorming is done in a group,
These rapid solutions not only helped us to come up with multiple
it helps to come up with maximum ideas
ideas but also helped us to have a thematic grouping of the ideas
from different perspective which helps in which further helped is concentrating on different spaces of an
reaching the solution faster. They are Anganwadi.
various tools to exercise brainstorming
method. I personally use mind mapping
quite extensively to solve a problem on an
individual level.

Reshmi Mahesh Kumar | reshmi.maheshkumar@mitid.edu.in 1

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EXTREME USER INTERVIEW
While designing a product or a service the
most important task is to understand the
users. However, we unintentionally fall in
the trap of our own or an average user’s
needs and ideas without really having any
technical knowledge about the same. In
order to understand the needs and
experiences of a user it is important to
understand the extreme users of a
product. They represent the ends of a
spectrum of users. One such extreme user
is she who has great experience and
technical knowledge about the working of
a product and the other extreme user
would be the one who has no idea as to
how the product works at all.
Reshmi Mahesh Kumar | reshmi.maheshkumar@mitid.edu.in
Module 1 | Week 1
EXPERIENCE IN A MUMBAI LOCAL
It is very interesting to know about the experiences people have
while travelling in a Mumbai local. I have heard this often that a
person from a city outside Mumbai can never get used to travelling
in a local. In order to understand the experiences I conducted a
telephonic interview of two people. One of whom is a daily
commuter of Mumbai Locals and the other one has not used a local
to commute in the city.
The daily commuter talked about how quickly the locals let you
cover long distances in the city and how convenient and economical
it is. On the other hand, the one who had never used a local had no
experience of how the local trains actually feel like or how crowded
and tiring they can be. She had an idea about it by what others had
to say about the local trains.
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5 WHYs
5 Whys is a wonderful method in order to
to reach the root cause of a problem. By
way of this method we can understand the
cause and effect relationship underlying in
a particular problem. It is the quickest way
to get some clarity and unfold the possible
causes of a problem. However, this
method comes with a limitation that it
cannot be used in a complex problem as
there could be multiple answers to a
question which might not give us a desired
result.
Reshmi Mahesh Kumar | reshmi.maheshkumar@mitid.edu.in
Module 1 | Week 1
NO ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSE
In a situation of power-cut I applied 5 whys to understand as to
Why is there no electricity in the house?
Because the bill hasn’t been paid
Why is the bill not paid ?
Because I have no money
Why don’t you have the money ?
Because I have not received my salary
Why have you not received your salary ?
Because my company has delayed the current month’s salary
Why did your company delayed the current month’s salary?
Because they are going through a financial loss
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CARD SORTING
Card Sorting is a way to arrange cards
either textual or visual by categorizing
them in a way that makes sense to the
user. It is a very useful method to
understand the general awareness of a
subject among the users. It helps in
getting clarity in building the information
architecture and workflows.
Reshmi Mahesh Kumar | reshmi.maheshkumar@mitid.edu.in
Module 1 | Week 1
CHECKING THE FINANCIAL AWARENESS AMONG USERS
As a classroom project i worked on designing a mobile application
on mutual fund targeted for Gen Z and millennials. In order to
understand the awareness among the participants I happened to
give them the cards specific to finance and the users categorised
them based on their logic and understanding.
It was quite interesting to see that a word can be perceived in
different ways by different participants. For instance: The word
‘Money’ was categorised as the basis to invest by a participant and
‘returns on investment’ by another participant.
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RESEARCH METHOD- PERSONA
The concept of persona is used to
represent human aspects, individual
personalities, collective consciousness,
roles, and research environment. It helps in
creating a fictional character representing
the a group of similar users as one.
Reshmi Mahesh Kumar | reshmi.maheshkumar@mitid.edu.in
Module 1 | Week 1
HOW DO YOU WASH YOUR CLOTHES?
As a part of a classroom project I conducted user interviews in order
to understand - how do people wash their clothes. After gaining
insights from the interview I grouped the users based on Family
Background, Gender, Occupation, Pain Points, Likes, Dislikes and
method of washing clothes.
This helped me in creating a persona for each group which
represented the users belonging to these groups.
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