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UXHI Oct 2023
Mindfulness transforming design methods
Hi everyone, Thanks for coming to UXHI and this session. Your time is valuable. Let’s get the most out of the next 30-40 minutes. Everything that led up to this moment here, now...let it recede into the past. Everything that is yet to come? It can wait.
Arrival
I will invite you to pause for a refreshing breath together. But, we’ll start with an exhale, then an inhale, then one more exhale before breathing normally. All right, so...exhale. Push all the air out. Yes, then inhale nice and deep. Then exhale naturally. Breathe normally. Thank you for participating in that. How do you feel? Have you arrived?
So what’s your challenge?
What brings you to UXHI? Networking? Improving skills? Getting into a new field? And what’s bugging you? Too many meetings? Too much busy work? Too complex? Too fast? Too slow? Please write down one or two.
We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.
Good designers, engineers, or business planners all see the world and try to improve it based on who they are and what they know.
When Alzheimer’s patients try to escape their care center, a good designer might create a better fence, or better alert system. Great designers in Dusseldorf created a bus stop. When patients with memory loss tried to escape, most planned to do so via public transit. By placing a realistic bus stop at the edge of the facility, patients would attempt to wait for the next bus, allowing caregivers time to intervene.
This is an old design lore, but I believe that by cultivating regular mindfulness practices, whatever those may be, we enhance our great superpower. To be better observers. To see the world as it is. When we see the world as it is, it opens up insights and creative solutions.
How might we better see the world as it is, train ourselves to systematically adopt a beginner’s mind to tease out root causes and observe the systems that underly design challenges?
Earlier, I asked what’s bugging you... What’s bugging me... I crave more clarity in interpersonal work (meetings), and more purpose in my path.
Quick show of hands? Does anyone here keep a regular mindful practice?
) I’m starting to believe it’s as essential as air, water, food, shelter, sleep, touch, & personal space. I would add mindful reflection to that list of essentials.
Another show of hands? With this definition.
Sometimes we do need to go sit quietly on mountains or by water or alone in our rooms to get a habit started. Then, once we have a basis, we can bring that to our daily work.
One minute mindful breathing activity
In your work you most likely have frameworks you operate with. Agile, OKRs, SMART goals, RASCI, BPR, Business Model Canvas, CI/CD, Scrum, Kanban.
Frame
At the outset of a design challenge we frame the challenge giving scope and boundaries
Mindful Meetings
We tend to think of meetings as finite events on our calendar that keep us from doing our real work. But unfortunately to some degree they are our real work. How many of us do something else at the same time? I am guilty.
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Depending on where you work, or who you work with this may sound like just the basics. Or a revelation.
Observe and Empathize
As designers we empathize with users and observe the systems our users find themselves in. Earlier we took just over a minute check in on the breath. Next we’re going to experience a body scan. Where I find this practice most useful is before or during user interviews, ride-alongs, or any time I am trying to listen and understand. So let’s have a mini interview!
Let’s take two minutes. Pick some one next to you, prefer someone you don’t already know. You have a minute to learn their name, profession, reasons for coming today, what’s bugging them, and something that motivates them professionally.
Two-minute body scan activity
Next, pick someone else near you preferring someone you don’t already know. You again have a minute to learn their name, professional career, reasons for coming today, what’s bugging them, and something that motivates them professionally.
Use the body scan technique with other active listening practices like asking questions, body mirroring, and rephrasing what you think you hear. (
) Ok, let’s move on. In design, after we’ve collected so much relevant data from users and systems we generally reframe the problem. What is the real How Might We that we should have asked at the beginning.
Reframe
The “Jobs to Be Done” framework is one many designers use to reframe a problem in a way that they can create insights from the new problem statement or How Might We. While earlier we might have asked, How Might we Develop a better alert system for Alzheimers escapees, after empathizing, we might ask, How Might We Help Alzheimers patients achieve their goal in the context of the health care center.
“Every job people need done has a functional, an emotional, and social dimension. If we understand these dimensions, we can be better at creating meaningful solutions to our design challenges.
While our user soul is our fundamental unit of empathy, their Job to Be Done is our fundamental unit of analysis to ideate solutions that delight and engage our users.
Harvard marketing professor Theo Levitt famously said, “People don’t want a 8mm drill bit. They want an 8mm hole.” This starts to illustrate functional dimension of a customer’s Job to Be Done.
Let’s take the story even farther to accommodate for a customer’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The person doesn’t actually want the hole.
They want the hole so they can hang a shelf on it. But they don’t just want a shelf. Actually what they want is a shelf to put a family picture on. The emotional dimension.
Why do they want to have a family picture? To feel part of something greater than themselves or that they belong. The social dimension. Their place in the world.
So what mindfulness practice might we use to help us reframe? To really “step back”? Let’s step back. We’re going to walk! Why? Our miraculous minds are attached to these giant multi-million cell networks. The mind resides not only in the brain, but in the heart, the gut, and probably the hair follicles on the skin. So to reframe a problem, discover the jobs to be done, and to ideate...it can help to move around. Get off the screen, get out of the meeting room! Today, as we move around the room, let’s think about our second interview. What’s bugging them? What are their motivations? What do you think their jobs to be done really are?
Three-minute walking mindfulness activity
Ideate
Thank you for your participation. Next up in the design process we ideate new solutions, based on everything we’ve learned from our user souls, their contexts and jobs to be done.
UXHI - Arthur Grau - Mindfulness transforming design methods-Rubin-quote.pdf
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Once we have what we think are some good or great design ideas, we get to prototype. We can prototype with users, with stakeholders, other designers, or all of the above. The idea is to fail often while the stakes are low. Prototyping should be like play.
Prototype
Play can teach us a lot about our designs and the people that use them.
Gifting, gratitude and play activity.
Validate
So, we’ve come all this way in the design process. Framing a problem, empathizing with users in systemic contexts, reframing to come up with some stellar ideas and even working several prototypes before committing to our final designs...
One-minute box breathing activity
Wrapping up
Join for ten minutes of quiet every day.
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