DESIGN THINKING - 18MBH262J

UNIT II
PERSONAS
Personas are fictional characters, which you create based upon your research in order to
represent the different user types that might use your service, product, site, or brand in a similar
way. Creating personas helps the designer to understand users’ needs, experiences, behaviors and
goals.
In the design thinking process, designers will often start creating personas during the
second phase, the Define phase. In the Define phase, Design Thinkers synthesize their research
and findings from the very first phase, the Empathies phase. Using personas is just one method,
among others, that can help designers move on to the third phase, the Ideation phase. The
personas will be used as a guide for ideation sessions such as Brainstorm, Worst Possible Idea and
SCAMPER.
PERSONAS CREATION
Design thinking is an innovative and collaborative approach to problem-solving that puts
the user first to create customer-centered products and services. There are many different design
thinking activities you can use to spark an understanding of your customers or users, including the
creation of personas. A persona is a fictional character that represents a type of customer or user
of your service or product.
This approach is research-based and designed to help you better understand your
customers’ needs, behaviors, experiences, and goals.
CREATE PERSONAS IN DESIGN PHASE
1. Research and analysis
The first step in the process of developing a persona is research. To begin with, you need to
look into who your customers are and learn as much as you can able them and their habits. The
most common approach is to observe and interview your customers to learn about them and their
needs. You can learn a lot about your customers from just a 10 minute call, online chat, or email
conversation. Take notes to identify the key commonalities and specific insights and words they
use. You should start to notice themes even after 3-5 interviews. You can also look at past
conversations and analyze and synthesize those to get a better understanding of who your
customers specifically are and how you might describe them in detail.
Here are a few other resources you can use to conduct research for understanding of your
customers:
Analytics: various website or app analytics can offer information for free. You can use your
analytics as a starting point when creating a new persona.
Social media: learn more about who is following you on social media, what they are talking about,
and how they interact with your brand or others.
Survey or focus group: for a more interactive approach to gathering data, try sending out a
survey to your current customers in your next email or hold focus group sessions to interact with
customers and potential customers directly and gain insights into who they are and how they feel
about your product or service, brand, your industry, and more.
Once you have gathered enough research, it’s time to analyze it. Find points of interest and
patterns in the data. Then, you’ll begin synthesizing the information by creating a few personas.
2. Persona descriptions
Create a 1-2 page description for each persona you have developed. These personas could
include details about the user’s education, lifestyle, interests, values, goals, needs, desires,
attitudes, and actions. Give each of the personas a name and try to make them as realistic and
representative of your customer types as possible.
3. Problem analysis
The next step in the design thinking process is problem analysis. During this step, you’ll
want to test your personas to find out how valid they are in the context of your brand. For
example, if X happened, how would your personas respond? If you can’t answer this question,
you’ll want to spend more time gathering research or developing your persona in step 2
4. Collaboration and iteration
Throughout this process, it’s important to collaborate with your creative and leadership
team. Personas can take a while to get right, so don’t be afraid to iterate and revise as many times
as you need until you are happy with the end result. Don’t be afraid to just get started quickly with
a persona you draw up on a sheet of paper. This gives you something to iterate from as you share
it with colleagues or customers and learn more to get more specific. You can also create your own
persona template that works for your organization and iterate from that.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
A problem statement is important to a process improvement project because it helps
clearly identify the goals of the project and outline the scope of a project. It also helps guide the
activities and decisions of the people who are working on the project. The problem statement can
help a business or organization gain support and buy-in for a process improvement project.
There are four key elements you should include when writing a problem statement:
1. Ideal situation
The first thing your problem statement should describe is what the ideal situation would be
if there wasn't a problem you needed to address. This section identifies the goals and scopes of the
project are. This section should create a clear understanding of what the ideal environment will be
once the issue has been resolved.
2. Reality
The next section of your problem statement should describe what the current reality is for
your company or organization. This section will identify what the problem is, state why it is a
problem and identify who the problem is impacting. It will also describe when and where the
problem was identified.
3. Consequences
The next section of your problem statement should identify what the consequences of the
problem are. This section describes the effects of the problem by describing how the people
affected by the problem are being impacted and quantifying how much the problem is impacting
them. Common consequences can include the loss of time, money, resources, competitive
advantage, productivity and more.
4. Proposal
The proposal section of a problem statement may contain several possible solutions to the
problem, but it is important to remember that it does not need to identify a specific solution. The
purpose of the proposal section should be to guide the project team on how they can research,
investigate and resolve the problem.
IMPORTANCE OF PROBLEM STATEMENT
A problem statement is important to a process improvement project because it helps
clearly identify the goals of the project and outline the scope of a project. It also helps guide the
activities and decisions of the people who are working on the project. The problem statement can
help a business or organization gain support and buy-in for a process improvement project.
STEPS TO CREATE PROBLEM STATEMENT
A good problem statement can be created by identifying and answering several questions
related to the problem. This process involves identifying what the problem is, why it is a problem,
when and where the problem was identified, who the problem impacts, how they are impacted by
the problem and how much of an impact the problem has.
1. Identify the problem
Before you can begin writing your problem statement, you first need to identify what the
problem is.
2. Begin your statement with your ideal situation
Next, you can begin writing your problem statement by describing what the ideal
environment would look like if your problem didn't exist. This section should try to describe what
your company hopes to accomplish as a result of the process improvement project.
3. Describe current gaps
Next, write the reality section of your problem statement. Your goal in this section should
be to clearly identify what the current environment looks like. In this section, you should identify
what the problem is, what is causing the problem and why it is an issue. You should also describe
when, where and how you were able to identify the problem.
4. State the consequences of the problem
Next, write the consequences section of your problem statement. This section is used to
quantify and support the claim of what the problem is. You can use this section to identify specific
numbers such as the amount of time or revenue being lost or the number of resources being
wasted. It is important to include concrete numbers that support your claims in this section.
5. Propose addressing the problem
Finally, end your statement with a proposal section. In this section, you should try to
identify how your company will make progress toward reaching your goals and accomplishing
your ideal environment. While you may choose to identify several possible solutions in this
section, it is more important to focus on identifying how your company will find those solutions
than it is to identify the specific solution that will be used.
IDEATE PHASE OF DESIGN THINKING
Ideation is the third phase of the Design Thinking process, and it’s all about generating
ideas. The Nielsen Norman Group defines ideation as “the process of generating a broad set of
ideas on a given topic, with no attempt to judge or evaluate them.”
The ideation phase represents a key transitional step from learning about your users and
the problem, to coming up with solutions. If carried out properly, an ideation session is where
innovation thrives; it should help you stumble upon that groundbreaking solution that your users
have been missing!
“It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress. This is where breakthroughs
come from. We need to question the obvious, to reformulate our beliefs, and to redefine existing
solutions, approaches, and beliefs.”
As a designer, the ideation phase is your “safe space” in which to come up with novel,
perhaps unconventional, ideas. It doesn’t matter if these ideas turn out to be plausible or not;
what’s important is that you venture beyond the obvious, already-been-done solutions.
In the ideation phase, you’ll explore and come up with as many ideas as possible. Some of
these ideas will go on to be potential solutions to your design challenge; some will end up on the
reject pile. At this stage, the focus is on quantity of ideas rather than quality.
The main aim of an ideation session is to uncover and explore new angles and avenues to
think outside the box. For the sake of innovation and creativity, it is essential that the ideation
phase be a “judgement-free zone”.
IDEA ON SIX THINKING HATS
The Six Thinking Hats approach was created by Edward de Bono, a Maltese physician,
psychologist and philosopher. He used it in his work advising government agencies, but he also
wanted it to be a practical tool for everyday problem solving.
"Six Thinking Hats" is a way of investigating an issue from a variety of perspectives, but in a
clear, conflict-free way. It can be used by individuals or groups to move outside habitual ways of
thinking, try out different approaches, and then think constructively about how to move forward.
Six Thinking Hats for Decision Making
The Six Thinking Hats technique gets you to look at a problem in six different ways. It takes
you and your team beyond any instinctive positions, so that you explore a range of perspectives.
That way, you can carefully consider each one, without having to argue your case or make snap
decisions about what's "right" or "wrong."
Blue Hat: "the Conductor's Hat"
When you or your team are in blue hat mode, you focus on controlling your thinking and
managing the decision-making process. You have an agenda, ask for summaries, and reach
conclusions.
Green Hat: "the Creative Hat"
The green hat represents creative thinking. When you're "wearing" this hat, you explore a
range of ideas and possible ways forward.
Red Hat: "the Hat for the Heart"
This hat represents feelings and instincts. When you're engaged in this type of thinking,
you can express your feelings without having to justify them logically.
Yellow Hat: "the Optimist's Hat"
With yellow hat thinking, you look at issues in the most positive light possible. You
accentuate the benefits and the added value that could come from your ideas.
Black Hat: "the Judge's Hat"
This hat is about being cautious and assessing risks. You employ critical judgment and
explain exactly why you have concerns.
White Hat: "the Factual Hat"
The white hat represents information gathering. Think about the knowledge and insights
that you've collected already – but also the information you're missing, and where you can go to
get it.
