First Steps

To get to this problem statement, I went through rounds of interviews, empathy mapping, and statement starters. Here are some statements I was considering:

1- How might we make a better senior year for college students impacted by the pandemic?

2- How might we enrich graduation in a safe way?

3- How might we help seniors impacted by the pandemic feel seen and heard?

4- How might we help seniors impacted by the pandemic safely get the most out of their college experience?

5- How might we best recognize the hard work of college students affected by the pandemic?

Abstraction Ladder

This abstraction ladder was one of my first steps in this process. I used this abstraction ladder and empathy maps from two interviews to move the process forward.

I used the first abstraction ladder from the statement “How might we make a better senior year for college student impacted by the pandemic?” to identify more problem statements within the premise and, by using statement starters, found that statement #3, “How might we help seniors impacted by the pandemic feel seen and heard?” may be a better option to the initial statement. Using this new statement, I drew this new abstraction ladder to further explore the problem.

Planning the Workshop

Once my professor approved my final problem statement, I moved forward with planning the workshop. I started with identifying my goals. I would consider the workshop a success if we found at least one tangible solution and if the participants felt accomplished and had belief in their solution.

Choosing Activities

I designed this progression of activities to most effectively help participants understand the problem and ideate accordingly. These five methods will be broken down into three phases across one day, broken up with breaks and food. These activities are sourced from Innovating For People by the Luma Institute.

Step One

For this step, the plan is to introduce everyone and go over details of the day. We would also go over goals and what materials we would be using. I thought that journaling would be a good place to start so that we could see how each participant felt about the problem.

Phase 2

In Phase 2, I wanted to have the participants break into groups and start to ideate. I decided to have them come up with ideas using a round-robin collaborative idea building technique. To help them define their ideas, I wanted them to make a concept poster to represent their solution and communicate it to everyone.

Phase 3

After completing the concept posters, I would have everyone come back together into one group and use sticky notes to vote for ideas that people like. People would be able to vote for a team’s overall poster, but also could use sticky notes to highlight individual concepts that they like. After people have voted on which concepts they think will work, I would have them create a cover story mock-up to bring it all together. This mock-up can also serve as a way to communicate their ideas to others and carry the workshop solutions forward.

Who Should be There?

A diverse group of 12-15 college seniors would make up the workshop. The problem will be shared upfront and care will be taken to ensure each participant feels adequately prepared for the workshop. I decided to choose all college students instead of including some university staff is because this solution needs to be for the students, by the students. I thought that including university staff may diminish that. I also realized that I wanted to make sure we had a solution that could be applied anywhere, not just their university per se. By having only students, we avoid having a university-specific solution and we can help more people.

Deliverables

As far as tangible outputs go, I would like to finish the workshop with one good plan. The plan needs to be something that will be feasible and affordable, and something that a student org or college could do with few resources.

Challenges

Resources are a challenge that participants will need to work around. On a positive note, the extra obstacles may help participants come up with an even better, more feasible solution. Another challenge will be the ensure we are getting honest answers and good engagement, something I hope having only students will help with. I will also have to make sure people feel like they can be honest and open.

Information

The main thing that participants would need to have is a good understanding of the problem at hand and mindfulness about the feasibility. If they can keep this information in mind, I think that the workshop would be very productive.

Location and Materials

While zoom is a safer option right now, an in-person gathering would have better engagement. A socially distanced classroom setup could work, outside would be better but the weather here in Virginia is a little unpredictable so that could be risky. A socially distanced classroom with good ventilation and PPE is the best option for this workshop I think.* This way there is plenty of seating and writing space along with whiteboards, which we will need. We will also need some art supplies for the journaling and cover story. We will also need food and drinks. Coffee and water should be available all day as well as some snacks. Maybe a couple of breakfast items like yogurts or bars in the morning, too. For lunch, catering chipotle may be best. I thought about giving people vouchers for their own food delivery, but it would be tricky with delivery times and I don’t want people to have to wait around for their food. Chipotle has allergy safe and vegan-friendly options and it has good quality ingredients to fuel everyone throughout the day.

*note, this plan was made in October of 2020 with the Virginia Tech or Radford campus in mind. At the time, cases were relatively low and this would’ve been able to be done safely. With the current situation, this plan would need to be updated for safety.

Schedule & Closing Thoughts

This is the schedule mockup. I just guessed how long each activity would take but it is pretty flexible in case we need to make on-the-fly adjustments.

With this plan, I think that we have a good chance of finding a solution to the problem: How might we help college seniors impacted by the pandemic feel seen and heard?

Design Thinking Workshop

Gouache Studies