Human Centered Design PDF

The Course for
Human-Centered
Design
A seven-week course brought to you by:
Class 1
An Introduction to
Human-Centered Design
Readings
Mindsets
Case Study
Workshop Guide
Class 2
Inspiration Phase
Readings
Case Study
Methods in Action
Workshop Guide
Class 3
Ideation Phase
Readings
Case Study
Methods in Action
Workshop Guide
Class 4
Implementation Phase
Readings
Case Study
Methods in Action
Workshop Guide
Class 5
Moving Forward
Readings
Workshop Guide
Before You Start
This Course Is For You

This Course Can Help You Create Solutions for Everyday Challenges.
Businesses, social entrepreneurs, and other

innovators have used human-centered
design for decades to create solutions for
many different types of challenges. This
course will introduce to you the concepts of
human-centered design to help make you a
more effective, innovative problem solver.
This course is designed with a group-guided
learning structure, which means that you
and your team of two to six people will be
learning the human-centered design process
together. The course is designed to be
conducted over seven weeks. However, you

can do it faster or slower if a different pace is
right for your team.
This course is an invitation to experiment
with the process of design. Let it inspire
you to approach challenges differently and
experience how human-centered design can
add a new perspective and dimension to
your work.
Effective Ways to Engage my

Community
Unstuck
Solutions that Fit my Individual

Challenge
What benets will I

gain from humancentered design ?
Improved Collaboration
More Creative Condence

More Fun
The Course for Human Centered Design
Before You Start
A Note About Language

The Terminology Used to Describe Human-Centered Design Can Vary a Bit.
Indeed, not even the term human-centered

design is universal among its practitioners.
Youll notice that in some of the required
and optional readings and links for this
course, human-centered design is sometimes
referred to as design thinking. As a new
learner of the process, you can think of
human-centered design and design thinking
as one and the same.
The Design Process

In this course, the three major phases of
the human-centered design process are
broken down into Inspiration, Ideation, and
Implementation.
As you begin reading some of the other
materials included in this course, youll see
that the steps in the human-centered design
process have been broken down in a variety
of different ways. For example, when reading
the Human-Centered Design (HCD) Toolkit,
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
youll notice that the three major steps of

the process are labeled as: 1) Hear 2) Create 3)
Deliver. If you read the Bootcamp materials
from the Stanford d.school, youll see yet
another set of terms. But dont worry! As you
start to put human-centered design to work,
the steps will become clearer.
Most importantly, human-centered design
is a process. Think of it as a recipe for
cooking your favorite meal. The names of the
ingredients might differ from place
to place, country to country, but the process
itself with an emphasis on getting out into
your community, prototyping rapidly, and
iterating until you get your ideas right
remains constant.
IMPLEMENTATION
Before You Start
Course Logistics
There are a Few Logistics Everyone on Your Team Should Know About.
Teams
This course is designed as a group-guided
learning experience. In order to make this
stucture work, youll need a team of at least
two (and no more than six) colleagues. A
smaller size will make it easier to coordinate
schedules and make decisions. And diversity
is key: a team of people with different
strengths and perspectives will only enhance
your ability to come up with new solutions
to complex challenges. We suggest making
agreements before the course starts about
what responsibilities people can bring to
the tablewhos the scheduler, ensuring
the team is on time? Whos the enthusiast,
inspiring the team with big dreams?
advantage of this opportunity to see how

others are tackling similar challenges as you
throughout this course.
This course is designed to extend seven
weeks, minimumone class per week, with
the exception of the materials for Class 2 and
3, which extend two weeks each. This pacing,
however, is just a suggestion. The course can
be completed in more or less time, depending
on your teams schedule.
Calender
Plan out your workshop days on a
calendar with your team. Can everyone
commit to attend all of the sessions? If not,
mark dates that members might miss and
plan accordingly or reschedule. Some tasks
might require more time, so review the
requirements for each section and
plan accordingly.
Time Commitment
For each class, youll have one to two hours
of readings to help you prepare for your
workshop. Each workshop is scheduled to
last two to three hours. For some of these
workshops, your team will be expected to
submit assignments to the NovoEd platform.
Following these assignments, you will
have a chance to explore and peer review
the work of your fellow classmates. Take
Leadership
At each class, a member of your team will
serve as the Class Leader.
The Class Leader will be responsible
for thoroughly reviewing Readings and the
Workshop Guide before the team meets so
5
that they can lead the workshop activities.

