Connecting the Dots
Crafting a journey of evidence for design
In this article, I want to share with you extra tips that I put together for you to deepen your practice of creating insights. It is inspired by the questions I have received from learners at IDEOU. Let’s dive into the practice of creating insights a little deeper. I am hoping to give you some extra ideas to take with you on your Design Thinking journey.
Insights After going through the first stage of design thinking, the phase where you empathize with the user, you are going to deepen your findings by synthesizing the data into insights. This can be an overwhelming place to be because you are going to look back at all the data you have gathered by observing, interviewing, and by empathizing with the user.
Why crafting insights is important. To define the problem you want to solve before spending time and resources on generating possible solutions, you need to find rich insights that are founded on authentic and empathic information. “A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.” Sometimes linear interpretations — observation — insight — solution — are too simplistic. When we want to provide long-term innovative ideas that resonate deeply with users, then we need to look deeper at the less obvious patterns to inspire and inform our thinking.
Insights The meaning in the dictionary of an insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something. But in Design Thinking, we are looking at insights, not only as “an understanding of a situation” but more as a statement in which we bring together the user, their need, and the dilemma we need to solve in order to generate possible solutions.
Data, observation, and needs It is important to understand that these findings are no insights. They are the ingredients we need to build a good insight. This is where people often get stuck, overwhelmed, or stop because they mistake them for insights. Insights are not easily found, are non-apparent, and need a deeper level of applied interpretations to the observations. Another thing an insight is not is a solution. An insight should inspire you to come up with multiple solutions. Your insights will be the spark of your brainstorms.
Findings vs. Insights A finding is a fact or statement that tells us what is happening or why, but it doesn’t provide us with a meaningful solution. An insight describes an aspect of human behavior or user motivation. It enables us to see how we might go about solving a particular user problem. An insight should be common across different research activities, those are the richest insights. You should be able to find between 3 and 8 insights. Less might suggest your research didn’t cover a wide enough range of people and more suggest you haven’t been critical enough.
Synthesize an insight Your goal here is to identify patterns and themes from across the research and interviews. This is the process of sense-making and this is where you will be making a clear journey of evidence for design. You’ll start to rationalize your research into a clear story for the cliënt, stakeholders, and/or the team. But there is one more step to take:
Grouping themes To capture the found data you might want to take a marker and mark all the data that is important or surprising, everything that stands out. When you write those on your sticky notes you will start to see themes. Once a clear set of themes have come together, look at what’s left — do they form a group of their own? Perhaps they start to fall away as they fail to make it into a group. Don’t remove any notes yet, if they made it onto the wall they need to stick around for a little longer.
Where the magic happens In the video The Anatomy an Insight (a video within the course Insights for Innovation from IDEOU*), Coe Leta Stafford says: “They don’t just appear, you have to craft them.” We must challenge ourselves to achieve interpretations that go deeper to create solutions that are truly meaningful in relation to complex human issues of culture, identity, lifestyle, and values. You can do this by clustering the post-it notes several times. Try to keep finding new and unexpected connections between the sticky notes. It helps to take pictures, when using real sticky notes, or to copy the notes when you are creating new clusters. When creating insights it is needed to have an open mindset. It might help to walk away from them and come back with a fresh perspective when you feel you are not hitting the right note. Your brain might need some time to process all the information in order to have an insight*. Feel free to go with your personal interests or perspective here, you might see connections because of your background, upbringing, expertise that other people don’t see. It is a fun moment to be playful, curious, and creative.
Crafting an insight statement When you look at these clusters of sticky notes, you have gathered the dots, but how to formulate your insight in a way that is captivating, inspiring, and memorable. To connect those dots, the following might be helpful:
• What is your observation or fact about a problem in the world that is recognizable for your user?
• What is the reason that stops people from doing or feeling the right thing, what is their impasse?
• What is their desire or need?
• Why is this important?
How Might We questions When framing your insights as statements it helps to rephrase them into How Might We Questions. This way your insight will inspire you to look for answers. Your HMW question should allow for a variety of solutions. If it doesn’t, broaden it, but don’t make it too broad. It should be narrow enough to know where to start, but wide enough to explore wild ideas*.
An example This is a project that I admire highly. This is the project Sheltersuit from Bas Timmer, a designer who went to the same Art Academy as I did and he won the Dutch Design Award 2020 at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven (NL). I have been following his project for a while and I think it is a great example to share with you here. I hope it inspires you too!
Video: Brilliantly designed Sheltersuits help protect the vulnerable
When the father of two of his friends died of hypothermia, Bas Timmer felt called to design something that could help people from having to go through that same horror. I will use this project as an example:
Observation Homeless people might die of hypothermia when being out in the cold
Impasse People don’t have enough resources to stay warm when being homeless
Need Keep people warm, safe, and alive
How might we create a free product that offers warmth and protection against the element for all to use.
Presenting your insights When you present your insights you want to create a story in which you take your audience through the journey you took to come to these insights. The story should spark that inspiration, interest, and empathy you need to keep building and growing your innovative solution. What story do you need to tell to make your insights come to life? Is there a storyline that stood out as a perfect example? Maybe a quote or certain perspectives you gained can be used to help outsiders empathize with your insights.
Remember: Many people spend YEARS honing this skill!
Inspiration
- Insights for Innovation — course at IDEOU
- TedTalk about the Sheltersuit
- Website Sheltersuit
- Instagram Sheltersuit
- Read The impact of Solitude on Creativity, my article on Medium
- How Might We Questions
