Remote design thinking, how does that work? Part 2
In my first blog about remote design thinking I shared my thoughts and feelings how design thinking works for me as a designer, working remotely from a tiny village in the Spanish Pyrenees. This second blog is about how remote design thinking works, I’d like to share two design thinking projects with you. In both cases the clients are situated in the Netherlands.
Project 1. Influencing students to choose a technical career
For this project Maarten Brand from Studio Brand asked us to collaborate with him on a project for a cooperative of technical companies (VTi) and Amsterdam Council. The assignment Maarten had was to discover when and how the VTi could influence Sami to create interest for a career in the technical domain.
The project outcomes existed of the learning journey of Sami who goes to school in Amsterdam. We designed a stakeholder, including short personas of each stakeholder, a customer journey of each phase in the education of Sami until she needs to make a choice for a certain domain she wants to work in.
I believe the two most important tasks for me as a designer/ design thinker is finding and asking the right questions as well as doing the synthesis in a damn good way. For asking the right questions I need my empathy, curiosity and experience as a designer. To do the synthesis I need input, the parts of the puzzle and those right questions that are in need of an answer. Both are very good possible remotely. Maarten did the field work, together we did synthesis and I did all the design work.
I spend hours behind the screen with Maarten Brand to dig deep in the assignment. The client sees one problem they want solved, but often it is another one. So what where the underlaying assumptions? Maarten doing the interviewing and then we doing the deep thinking together through video calls, helped us uncover these assumptions.
Through several iterations of the stakeholder maps and learning journeys we developed a deeper understanding of stages Sami the student goes through, her parents and teachers, also when Sami starts thinking of her future and who influences her in her choices. The results of the project are the visuals of exactly that process of choosing and the stakeholders/ influencers in her/his learning journey.
Click here to learn more about this project
Project 2. Regie op Dementie - The dementia journey
Both parents of our client Hilma van Slooten where diagnosed with dementia at the same time. During this hard time, she found out that the Dutch healthcare system kind of gives up on you when you have dementia. It is not about living but waiting for your end. She experienced that her parents were still very much alive. ( Hilma’s dad passed away on September 20 2018) Hilma had a lot of questions for which she didn’t immediately found an answer. That is when she founded “Regie op dementie” ( The Dementia Journey). Regie op Dementie is a online platform where children of parents with dementia can find links, tips and articles about living with dementia in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
I think this is one of my favourite projects I have done during my designer career. It is personal, social, empathic, human centered and entrepreneurial. It has everything that makes my heart tic. She came to me with flip over sheets full of post-its and thoughts, and the story that she wanted a blog about dementia. She asked me to order her thoughts and ideas and built that blog. This was during one real life meeting at the very beginning when I was visiting the Netherlands. Because this is Hilma’s personal project my main job at the start was just to listen, listen and listen a little more during endless video and phone calls. Listen and ask questions.
I remember discovering that you can see dementia as a journey, a journey with an unfortunate outcome, death. This journey was a breakthrough thought, because from there we could build up a system. By then we were way passed the idea of a blog about dementia, we were now designing a platform, with categories, a blog, information about dementia. We weren’t focusing on people with dementia, but on children of parents with dementia.
This platform needed branding and an online existence. Filled with the very rich personal and emotional stories , experiences from Hilma and now from other children of parents with dementia. The goal, to help people in the same situation. So we started designing the platform. A number of iterations helped shape the platform, the look and feel of the different elements and Regie of Dementie as whole. Then it was up to Hilma, using her 20 years of Marketing experience to get it out there and so far with success.
Click here to learn more about this project
Leanings from both projects
As long as outcomes are visual, we as Unbeaten Studio are able to use design thinking as our mindset and use our graphical skills to translate the outcomes into a platform, visuals, infographics, posters campaigns etc. If the outcome are 3 dimensional we collaborate with other designers.
Both Maarten en Hilma had understanding of design thinking before we collaborated. This makes working faster. When clients are less familiar with our way of working it often takes a little bit more time to get going, but once they see the results it goes pretty fast.
Especially when projects are very personal, you need to look each other in the eyes. You need to be able to read the emotions in someones faces. If you can’t stand next to each other, video meeting are the best tools for that.
A very recent learning, Design thinking techniques have to be modified for the new online world. I don’t mean all the digital customer journey or digital post it tools. For both Maarten and Hilma we are doing follow up projects at the moment. I was designing focus group sessions and tools for Regie op Dementie and now I have to redesign them in order for Hilma to do the research from behind her laptop (Design research has to be done differently nowadays). Luckily design is resilient and adapts to most cases.
I hope this two examples and my learning help you tackle your design thinking challenges remotely. If you have any questions please let us know. A big thank you to Maarten Brand & Hilma van Slooten for trusting that good design work can be done from a tiny village in the Spanish Pyrenees.
Remote designing tips
Have a look at the “30 Toptal Designer Tips on Working Remotely and Design” from Toptal. I specially like Alejandro Velasco his tip “Don’t fear asking questions-fear having nothing to ask, especially in a new project when your questions help a client understand your mindset” Enjoy reading.
Author: Jeroen Spoelstra