The Class Leader will also organize your team
to bring required supplies. You should coordinate with your team to choose the Class
Leader for Class 1 and subsequently choose
a new leader for the following class at each
group session.
Space
Suggested Supplies
The human-centered design process is
about making ideas visual, tactile, and
experiential.
Its important to have supplies on hand
that make it easy to work in this fashion.
Each class, your design team will need the
following supplies for the workshop:
Pens, pencils, markers, paper.
Post-it notes if theyre available; if not, cut
scrap paper into squares and bring tape to
stick these square pieces of paper on the
wall. Trust us, this is important!
Other useful (but not required) supplies
might include construction paper,
foam core boards, scissors, and mobile
phone cameras.
During the second half of the course,
youll be prototyping your designs;
each team member will need to bring
prototyping supplies to these workshops
(more details later).
The human-centered design process requires

space for your team to work.
Can you hold the workshop at someones
house? Your school? Your office? Your church?
Restaurants or coffee shops can work as
spaces too, but sometimes can be too noisy or
crowded to facilitate proper brainstorming
and prototyping.
Whatever space you decide upon, its best
if theres a wall where you can stick inspiring
imagery or notes from your research, so that
your team can be continuously be immersed
in your learnings. Shared visual reminders
will also help your team track progress of the
project and stay focused on your challenge.
Printed Materials
Each member of the team is required to print
out the Workshop Guide for that class and
bring it to your group session.
If youd like, you can print out the class
readings, though this is not required. To save
paper, we encourage you to download and
read them on a computer or tablet.
Before You Start
About Acumen
Acumen is a Non-Profit Changing the Way the World Tackles Poverty by Investing in Companies,
Leaders, and Ideas.
+Acumen is part of Acumens work in leadership. We created +Acumen to give people

a meaningful way to add Acumen to their lives. Learn through our online courses or
volunteer and network through our chapters. +Acumen aims to provide the tools and
training for individuals to step up and create social change.
Design Kit: The Course of Human-Centered Design is one of many courses inspired by the
leadership curriculum used in Acumens Fellows Program. Each of our courses fits in one of
three areas of Acumens Leadership Model.
MORAL
IMAGINATION
FINANCIAL
OPERATIONAL
EXPERTISE
EXPERTISE
MORAL IMAGINATION
The humility to see the world as
it is and the audacity to imagine
the world as it could be.
FINANCIAL EXPERTISE
The ability to use capital
as a tool we can control
to execute on our vision
sustainably.
OPERATIONAL EXPERTISE
The skills essential to
starting, running, and scaling
your vision for the world.
Acumen believes in the importance of incorporating the principles of human-centered

design when creating solutions to problems of poverty so that low-income communities are
provided with choice, not just charity. IDEO.org has been our partner in delivering humancentered design training to our fellows for many years so we are excited to partner with
them to make these tools available to more people around the world. More information can
be found at www.plusacumen.org.
An Introduction
to HCD
1
An Introduction to
Human-Centered Design
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
The Course for Human-Centered Design
An Introduction
to HCD
Table Of Contents
Class 1
An Introduction to HumanCentered Design
Readings
What Is Human-Centered Design?
What Can the Approach Be Used For?
The Design Process
Mindsets of a Human-Centered Designer
Design Thinking for Social Innovation

Case Study: Clean Team
An Introduction
to HCD
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
What Is Human-Centered Design?

Human-centered design is a creative approach to
problem solving and the backbone of our work at
IDEO.org. Its a process that starts with the people
youre designing for and ends with new solutions
that are tailor-made to suit their needs. Humancentered design is all about building a deep empathy
with the people youre designing for; generating
tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes;
sharing what youve made with the people youre
designing for; and eventually putting your innovative
new solution out in the world.
An Introduction
to HCD
What Can the Approach Be Used For?

