Design tools for thinking with

There are a range of HCD tools that are useful for gaining a greater understanding of a problem space. They are not a solution in themselves, but rather a lens or a map that can help you see and find different things you might like to respond to.

While these are generally useful in the information gathering/interpretation stages, we are discussing them here at the end of the collection because while they are useful, they are somewhat less direct in their application than the methods we discussed earlier.

Sometimes making a quick diagram or map is the best way to help yourself make sense of something. Turning information or your understanding into a diagram is a great way to clarify your thinking. By using spatial and illustrative elements you also stimulate different parts of the brain which can help with retention and understanding. Having a final artefact isn’t the only goal – in the act of creation you can start to see connections and gaps by forcing yourself to think about the different components and to make decisions about how you represent them. 

It is also a good first step from the point of view of airing assumptions that you can then test and validate by talking to others. Having an artefact that represents your understanding can be a useful thing to show peers in discussions, they can potentially pick out things that you wouldn’t have identified. 

Visualising a user experience (in the form of a ‘journey map’) can be valuable for seeing patterns, key crunch points and places for potential interventions.

The design practice of diagraming or mapping levers our strong human skill of pattern recognition. We are great at finding trends and connections in visualised information so this means that we can identify the parts of the problem space that need attention.

Marty van de Weyer

Mind mapping and sketch noting

Mind mapping is a commonly known practice, and can be extremely useful for unpacking a problem. Sketch noting has been gaining greater attention as a tool to visualise information which focuses more on the use of sketches, fonts and information layout. It is often used as a summary tool at conferences. These tools are helpful for externalising information about a problem and allowing it to move into a collaborative space.

Journey mapping

Journey mapping is a design tool used to understand the experience of a user as they interact with something (a student interacting with a course, a user accessing a new digital system). It is a diagram or infographic that captures a range of information which can then be used to interrogate the situation and see where user experience can be refined.

The features that appear on your journey map and the variables that are being tracked will depend on the problem that you are thinking through, but they would typically include some form of timeline, with user goals, actions and emotive states noted at relevant points.

Having an idea in mind of what your users’ values are can be very helpful for understanding their behaviour. This means that you have a better idea of what might work rather than having to find out by testing/evaluating that particular element. Through teaching we often gain an idea of what student values are but we may not have had the chance to articulate it to ourselves (or to others in our teaching teams who might find this information useful). Building a set of individual ‘personas’ can be a good way to keep the varied needs of your students (or users) in mind rather than picturing them as a collective amorphous entity.

Personas are character outlines created to stand in for different types of users. In their truest form, personas are based on a body of data. It should be noted that your work might be hampered if they are in actuality not suitably representative of needs. If they are aligned well with your data, they are very useful as an empathy tool and can help to make sure that what you create responds to the needs of the widest possible portion of your users. They’re also useful for a teaching team in knowing how to respond.

Personas make use of the fact that, as humans, we are geared towards remembering information when it is tied to an individual person. We are social creatures, so if we are given a face and name to go along with a selection of attributes we are able to chunk that information and empathise with those needs better than if we were given the attributes by themselves.

Marty van de Weyer

Building personas

You can utilise a more structured process for creating personas, but typically the lived experience we have from engaging with our users can be drawn upon to get us most of the way there.

1. Think about the different types of users you have interacted with within your role. It’s usually not that hard to draw out some groupings of different types of individuals (with similar needs or reactions). Write down a list of these different user types.
2. Consider the different spectrums that these users are defined by (engagement, responsiveness to new information). Are there other groups of users at different points on these spectrums that should be drawn out/should be represented (more engagement)?
3. Have you considered users with accessibility requirements? Consider where this might fit in.
4. Select three to five user types which best summarise all the users you interact with and fill in a profile like the following. The below is a small scale example. Depending on your situation you might have other properties that you would like to define between different individuals (such as the different key spectrums you noted above). 

Example of personas

Key phrase	‘I want to do something that’s right for me’	‘I’m excited about what I can make’
Persona portrait
Name	Amelia	Mateo
Demographic information	21	19
Bio	This is Ameila’s second Uni course because she decided that what she had been doing previously wasn’t right for her. She is excited about the new opportunity but also very anxious because she feels like she has ‘lost time’ by not doing something that will lead to her career.	Mateo is an international student with a passion for his chosen subject. He is interested in gaining his degree and then returning to his home country where jobs in this space are desirable/in line with industry needs. He has already done some entry level work for a small company. Mateo completed rote work quickly and likes to expand his understanding through exploration, so likes guidance for further opportunities
Goals	Feel more confident in this professional identity and that she can find a place for herself within it. Achieve effective grades and feel happy with work done. Find people who are also interested in the same parts of the profession as she is.	Achieve high grades Find work experience/internship opportunities.
Frustrations	Due to the fact that this is her second course she does not feeling like her time is being wasted (particularly with learning interactions where she can see a better solution or technical implementation).	Group activities where he feels like he is the only motivated one. Some of the more theoretical elements of the course which are not relevant to the industry contexts he knows he will be returning to.
Blockers to engagement	Poor teaching practice. Using fiddly university tools (compared to the service tools and apps she is used to).	Lack of logic checks. Lack of space for personal expansion, connection to his areas of interests

Things to keep in mind when building personas:

• Have a photo for each of your personas – having a face triggers the part of our brain that makes us associate this information with an individual. Find a stock image that you can use to represent each of your personas.
• Don’t base a persona on a single real person – personas are meant to be an aggregate combination of a group of users. Problems start to arise when you imagine a specific person that you know and their needs and responses.