Step 1: Read the Design Briefs

Read the design brief for your studio. While you are reading through the briefs, think about anything in your daily life or in the life of your community that you can apply to that brief. Your brief will serve as a theme and yardstick for your work throughout the project sequence.

Step 2: Pick an Activity & Make a Plan

Ultimately you will design a mobile Web application, but you don't need to restrict your observation to people using computers and the Web. A mobile Web application is built using a Web stack (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and is accessible through a mobile phone's browser. A mobile Web application is not a native mobile app and does not need a responsive Desktop version. Observe people doing tasks as they do it now, which may or may not involve digital devices. Observing the strengths and weaknesses of analog tools can inspire ideas for the digital world. Because context matters, observe and interview people in situ: their environment, tools, and activities. If you have mobility limitations, perform your observations and interviews over email, phone, Skype, and/or video chat. If the activities you are interested in are tough to observe (maybe because they're infrequent), you can augment your interviews with diary studies.

Make a list of types of people you might interview and situations you might observe to come up with design insights. Think about different types of everyday users, marginalized users, and extreme users. Also think about other stakeholders in the ecosystem. Think about the characteristics of these users.

For example, this IDEO design team was asked to redesign the grocery shopping cart. Their interviewees included not just everyday users, but also extreme users like professional shoppers and other stakeholders like store managers. Often, lead users or extreme users have come up with better solutions and creative tricks. Interviewing and observing marginalized users not only helps us create more inclusive designs, it also often highlights issues that everyone has to varying degrees.

Step 3: Observe & Interview 3 People

Select three people to observe. It is important to observe people actually performing their task and not just telling you about what they generally do. Choose people who are not similar to yourself in some way (for example, they are studying different discipline, working a different type of job, have a different family situation). Your goal is to observe the successes, breakdowns, and latent opportunities that occur when computers are used, not used, or could be used to support your chosen activity. Ask them to participate in this assignment and get permission from them. Be sure you coordinate with your participants to select a time that will be rich for observations.

Your three individuals do not, however, need to be representative of "the general public". It is perfectly valid to limit your observations to a specific niche or user group, if desired.

Tell the participants to perform the task as realistically as possible, while communicating to you as appropriate. Utilize the strategies we talked about in lecture to help you. Take detailed notes and use digital photographs or sketches to document activities, but do not use a video camera. Try to understand why people are doing things the way they are by asking questions like, "Are there existing solutions that people aren't using? If so, why?"

Remember, your photos or sketches are meant to highlight specific breakdowns or design opportunities (what people "usually" do doesn't count). A breakdown is when a user tries to do something and fails or does not know what to do. Breakdowns include slips, which are accidental; mistakes, where users have the wrong mental model; awkward or long interactions that just take too many steps. To effectively do this, caption each photo to explain what is being observed and describe the breakdown or design opportunity. Keep in mind that your TA will be evaluating you on these photos and captions; ask yourself if they will be able to understand what is going on without having observed with you. Note: Using stock photos/art is plagiarism and is unacceptable.

After each observation, ask the participant questions about what you observed. It should take you approximately two hours total to make all three observations if you have planned carefully. It will take longer if you haven’t!

Step 4: Identify User Needs

Use your observations and findings to brainstorm a list specific user needs: opportunities for design innovation that would enable computers to better support the activity you observed. Think back to when you asked yourself, "When, where, how, or why can’t someone use what is out there already for this activity?" What does this tell you about the unmet needs that they have? Come up with as many user needs as you can that are based off your observations--feel free to brainstorm with anyone around you to generate as many interesting ideas as possible.

After you've generated a large brainstorm list, narrow down your unmet user needs to at least 15 most insightful ones. We strongly encourage you to submit more than 15, in case some of them are not really needs. Each idea should be able to become the basis for a design project.

Your list should be articulated as user needs. You are not looking for solutions yet: focus on user needs and goals only. An example of a need might be "Sometimes, when Scott takes the Caltrain home, there is no room for his bike and he has to wait for the next one. Scott needs a way to plan what train to take based on how much room is available in the bike car". On the other hand, the user need: "Amazon users need a way to check if their order has shipped properly" is not a good user need, because it focuses on a specific solution rather than a problem. Good user needs can be fulfilled by multiple solutions.

It is helpful to use the phrases "needs a way to" or "needs to be able to" as you list your user needs.

Step 5: Point of View

Based off the unmet user needs you found, write a point of view that describes a core problem in relation to a design theme. It should address a deep user need and take on a high-level design strategy without offering any concrete solutions. A bad POV is often too long or too vague: "Ease of accessibility will accomplish the task at hand." This POV is too vague and does not present a core problem.

Point of views stimulate creativity by focusing your design work. Solutions should immediately come to mind when you hear them. Imagine them as your overall vision of your app, or your mission statement. In some cases, you may need to contextualize your POV, but the best ones are less than 10 words. A POV summarizes how you think about the problem, not how you will solve it. Write yours in 10 to 20 words.

• Lines are inevitable, but they don’t have to be boring
• With cheap wireless sensing, cash registers and the lines that go with them can be a thing of the past
• Small interstitial moments, like waiting in line, offer an opportunity to practice desired skills
• Intelligent routing algorithms can minimize wait times, especially at places like themed parks and big events, where demand is enormous
• Lines? Why are you going to the store? Just have it delivered

Step 6: Prepare a Needfinding Talk

Prepare a 1-minute talk about your needfinding approaches and results to be presented in studio. What activity did you choose to examine? How did you examine it, with what methods? What major insights or breakdowns did you discover? What promising unmet needs were identified as a result? Do not print out your sketches or pictures, just use words so as not to consume time explaining a complicated scene or sketch.

Student Examples

Examples are a great way to learn, but they are not a gold standard for this class, especially as it evolves over the years. Use these examples as a reference, see where they succeeed/breakdown, and make sure your final submissions adhere to the rubric items.

• These observations describe processes and highlighting design breakdowns. This example also includes a staff suggestion regarding the method used: Observation example
• These user needs do not focus too much on solutions: User needs example
• These photos and captions describe the activity being observed and explain the design breakdown or opportunity: Photos and captions example
• This submission from the current term is a good example of how to write A1: NEW A1 example

Individual Submission

Submit a single formatted pdf file with the following items concatenated within it (see the Student Examples section for how to format each item):

• An explanation of how the activity you observed relates to the design brief for your studio.
• Thorough descriptions of your observations for each of the three people observed.
• A total of three or more photos or sketches of a design breakdown or opportunity from your observations, at least one photo for each person you observed. Remember: Each photo must have a caption that fully conveys the breakdown or opportunity.
• A list of insightful unmet needs inspired by what you observed (at least 15). If you brainstormed with others, please include their names in your submission to recognize their contribution.
• A clearly identified POV.

Submitted in studio, you are responsible for giving a prepared 1 minute summary of your findings.

Evaluation Rubric

Students earn one point for each binary criterion met.

Self Assessment

Frequently Asked Questions