Human-centered design is a process that can be used across industries and sectors to
approach any number of challengesfrom product and service design to space or systems
design, to name just a few.
Products
Services
When people think of design, they often

first think about expensive, stylish
products. But thoughtful product design
is just as important in social innovation.
Not only are all people deserving of welldesigned products, but challenges that arise
when there are limited resources, services,
or infrastructure require new approaches
and elegant solutions.
For a service to be effective, it needs to be

considered from end-to-end: from how its
advertised to how its delivered. For a service
to have the desired impact, its essential to
gain a deep understanding of the people you
will be servingnot only what they need
and desire, but what limitations they face,
what motivates them, and whats important
to them.
How might we design a cookstove that

reduces the amount of smoke inhaled by a
person while cooking?
How might we design a water delivery

service providing clean drinking water along
with health and nutrition products?
How might we build an irrigation pump that

can run without the electricity grid?
How might we design new services engaging

low-income parents in after-school
education for their children?
How might we design a toilet for

families living in areas with no sanitation
infrastructure?
How might we design a sustainable business

model for a pit latrine emptying service?
An Introduction
to HCD
Spaces
Systems
Physical environments give people signals

about how to behave and influence how they
feel. By rethinking the design of hospitals,
classrooms, public transportation, banks,
libraries, and more, we can create new
experiences and interactions in these
spaces. Human-centered design can help
make the emotional parts of a space as
important as the functional.
Designing systems is about balancing

the complexity of many different
stakeholder needs with the needs of the
social enterprise. For example, if you were
designing a new type of school, there are
the needs of the students, parents, staff and
faculty, community, and perhaps investors.
Systems design often involves setting
high-level strategy such as stating visions,
priorities, policies, and key communications
around these ideas.
How might we design hospital waiting rooms

to mitigate the transmission of airborne
diseases?
How might we redesign the school lunch

program for an entire city while providing
for differences in individual schools?
How might we redesign the common

areas of a community housing structure
to encourage connecting and cooperation
among neighbors?
How might we design a system linking social

entrepreneurs from around the world?
How might we make the space inside a bank

less intimidating for rst-time savers signing
up for a new account?
How might we redesign a banking system

for low-income citizens who have limited
knowledge of banks?
An Introduction
to HCD
The Design Process

The human-centered design process has three phasesthe Inspiration phase, the Ideation
phase, and the Implementation phase. In the end, youll know that your solution will be a
success because youve kept the people youre looking to serve at the heart of the process.
In the Inspiration phase youll learn directly from the people youre designing for as you immerse yourself
in their lives and come to deeply understand their needs. In the Ideation phase youll make sense of what
you learned, identify opportunities for design, and prototype possible solutions. And in the Implementation
phase youll bring your solution to life, and eventually, to market.
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
I have a design challenge.

How do I get started?
How do I conduct an interview?
How do I stay human-centered?
I have an opportunity for design.

How do I interpret what Ive learned?
How do I turn my insights into
tangible ideas?
How do I make a prototype?
I have an innovative solution.

How do I make my concept real?
How do I assess if its working?
How do I plan for sustainability?
abstract
abstract
tangible
tangible
An Introduction
to HCD
Mindsets of a Human-Centered Designer

Human-centered design is as much about your head as your hands. These Mindsets
uncover the philosophy behind our approach to creative problem solving, and show that
how you think about design directly affects whether youll arrive at innovative, impactful
solutions. Spend some time watching these seven Mindsets videos on the NovoEd platform.
Learn from Failure
Make It
Dont think of it as failure, think of it

as designing experiments through
which youre going learn.
Youre taking risk out of the

process by making something
simple first. And you always learn
lessons from it.
Failure is an incredibly powerful tool

for learning. Designing experiments,
prototypes, and interactions and testing
them is at the heart of human-centered
design. So is an understanding that not
all of them are going to work. As we seek
to solve big problems, were bound to
fail. But if we adopt the right mindset,
well inevitably learn something from that
failure.
As human-centered designers, we
make because we believe in the power
of tangibility and we know that making
an idea real is a fantastic way to think
it through. When the goal is to get
impactful solutions out into the world
you cant stay in the realm of theory.
You have to make your ideas real.
Creative Condence
Empathy
Creative confidence is the notion that

you have big ideas, and that you have
the ability to act on them.
I cant come up with any new ideas

if all I do is exist in my own life.
Anyone can approach the world like a

designer. Often all it takes to unlock that
potential as a dynamic problem solver is
creative condence. Creative condence
is the belief that everyone is creative,
and that creativity isnt the capacity to
draw
compose
or sculpt,
a way
of
Weor
may
not know
whatbut
that
answer
approaching
the world.
is, but we know
that we have to give
ourselves permission to explore.
Empathy is the capacity to step into

