stephmsaksa - 40 Questions to Ask Yourself Each Time You Design

40 Questions to Ask Yourself Each Time You Design

July 19, 2022

"Good design is the result of a process."

- Paul Rand

Think about something you designed. Maybe it was a maker faire project when you were in high school. Maybe it was a house for your Barbies as a kid. Maybe it was an Instagram post. Maybe it was a unit plan for your students. We are designing and creating constantly, and we are often not even thinking about it as a design thinking process. If you’re anything like me, you’re a Just-Start-Doing-It kind of person. Even sitting here writing this blog post, I wasn’t sure what I was going to write. I decided to just start writing and hoped to find my way. I have backspaced and started over and reorganized many times. But I began thinking, how could I work harder at the beginning to make my product more beneficial for my users? (That’s you!)

The design thinking process is a way to think about design as you go. It’s something they teach at business schools and in design classes, but it’s not something we as educators always think about. (You might never have heard of it before.) But, I believe it can reshape your designing as an educator. Each lesson you teach is a creation. Each worksheet you hand out was carefully designed by you. Each unit you implement probably went through this process in your head, even if you weren’t aware that you were doing it.

So, what is design thinking? This video does a pretty good job of breaking it down for you.

As a Just-Start-Doing-It kind of person, I am working to shift my mindset to more of a design thinking process kind of person, but it’s hard for me to know exactly what to do first. When faced with a problem or something I want to create, I know now that I need to empathize first, but what does that really mean? To help guide me through the process, I have created a list of 8 questions to ask yourself every step of the way. Sometimes they’ll have easy answers. Sometimes they’ll be incredibly difficult to answer. Sometimes they might seem to not even apply to the creation you are working on. But they serve as a guiding arch as you begin to think deeper about your design and do some planning beforehand, instead of just starting to do it.

Who am I designing for?
Why am I designing for them?
Am I the best person to be solving this problem?
Is there someone else I need to pull in with me?
How can I help them?
What are their beliefs and values?
Am I centering my design around their needs?
How can I connect with them throughout the design process?

What problem am I trying to solve?
Am I addressing the right problem?
What solutions already exist?
What challenges are presenting themselves in solving this problem?
What has my empathizing taught me about this problem that can help me work on a solution?
What patterns am I beginning to notice?
What is my point of view for this challenge?
Is my POV narrow enough, or am I trying to solve all problems for all people?

How many solutions can I possibly come up with?
How can I organize my thoughts to help me create a solution?
What is the obvious solution?
How can I move away from obvious solutions into something unexpected?
What is one way to approach this problem that’s never been done before?
What is another perspective I can use to think of solutions?
What ways can I categorize my ideas?
What idea is looking the most appealing at this point?

How much time do I have available to prototype?
How many different prototypes might be helpful to me?
What am I trying to test with each prototype?
Am I spending too long on one prototype?
Am I testing out all my possibilities?
How am I seeing my idea get more refined as I work?
Am I keeping my empathizing in my mind as I create?
How can I use my prototypes to start directed conversations with my users?

Am I testing within the real context of my user’s life?
Am I open to honest and critical feedback?
Does my testing create an experience?
Am I letting the prototype speak for itself?
How does this affect my POV?
What has this taught me about my user?
How can I use this to inform my next iteration of prototypes?
Do I feel like I am at a place to begin implementing?

Remember that this isn’t necessarily a linear process. Sometimes you’ll test multiple prototypes. Sometimes your test will be the implementation. When you’re teaching a lesson to students, you don’t often get a chance to run through it before, but you can use that teaching to help you tweak it for future years. Writing this blog, I started to type before going back and thinking about my audience. Then, I looked at resources and thought about what was already out there. I could've defined design thinking for you, but that's been done before. So I thought about creative solutions to a problem - how to make the design thinking process approachable to Just-Start-Doing-It people. These questions aren't going to make designing something seamless and easy, but they may serve to help you think deeper as you create things. Think of each thing you teach as a creation and ask yourself these questions as you plan your lessons, or as you design for other purposes. Design thinking can help make you a better educator.

Resources/Further Reading

Dam, R. F. (2022). The 5 stages in the design thinking process. The Interaction Design Foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process

Plattner, H. (2010). An Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide. Institute of Design at Stanford. https://web.stanford.edu/~mshanks/MichaelShanks/files/509554.pdf

Sprouts. (2017, October 23). The Design Thinking Process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0VX-aU_T8

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse