Designathon - Designing a multi-day design event which imparts design thinking skills

‍<Role> 2018: Experience Designer and Graphic Designer
                2020: Chairperson

<Team> 2018: 2 Designers: Vienna Neo, Khor Le Yi
                  2020: 2 Designers: Howard Liu, Tan Shi Tong

<Time>  November 2017- February 2018 (4 months)
                October 2019 - Dec

<Skills> Experience Design, Design Research
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*Poster designed by me*

Problem:
How might we design a fun multi-day Designathon to impart design thinking skills to engineering students?

Empathising:
Target audience - multidisciplinary engineering students

We conducted face to face interviews with 20 engineering students and obtained their ideas on their impressions of a designathon, their understanding of design, and their assumed deliverables of a Designathon. Here are the main insights:

  • 70% of students think that the deliverables must be aesthetic
  • 70% of students think that it will have something to do with design of a physical product
  • 25% think that it has something to do with graphic design and was excited about learning technical skills like illustrator and photoshop
It is clear that most students think design = aesthetic or about hardware products only

Initial idea:
Workshops and 24 hour Designathon

Initially, we wanted to have multiple workshops every other week, ending off the event with a 24 hours designathon. However, after more user research and interviews, it was clear that:

  • Engineering students think that Design Thinking is fluff and can be easily understood by watching a video
  • Engineering students do not want to commit so much to Designathon
  • Engineering students are not motivated to attend workshop sessions as they do not see the importance of Design
Big problem: Engineering students do not see the importance of Design as a problem solving tool. They were not exposed to it before and long events are too high commitment

Pivoting & defining new problem:
How might we motivate engineering students to take up design thinking?

Prototype + User test:
Conducting a 2-day Design thinking workshop for four engineering students

User testing question: 
How might we help cleaners do their job more comfortablly?

  • Here are some insights and observations I obtained together with the team:
  • Overall: Would require a facilitator per team. If not the students may be lost. Problem given was too constrained.
  • Empathy: Should introduce a frame work such as Say Think Do Feel and Affinity mapping so that students can self initiate the discussion and synthesise insights from qualitative data.
  • Define: More time should be spent on interviewing and understanding whether the problem IS a true problem
  • Ideate: Students were not used to the idea of quick brainstorming process without judgements. Would require a brainstorming ice breaker
  • Prototype: Students were nit picking on the materials used. Should have set a time limit to ensure sense of urgency
Designathon idea validation was obtained from user testing. However, improvements must be made based on feedback and observations

Final: Designathon, design for change

Designathon is a 2 day workshop cum design challenge where Art Design Media students and Engineering students work in multidisciplinary teams to design solutions for very real problems. We decided to invite art students over because we thought they will bring new insights to the table and the participants can learn from one another.

Throughout the event, students will apply design thinking skills they have learnt to a particular problem they have picked. At the end of the 2 days, they will have to present their process and final prototype to a panel of judges.

Below shows the flow of our 2 day event:

I was a facilitator for one of the teams.

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Iterations: Do it all again the next year, 2020

After my exchange, I came back and took on the role of chairperson of planning committee for Designathon. Again, I led the team in applying design thinking to how we plan this event. I was also the main personnel leading the workshop teachings. Here are some changes I implemented based on the previous event's observation and new user interviews:

  • More anecdotal examples of design thinking success stories to INSPIRE
  • D.school design thinking crash course is a lot to take in at the start, will require smaller ice breakers
  • Better problem statements that are not just relevant but also exciting and novel (students are tired of solving cliche problems which have been overly tackled)

Moving forward: Learnings and reflections

This was an exhilarating process and my first try at consciously using design thinking to better design an event suited and catered to our specific target audience: Engineering students. I was glad I could value add effectively by utilising design thinking to provide the best experience. Moving forward, the needs of students change every year. In order to make sure Designathon is still relevant, we have to continue designing to suit our new participants. One change I can forsee is the incorporation of engineering or tech elements into Designathon so that students can better relate to the problem sets.