other peoples shoes, to understand
their lives, and start to solve problems
from their perspectives. Humancentered design is premised on
empathy, on the idea that the people
youre designing for are your roadmap
to innovative solutions. All you have to
do is empathize, understand them, and
bring them along with you in the design
process.
An Introduction
to HCD
Embrace Ambiguity
Be Optimistic
We may not know what that

answer is, but we know that we
have to give ourselves permission
to explore.
Optimism is the thing that drives

you forward.
Human-centered designers always

start from the place of not knowing
the answer to the problem theyre
looking to solve. And though thats
not particularly comfortable, it allows
us to open up creatively, to pursue
lots of different ideas, and to arrive
at unexpected solutions. Embracing
ambiguity allows us to give ourselves
permission to be fantastically creative.
We believe that design is inherently

optimistic. To take on a big challenge,
especially one as large and intractable
as poverty, we have to believe that
progress is even an option. If we didnt,
we wouldnt even try. Optimism is the
embrace of possibility, the idea that
even if we dont know the answer,
that its out there and that we can
nd it.
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

What an iterative approach affords us
We may not know what that answer
is that we gain validation along the
is, but we know that we have to give
way...because were hearing from the
ourselves
permission
explore.for.
people were
actuallyto
designing
Human-centered design is an inherently
iterative approach to solving problems
because it makes feedback from the people
were designing for a critical part of how a
solution evolves. By continually iterating,
rening, and improving our work we put
ourselves in a place where well have more
ideas, try a variety of approaches, unlock
our creativity, and arrive more quickly at
successful solutions.
An Introduction
to HCD
An Introduction
to HCD
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10
An Introduction
to HCD
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Winter 2010 STANFORD SOCIAL INNOVATION REVIEW
##
An Introduction
to HCD
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12
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to HCD
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Winter 2010 STANFORD SOCIAL INNOVATION REVIEW
#%
13
An Introduction
to HCD
Case Study: Clean Team

In-Home Toilets for Ghanas Urban Poor
For the millions of Ghanaians without in-home toilets, there are few good
options when it comes to our bodies most basic functions. Working with
Unilever and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), IDEO and
IDEO.org developed Clean Team, a comprehensive sanitation system that
delivers and maintains toilets in the homes of subscribers. Clean Team now
serves 3,500 people in Kumasi, Ghana, making lives cleaner, healthier, and
more dignied.
14
An Introduction
to HCD
The Outcome
IDEO and IDEO.org teams designed a comprehensive sanitation system to serve the needs
of low-income Ghanaians. The Clean Team service is a custom-designed stand-alone rental
toilet as well as a waste-removal system, but the design work extended to the entire service
ecosystem including branding, uniforms, a payment model, a business plan, and key
messaging. Unilever and WSUP piloted the project with about 100 families in the city of
Kumasi, Ghana, before launching in 2012.
INSPIRATION
The Inspiration phase of the project was

intense, with scores of interviews needed
to understand all facets of the design
challenge. Because sanitation is a systemslevel challenge we knew that we couldnt
just design Clean Teams toilet, says team
member and designer Danny Alexander.
After six weeks of talking with
sanitation experts, shadowing a toilet
operator, digging into the history of
sanitation in Ghana, and talking to scads
of Ghanaians, key insights about what the
toilet should look like and how waste should
be collected emerged.
An important historical note came
out too: For years Ghana had night soil
collectors, people who cleaned out bucket
latrines each night. But because many night
soil collectors dumped human waste in the
streets, night soil collection was banned in

the 1990s as a threat to public health. This
meant the team could leverage an existing
behavior around in-home waste removal,
but they would have to avoid any association
with illegal dumping.
IDEATION
This was a lightning-fast phase in the

project, one that leapt from learnings
to prototypes in seven weeks. After
brainstorming with its clients and everyday
Ghanaians, the team determined which
direction to take and began testing its
ideas. What aesthetics did people like?
Would a urine-diverting toilet work? Were
people comfortable with servicemen coming
into their homes? Where in the home
would the toilet go? Can you design a
15
An Introduction
to HCD
toilet that can only be emptied at a waste

