Purpose

Understand the motivation or needs of a user

Activity

An empathy interview involves asking a potential user a series of questions to understand their needs or experiences. When first used in the classroom, a few rounds is recommended for students to become familiar with the exercise. A structure that works well is to have students work in pairs. They conduct a two-minute interview where one is the interviewer and one the interviewee. After two minutes, students swap roles. Ask students to think of one interesting thing their partner said and conduct a second round of interviews with the purpose of probing more deeply into the point of interest.

The attached document includes some suggested guiding questions.

Example activities

Trying new foods

Happy thoughts

Purpose

Understand the motivation or needs of a user who might be fictional or historical

Activity

Students conduct a mock interview with a fictional or historical character. Students create a series of "interview" questions from which they generate how the character might respond.

The attached document includes an example character interview with Bilbo Baggins from "The Hobbit".

Example activities

The Three Little Pigs

Purpose

Provide user needs and requirements in a contained way

Activity

Persona briefs can be useful when an empathy interview, experience, or observations is unsuitable. Persona briefs a mini "stories" that explain a particular user's needs or motivations and provide students with the the requirements that need to be included in their design, the types of constraints that might be involved, or competing factors that might need to be taken into account.

Check out some example persona briefs Monash Tech School uses for the Superspace program, designed for Year 7 students.

Note that these can be challenging for students with low literacy levels and modified briefs are recommended.

Example activities

Jelly snakes rope

Redesigning the QWERTY keyboard

Purpose

Understand what someone else might be experiencing

Activity

This activity is a Stanford School of Design activity. Using a prompt or short video, have students practice their observation skills. Ask what is the person or animal doing. These should be objective facts. Ask how they are doing it. This will provide some insight into their motivations and feelings. Then ask why are they doing this. This will reveal assumptions you make about the person or animal you may not have been aware you were making.

Example activities

Notre Dame is burning

Purpose

Structure the process of empathy

Activity

An empathy map can be used to guide students' thinking towards the user's needs, motivations, feelings, etc. The attached document includes two examples. The first guides students' thinking when responding to an image of Notre Dame on fire It encourage students to consider multiple perspectives with regards to why people may or may not be upset at the destruction of the building. The second example guides students' thinking when playing a game with a poorly designed game controller. It encourages students to think about why the controller was poorly designed and how this might impact people with different needs.

Example activities

Notre Dame is burning

Game control designer

Purpose

Understand the motivations/goals of various stakeholders and relationships between stakeholders

Activity

Stakeholder mapping is a way of visualising the relationships, influences, and interests of different groups or individuals. It requires you to consider the relationships between multiple people by considering multiple perspectives.

Students list stakeholders relevant to their problem. Students can list each stakeholder using a worksheet such as this, or on individual sticky notes. If using sticky notes, stakeholders can then be grouped into common themes. Once stakeholders have been identified, students consider their goals and motivations. Lastly, connections need to be drawn between stakeholders, representing the nature of the relationship. 

Follow this activity with Influence vs Involvement to identify potential allies and adversairies to further guide the problem solving process.

Example activities

Three little pigs

Purpose

Identify the route cause of a problem

Activity

When solving a problem, it is important to come up with a solution that addresses the route cause. For example, if a building experiences constant fires, solving the problem by providing more fire extinguishers is unhelpful if the route cause is faulty electrical issues.

Start with a question or problem in mind. Write down your question at the top of the canvas. Then, ask yourself "Why?" in response to this question. Record your answer underneath. Then choose a path and ask yourself either "Why?", "Why do we have this problem?" or "Why is this stopping us?" Record this response in the next space below and repeat this process until you reach the end of the column. The "why" prompt has been phrased differently in each column as it can lead to slightly different insights (but not always).

Example activities

Change agents

Notre Dame is burning

Purpose

Generate a How might we... problem statement

Activity

Generate a number of How might we... statements. This problem statement will guide the design thinking inquiry.

It can be challenging to write a well-formed problem statement. Encourage students to have multiple attempts. Aim for a problem statement that is not too broad and not too narrow and already includes the solution within its own question.

Example activities

Three little pigs

Change agents

Jelly snakes rope

Purpose

Question generation, improve observation

Activity

Provide students with a prompt such as an image or short video. Have students write down as many things as they can notice and then any questions they might wonder about. This skill takes some practice as many things will go unnoticed at first.

Some image example image prompts that have been successful in generating discussion are included here.

New York Times "What's going on this picture" is a great place to look for interesting images!

Purpose

Sort and prioritise ideas

Activity

This canvas helps in identify which ideas should be pursued. it requires a number of ideas to have already been generated, preferably listed on separate sticky notes, with one idea per sticky note. Please each idea on the 2 x 2 matrix. The horizontal axis represents the level of effort required to implement the idea, while the vertical axis signifies the potential benefit of the idea. Ideas falling into the top-right quadrant are those with the potential for significant impact with minimal effort, making them the priority. Ideas in the bottom-left quadrant, conversely, denote concepts with limited impact that demand substantial effort – these are best set aside for later consideration.

Example activities

Change agents

Purpose

Question generation

Activity

Generate as many questions as possible from a provided prompt. This could be an image, book, video, etc. Write each question on a separate sticky note. Place each sticky note on the canvas. The canvas contains four quadrants which are categorised by whether the question is open or closed, or whether the question is about the story (e.g., How did Jack outsmart the giant?) or beyond the story (e.g., How has the story of Jack and the Beanstalk been adapted in various contexts through history?). The Question Quadrant can support critical thinking by requiring students to evaluate the nature of their questions as they begin to understand which questions invite deep problem solving and which might result in straightforward answers. This can help the design thinking process, as rich questions will serve as a catalyst for exploring complex problems and encourage more innovative solutions.

Purpose

Identify underlying issues that might be apparent at the surface of a story

Activity

Main-side-hidden asks students to consider a story from three angles:

Main: Identify the main story that captures the central ideas that are most apparent.

Side: What else might be going on here around the edges? What are some other factors that might be contributing to the main story but are not up front and centre?

Hidden: What is not immediately apparent but might nonetheless be important in understanding what is actually happening? What might be obscured or left out, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

Example activities

Frog and Toad

Purpose

Organise a problem's cause and effect

Activity

The Fishbone Diagram, also known as the Ishikawa or Cause-and-Effect Diagram, is a visual tool to explore and identify possible causes of a problem. Begin by identifying a problem to explore. Each fish bone represents a major factors that could contribute to the problem. Write these major factors at the end (dot point). Next, brainstorm possible causes for each major factor. Once completed, identify which cause to address first.

Click here for more information on the Fishbone process as well as an example of a completed Fishbone diagram.

Example activities

Jelly snakes rope

Purpose

Build causal explanations for why something is the way it is.

Activity

The Explanation Game requires a  prompt, such as an image, for students to examine closely. A prompt that can be broken into related subparts works best, for example, an image of a microscope where students consider how each individual part works as part of the whole. During the Explanation Game, students need to build causal explanations for why something is the way it is.

Purpose

Observe a prompt closely and develop a hypothesis.

Activity

Provide students with an image prompt. Ask students to consider the prompt closely and generate a hypothesis about the image, justifying with evidence. Next, zoom in (or out) on a particular part of the image that might not have been apparent at first glance. Repeat the process: students mush reassess their initial interpretations in light of the new information.

Purpose

Identify allies and adversaries that can support the problem solution

Activity

This activity follows on from Stakeholder Mapping where students have identified a number of stakeholders for a given problem, and the nature of the relationship between stakeholders. With stakeholders identified, each stakeholder is placed on the 2 x 2 matrix along the dimensions of how much influence the stakeholder might have on the problem, and how much interest they might have. This helps identify potential allies, adversairies, or neutral parties. IT can guide the problem-solving process by highlighting which stakeholders are crucial to engage with when addressing the problem.

Other matrix dimensions that might be appropriate include:

• Power vs Interest

• Influence vs Impact

• Support vs Opposition

• Interest vs Attitude

• Influence vs Trust

• Interest vs Dependency

• Influence vs Responsibility

Example activities

Three little pigs

Purpose

Understand the gap between the current solution and intended solution

Activity

Students identify the current solution state, the pressures and factors of the problem, and the required solution state. This will provide an understanding around "what's missing", or a gap analysis. With a better understanding of what is already available and what is missing, coming up with solution ideas can be better focused on addressing the missing components.

This example canvas provides an example gap analysis for biology. Students consider the current defence mechanisms for an animal, the pressures of its environment, and what defence mechanisms might improve the animal's survival. This activity can be followed by Attribution Brainstorm where students generate a number of new ideas for defense mechanisms.

Example activities

Animal defense mechanisms

Purpose

Idea generation

Activity

Generate 8 ideas in 8 minutes. The goal is quantity not quality. Draw or write about each idea in an individual box. The final four boxes include constraints, which paradoxically, can serve as a catalyst in generating additional ideas.

Students completing this activity for the first time can find it challenging and will often generate only a few ideas.

Example activities

Happy thoughts

Purpose

Ideation

Activity

Using the images from the dice, students have to mix and match the items to create a new item that helps solve a problem. The more items you can combine, the more "points" awarded.

You can find the story dice here.

We recommend choosing a selection you like rather than doing a live roll in front of students as some combination of dice may not lead to creative brainstorming (and some rolls may not be PG).