The Benefits of Six Thinking Hats
More organized thinking - You can be confident that you've considered every angle, and it helps
you to weigh up the information you obtain efficiently and accurately.
Improved creativity - It gets you to step away from your default positions and approaches. And
comparing or combining different perspectives can sometimes spark novel thoughts .
Better thinking skills - It's a great way to strengthen important skills such as curiosity and
critical thinking.
Stronger interpersonal skills - It encourages you to practice listening , questioning
and answering . So it can also make you more persuasive, better at spotting when others need
support, and more confident to resolve conflicts when they arise.
Greater inclusivity in teams - It requires people to set aside any preconceptions and to focus on
seeing things from the same perspective for a while. Debate still happens, but it's based on shared
understanding which can help everyone to feel included.
STORY TELLING
Designers use storytelling to get insight into users, build empathy and reach them
emotionally. Designers create personas to represent target users and add conflict to stories that
reflect their user journeys and problems. Crafting stories, designers can better understand what
users want from a solution.
Good stories always captivate audiences. In user experience (UX) design, you use
storytelling throughout the design process to ensure that all work focuses on the users’ needs and
the value you want to give those users. After completing design research to understand your
users’ needs and desires, you use your insights to tell a story about who your users are, what they
need and how you’ll provide that. This story makes it easy for everyone involved in the project to
empathize with the users and ensure that their work matches the story. Having a story throughout
your project means marketing the design at the end of the design process is also straightforward,
as you already know exactly which story to tell to show how your product provides value.
The renowned philosopher Aristotle wrote extensively on storytelling. His formula is a checklist
for what your stories should contain.
Plot - What are users trying to achieve/overcome?
Character - Who are the users: not just demographically, but what insights do you need to
understand what they (and their needs) are truly like?
Theme - How can you establish a trustworthy presence to them and still set yourself apart from
competitors? How will you reflect the overall obstacles users must overcome?
Dialogue/Diction - What will your design say to users and how? Does a formal/informal tone
match their expectations? How much text is appropriate?
Melody - How will the overall design pattern appear pleasant and predictable to
users, moving them emotionally?
Decor - How will you present everything so the graphics match the setting the users can sense?
Would a classic design or stylized, niche layout meets their expectations?
Spectacle - How can you make your design outstanding so users will remember it?
Reach Users through Stories
You can use storytelling in your design process to present your user research results in an
engaging way and create empathy with your target users. This will help you steer the design
process and keep it user-centric. Here’s what you can do:
Define your target users with personas – to envision users’ likely experiences and gain
empathic insights. Personas are based on user research but tell a story about your insights. An
example persona might be “Rick”, a 47-year-old manager struggling with his work–family-life
balance. He even works on his train commutes. Feeling drained, he wants better control of his life.

Create a plot, with conflict – to make the personas heroes and envision how they can
overcome specific problems using your design. Make this a mapped-out journey or storyboard
with each persona’s aim/s clearly defined. E.g.: Rick discovers your (yet-to-be-designed)
time-management app online. He downloads it and completes your questionnaire about work
commitments, family, outgoings, etc.
He starts using your app, letting it collect data from his phone and fitness tracker about
time on various tasks/activities, stress levels, alertness, etc. After a week, your app charts his tasks
and activities, including sleep, heart-rate data, etc.
 Tapping a phone tab, Rick sees time-management suggestions on how to become more
productive, well-rested, etc. He has the option to continue or suspend monitoring (e.g., if on
holiday/vacation).
Give your design the supporting role – show it improving your persona’s/user’s life and
how easy it is to use. For example, consider how many steps Rick needs to use your app and if
voice-controlled devices at home might influence its suggestions.
Work with the setting –When and where users use your design is vital for building
empathy. For Rick, it’s the home, train and workplace. But what about (e.g.) busy professionals
working from home?
Tailor the look/feel – Your design’s appearance is vital regardless of its functional benefits,
so design the most appropriate (e.g.) layout, colors, typography. For example, Rick prioritizes an
at-a-glance, easy-to-use design, but soothing colors would complement larger fonts, etc.
Always Consider
The What – The user problem/s you define: E.g., They work too much overtime because of…?
Budgeting problems at home?
The Who – The users themselves, envisioned through personas. This includes people who play
influential roles in the main user’s/persona’s story. You can identify them using customer journey
maps.
The How – Your story arc, with a beginning, middle and end. From introducing the player/s at the
beginning, you build towards their biggest problems (which many factors can affect) and finish
with the happy ending your design delivers.
ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN THE DESIGN PROCESS
Storytelling is in the heart of our DNA as a human being, it helps us connect events is a
holistic experience through time. This unique nature of stories makes it one of the essential tools
during the design process of both products and services. Previously, we explored the nature of
the design thinking process and how it aims to understand problems from the user perspective to
address them with the human centered design.
What does happen when asking consumers about using a product? They usually start to
talk about their experience in the form of a story. They describe the events they went through and
the lessons that they faced at each stage. As a designer, I used to find this method an interesting
one to learn about the consumer experience and then reflect it into an outcome solution of the
design process. There is nothing better than hearing about the product from the mouth of the
consumers or see then use in real life.
During the design process, storytelling is used to understand the underlying problems that
consumers face when using a product or a service, and then use this knowledge in reflective
practice to formulate the solution which is tested by the consumers. Hence, storytelling
contributes to the different stages in the design process for different purposes in each step.
Decoding the Storytelling: The Nature of the Story
To understand the storytelling and how it is implemented in the design process, we need to
explore its different parts and how they are put into a unified component called “a story.”
Generally, every story has the following elements:
Domain (What) – This is where you define the problem or the topic that is addressed inside the
story. In the design process, it can be a consumer target such as booking a medical appointment or
refund an online purchase order.
Players (Who) – The players involved in the story or the people who are included in the story.
The leading player represents the demographic information that will be used to build
the persona engaged in the design process. The principal character here is the consumer as the
one who faces the experiences. Other players may involve into the story such as the customer
support or the employees who communicate with consumers
Story flow (How) – Each story consists of three main phases; beginning, middle, and end. In each
story, there is the central crisis or a problem that usually comes near the middle stage. This is
typically the problem targeted inside the design process. However, there may be other obstacles
or issues that come before the main event in the story as highlighted in the below figure.
Figure 1. The typical story arc (source)
Storytelling in the design process can be implemented using various techniques and methods such
as the following:
• Digital and Visual storytelling;
• Scenario generation;
• Storyboarding;
• Plays;
• Animation;
• Talk and images; and
• Text and images
When Storytelling is used in the Design Process
The design thinking process ensures the user evolvement in every stage to build a
user-centered solution. Therefore, the storytelling is used throughout the design process, yet there
is a different usage goal in each phase. Generally, the storytelling can be used as three pair phases;
problem framing, solution framing, and solution implementation.

Figure 2. When to use the storytelling in the design process based on the Double Diamond and
IDEO Design Thinking process. (Adopted from the Design Council and IDEO)
Problem Framing
This stage comes early in the design process. It aims to explore the problem to build an
accurate understanding of the main issue that needs to be solved. In the problem framing stage,
the storytelling can be used in this explorative initiative. It helps the design team to engage with
the user to define the problem using a qualitative data from the consumers.

Multiple storytelling sessions can be held with the consumers who meet with the persona
characteristics. Then, the data can be collected and analyzed to build a generalized idea about the
problem. The advantage of using the storytelling tool is that it helps to create empathy with the
problem as the consumers tell their stories from their own perspective describing their pain
points in the process. It helps to build a persona empathy map about the consumers’ feelings and
experience.
Solution Framing
In the solution definition and prototyping stages, the design team would number of
potential solutions that need to be tested and evaluated to understand which the best solution
from the user perspective is. In this stage, the storytelling can be used again in this stage but with
a different purpose. In this case, the team tries to understand which solution is the most
appropriate for the consumer. The storytelling can be used in this part of the design process to
build a two communication with the consumer to validate the efficiency of the solution. In the
prototyping stage, storytelling plays an even more critical role as the consumers can use the
solution and provide feedback to the design team. The team will be able to observe how the
consumers use the prototype solution and build a realistic understanding of the suggested
solutions.
Solution Implementation
One of the practical features of the design thinking process is the ability to get consumer
feedback about the product or the service to improve the product in the future. Here, the
storytelling can be used to explore how the final product is used in real life and how consumers
interact with it in their everyday life. The information collected from the feedback sessions are
usually used to improve the future versions of the product.
 While the storytelling can be used in different stages of the design process as above, it is a
suitable tool to collected personalized experiences from the consumers. It may be hard to build a
generalized data based on it because of the different nature of each consumer’s story, but I believe
this is one of the strengths of the tool. It helps us to understand the empathic experience that the
users face when using a product or a service. This unique strength point can be valuable for the
design thinking process especially when it targets specific problems such as medical interventions
or personalized use cases.
In sum, the storytelling is a powerful communication tool that enables us as a human being
to understand more about our emotional experiences. This makes it an effective method to use
during the design process. It can be used during the design thinking process phases with a
different goal in each stage. Storytelling can help us to gather personalized emotional data about
our consumer’s experience which can be hard to collect using other research methods such as the
survey and consumer journey mapping.