management facility?
By building a handful of prototypes and
modifying existing portable toilets, the
team got tangible elements of the service
into the hands of Ghanaians. They learned
how the service should be positioned, early
ideas around marketing and promotion, as
well as certain technical limitations, namely
that though flush functions appeared
popular early in the goings, water scarcity
was a major factor to contend with.
One of the best parts of prototyping is
that it gives you real-life feedback to one of
your ideas. The design team suspected that
having someone come into subscribers
homes to collect and dispose of waste would
be an element of Clean Teams offer. The
specter of night soil collectors and a history
of illegal dumping made it critical from a
systems level, but would users accept it?
When the team discussed the idea
with people, they heard that consumers
would be happier disposing of their own
waste if it could save them money. Potential
subscribers were also reluctant to allow
service people into their homes.
Though the team had a hunch about
how the service would have to work, they
put the idea to test by running a prototype.
By enacting even just a portion of the
eventual Clean Team service, the designers
could learn how people would react not just

to toilets in their homes, but also to others
emptying them.
Though the toilets themselves were
popular, people quickly came to realize
the value of someone else taking care of
waste disposal. Once potential subscribers
experienced what it meant to have a full
toilet, and how involved proper waste
disposal would be, their desires changed.
IMPLEMENTATION
Once the service offerings, and look and

feel of the toilet were more or less fleshed
out, WSUP ran a live prototype of the
Clean Team service. Because tooling for
toilet manufacture is so expensive, WSUP
used off-the-shelf cabin toilets, which
approximated about 80% of the toilets
that IDEO.org would design to test the
service. They got great results, went ahead
with manufacturing, and as of 2012, the
toilets are in production, sport IDEO.orgs
branding, and have found their way into the
lives of 3,500 people.
Learn more at www.cleanteamtoilets.com
16
An Introduction
to HCD
The nal Clean Team design

included a product, a
service, the branding and
communications, and the key
elements for implementing
the service as a sustainable
business.
17
An Introduction
to HCD
1
Workshop Guide
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
An Introduction
to HCD
Lets Get Started!

We know from experience that the only way to learn human-centered design is by
applying it. So throughout this course you will be learning through doing: learning
about research by researching, figuring out how to prototype by prototyping. To do
this, however, you first need a design challenge.
So with that in mind, we have crafted a series of potential design challenges for
you and your group to select from in Class 2. Although we know youre all raring
to go in solving a challenge of your own, we strongly recommend following one
of these precrafted IDEO.org challengesespecially if this is your first time
learning human-centered design. These challenges have been vetted as good starter
challenges for both group collaboration and for the time allotted for this course.
Dont worry, youll have plenty of time at the end of the course to hone your new
human-centered design skills and plan your next design challenge (at which point
we encourage you to select something youre passionate about!)
Like any new skill, learning human-centered design requires practice, practice,
and more practice. These prevetted challenges give you the space to explore the
process in a more prescriptive way alongside an online community of others who
are learning the process at the same time and who are in the same stage as you. So
by following one of these precrafted challenges, the support is extensive and the
outcome is simply to learnwithout the pressure of a real deliverable.
One exciting announcement, new to this falls course, is that weve included our
Amplify challenge in our set of precrafted design challenges. IDEO.orgs Amplify
program is a five year effort to make international aid more collaborative and
human-centered. Funded by DFID and facilitated on the OpenIDEO platform, this
program asks human-centered designers from around the world to collaborate on a
single design challenge and add their own inspiration and ideas in an effort to come
to the best solution, as a global community. Read more about Amplify on ideo.org/
amplify and keep a look out in Class 2 Workshop materials to see what selecting the
Amplify challenge could mean for your course experience.
Youll find an agenda and suggested timeline for all activities at the beginning of
each Workshop Guide to help you, but again, this could vary from group to group, so
dont hesitate to spend extra time where extra time is needed.
Good luck and have fun!
An Introduction
to HCD
Table Of Contents
Class Leaders Guide

Before the Class 1 Workshop
Activities & Discussions

01 Introduction & Beginners Mind // 15 mins
02 Icebreaker: Visual Telephone // 15 mins
03 Logistics // 10 mins
04 Human-Centered Design Discussion // 15 mins
05 Mini Design Challenge: Design a Better Commute // 50 mins
06 Reect & Share // 15 mins
An Introduction
to HCD
Class Leaders Guide

Confirm That You Have a Meeting Space
This should be a dedicated room, table, or even just a wall where the group can post ideas
and inspiration. The design process involves a lot of talking and group collaboration, so you
will want to choose a location where your group can talk and not disturb others around you
too much.
Confirm That Everyone Can Make the Workshop

If some members of the team will be missing, consider rescheduling or have a plan in place
to go forward with a smaller number of team members for the class.
Print Out Class 1 Workshop Guide