Example activities

Frog and Toad

Purpose

Reiterate and refine ideas

Activity

SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Each of these provides guidance for improving ideas further. Once you have an idea, you might like to consider whether you can improve it by substituting a component, combining two elements together, making a modification to one part, etc. When using this tool with students, providing the whole acronym is not recommended as it is too long. We recommend picking two elements, for example Modify and Eliminate, and have students refine their idea by applying these two processes.

Example activities

Happy thoughts

Purpose

Ideation

Activity

Sometimes it can be easier to generate a whole bunch of terrible ideas than good ideas. Using reverse brainstorming, identify the opposite problem to the one you wish to solve for and then generate as many terrible solutions as possible. Flipping these solutions around should provide some insight into what a suitable solution might look like.

Purpose

Ideation

Activity

Write your idea on a sticky note. Pass this to another person who must now write "yes, and..." and continue adding to your idea. This is then passed on to another person who continues again with "yes, and..." Continue until at least four people have contributed to your idea. Reading everyone's contributions, revise your original idea. The ultimate goal is to value all contributions and not dismiss anyone's ideas by saying "yeah, but..."

This is a useful activity for classes that find discussion challenging. The activity allows all students to contribute without needing a group discussion. Additionally, the use of "yes, and..." means that all ideas were validated and no one's idea was knocked back.

Purpose

Ideation

Activity

Forced Connections, sometimes called This 'n' That, involves taking two ideas and combining them in some way to form a solution to the problem. The goal is creativity, thinking outside of the box, quantity, but not necessarily quality. You might like to select a series of objects where students select at least two objects to mash together as one idea. Alternatively, Dave Birss has some great resources with This 'n' That and Story Dice. Warning - some of Dave Birss' ideas may not be PG13.

Purpose

Ideation

Activity

Students list a number of attributes for a given product. For the given example, the "product" is an animal, and the attributes are defense mechanisms. For each attribute, students generate as many variations for the given attribute as possible. For example, if an attribute was "size", then variations might be small/medium/large. With a number of attribute ideas generated, students then select attributes to pair together to generate a new idea.

The example canvas follows on from the Gap Analysis activity where students identified a number of defense mechanisms for a given animal.

Example activities

Animal defense mechanisms

Purpose

Storyboard prototyping

Activity

Storyboard prototyping offers a narrative approach to creating a product. It can include the users that will be using the product, how they might use it, their response to the product. It also forces you to consider the sequence and flow of the customer's experience using the product.

When storyboarding, consider imagine you are creating a series of frames for a whole movie. Each box should contain include a sketch of what's happening in the frame as well as a written description for clarity. 

For more information on storyboarding for the design thinking process, and an example storyboard, check out DevSquad.

Purpose

Reiterating designs

Activity

The template provides an example of redesigning a keyboard.

Start with an initial idea. Then build on this by considering the most extreme and upgraded version of the starting idea. Next consider what some of the weaknesses of this new and improved idea might be. Finally, upgrade the design of your product by taking in account potential issues.

This template is adapted from Board of Innovation

Example activities

Redesign the QWERTY keyboard

Purpose

Evaluating the final product

Activity

SICFAM stands for Simple, Interesting, Coherent, Feasible, Audience-appropriate, and Memorable. Students can evaluate their final product against each of the criteria as a way to self-assess the product's success. This could also be used to drive further reflection on how the product could be improved for future iterations of the design.

Example activities

Change agents

Purpose

Creativity, warm up

Activity

Working in groups of up to six, provide each student with a copy of Mystery Pictionary. Ensure that no two students have the same picture. Start by drawing one "element" on their picture. This could be a shape, a curve, a squiggle, etc. Students then pass their sheet to the person on their right. This student will continue the drawing. The process continues as students take turns adding one element to the drawing and then passing it onto the next person until everyone receives their original drawing back. The goal is for everyone to have created a picture. But, no one is allowed to share what they are trying to draw. 

This is a lighthearted warm up activity that can help with creativity. However, chances are that no one finished with their intended drawing and it highlights the significance of needing clear communicating in achieving shared goals. 

Purpose

Creativity, warm up

Activity

This activity comes from Thunderfoot. In each box, students draw a new object based off what would happen when the object at the top of the column and start of the row were mashed together. This is a great activity to force your brain to make visual links that it might otherwise miss.

Purpose

Creativity, warm up

Activity

This activity comes from Thunderfoot. Each row contains two antonyms. The challenge is to illustrate the meaning of each word with a doughnut.

Purpose

Creativity, warm up

Activity

Draw 30 circles on a piece of paper. Transform each circle into an identifiable object, as many ways as possible.