Design Thinking for dummies

Hello people,

I just asked one of my industrial designers friends about which could be a good material for prototyping my team’s product (for the class project) and she replied with tons of questions about the “necessity” and the product itself. This made me realize that the “ideator” of my group, did not share these thoughts with us, or we just did not ask him to do it.

I will now share with you these questions and just let me know if you found it helpful:

Since DESIGN THINKING is designing from a USER perspective/necessity, we should address the following questions:

– What is the necessity?

– Who has the necessity? Who needs the product/service?

– Who will use the product/service?

– What does the product/service need to cover the necessity?

If there’s already a product/service created (or thought), then also think about:

– If the product/service already exists, then Which flaws does it have?

– Why do they need a new one?, in order to want to buy a new one!

In my case, we’re designing a bottle and my friend asked me, exactly which is the necessity?? A bottle?? or to carry liquids??

Thank you so much SHIVI!

She also advised me to take a look of these videos, I hope you’ll enjoy them too:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_urges_designers_to_think_big.html

My persona :)

Hello again,

It’s been quite difficult to get this REALLY on going, due to academic related issues, but i’ve decided to actually DO IT: start posting!!!, more frequently, starting NOW. (Thursday, Oct. 27, 2:47 am)

Before we move on, I think you guys should know a little bit more about myself. I’m Julie Ojito, born in Santa Marta, Colombia, although I consider myself Barranquillera, meaning, from Barranquilla. Anyway, both cities are located in the North Coast of Colombia and they are caribbean cities.

As you may be already thinking, yes! I grew up in Barranquilla. It is a small city, nowadays, it has a population of 2 million people aprox. I’m not sure how this was when I was younger but, there you still get the feeling that you “know everybody”, or at least that you know where they come from or who their family and friends are, or both.

As a small city in an “undeveloped” country, without a lively cultural scene, 8 years ago, Barranquilla didn’t have and still doesn’t, a solid, recognized program to offer me to pursue a degree in music and audio production so I went to the capital. In Bogota, where the best universities are, I joined the Music and Audio Production program at the Universidad de los Andes (One the Best Universities in LatinAmerica :D, #6).

I spent 5 lovely years studying Music and Audio Production and finally graduated in 2009. Since I was in 4th year, I started working with my uncle, Juventino Ojito, who is also a Music Producer and owns, together with his wife, a small company dedicated to produce music, concerts and events. During this time I’ve had the opportunity to get “on the field” experience and to understand better the real world of the music industry in Colombia and particullarly in Barranquilla.

This year, with the support of the CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA Foundation, we started a project called FESTICARNAVAL, which is a trade fair and concert for the musics of the Colombian Caribbean. FESTICARNAVAL  is the first cultural market, created within and, specialized in the CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA’s cultural offer. The original idea is my uncle’s and he also documented it as a project with the same name, so he’s the author and creator.

This year, we developed 3 main events, a seminar about the Music industry in Colombia; a concert, that gathered 23 artists in 5 categories, all related to the Colombian Caribbean’s folclor, and a trade fair. I was in charge of producing the concert and also was the Artistic Director’s (my uncle) assistant. I had to establish contact with all the artists, contact the industry representats to invite them to come, etc.

We will continue working on this project to position it as a cultural referent for high quality artists in Colombia and in the future, all the world. We also plan to expand the offer to dance and performances.

FESTICARNAVAL is one of the reasons I started to get more curious about the Creative Industries and the main reason why I joined this program. After this experience, I also started my own event production company called KERREGUERO and I’ve already started to actually profit from it. I think I always visualized myself as a creative entrepreneur and I’m sure that coming to London will expand my vision for the future.

Hugs,

JULZ