Though it is not required to print the Class 1 Readings, please check with your team
members and encourage them to print the Class 1 Workshop Guide.
Coordinate with Your Team to Bring Supplies

A notebook for blank paper, pens, felt markers or Sharpies, Post-it notes (or their equivalent),
and printed Class 1 Workshop Guide should be sufficient.
Lead the Workshop

This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions, and assignments
for Class 1. Make sure to review the readings thoroughly so that you can can effectively lead
your team.
An Introduction
to HCD
01
Introductions & Beginners Mind
15 Minutes
As human-centered designers, its important to embrace your beginners mind, to approach problems as
a novice even if you already know a lot about them. Your beginners mind is eager to learn and willing to
experiment. Take a few minutes to answer the questions below and then discuss your answers with your team.
Be sure to tap into your beginners mind for the last question in particular.
1) Whats your name?
2) Where do you work?
3) Why are you taking this course?
4) What would you like to learn during the course?
5) What would you like to be doing in ve years?
6) Tell a story about the last activity that you tried for the rst time. Was it exciting or scary?
How did being a novice help you?
An Introduction
to HCD
02
Icebreaker: Visual Telephone
15 Minutes
Its important to be visual as a human-centered designer. Thinking visually can also help you get unstuck at key
points in the creative process. In addition to getting more familiar with your teammates, this icebreaker will help
you get visual quickly.
Complete the Exercise
1
Everyone in the group should write one
sentence (silly or serious) on the top of
your piece of paper
Fold over the top of the paper to
hide the sentence
Pass your paper to the person on
your right
NOTE
You will need at least three
team members for this
activity. Each team member
will need a blank piece of
paper and a pen.
Unfold the paper you just received to
reveal only the last sentence
reveal the sentence
Draw a picture based on what you see.
Draw a picture of what you see
Fold the paper four times
Fold your paper to hide the sentence
Pass it to the right
at the top, then fold it again to hide the

picture below it
Pass the piece of paper to the right
Repeat until your original paper returns to you.

Unfold it and see how much the story has changed.
3
reveal only the picture (not the sentence)

Write a new sentence below the picture,
describing what you see
Fold the paper three times to hide the rst
sentence, then the picture, then the last
sentence
Pass it to the right
An Introduction
to HCD
03
Logisitics
10 Minutes
The Class Leader should guide this discussion. This course has a group-guided learning structure and will be most successful if
you follow the guidelines below as closely as possible. Discuss each guideline, determine if there will be any problems, and map
out potential solutions.
Discuss
Time
Leadership
Supplies
Each workshop should be scheduled

to last around two to three hours.
Youll have about one to two hours of
readings in advance of each meeting.
For certain classes, youll also have
homework assignments to submit to
the online platform. These will help you
practice the human-centered design
process in your community.
Each class, a member of your team will

serve as the Class Leader. This person
will lead the discussion and facilitate
the various activities. They are also
responsible for coordinating with team
members to bring required supplies.
Each team member should print out

the Workshop Guide and bring it to
each meeting. (It isnt required to print
out the Class Readings.)
Calendar
Plot the workshop sessions on a
calendar. Mark dates that members
might miss and plan accordingly or
reschedule. You will be conducting
research out in the community for the
second week of both Class 2 and Class
3 so weekend meetings might be best
for these sessions.
Space
Try to secure a meeting space for the
full duration of the workshop. Can you
hold workshops at someones house,
your school, ofce, church?
Set ground rules

We recommend that your group take
a moment to set a few rules or norms
for how you would like workshops to
function. Here are some questions to
get you going:
How
can you structure the

workshop to ensure that an
environment of mutual trust and
respect is created?
How
should feedback (both positive

and negative) be communicated so
that each individual and the group
gets the most out of it?
Are
there other rules that you

can think of that will make the
workshops run more smoothly?
The Class Leader will be responsible for

organizing with the team to provide:
Pens, pencils, markers, blank paper.
Post-it
notes if theyre available;

if not, cut scrap paper into squares
and bring tape to stick them on
the wall.
During Class 3, your team will need to

gather and bring prototyping supplies
to the meeting. Youll get more details
on this later.
Sharing
We encourage you to use the online
NovoEd community as much as
possible. Here, your team will post
updates, ask questions, submit
assignments, and learn from other
groups around the world.
Write Your Team Name

Your team should select a name. Have fun with the name and choose something that is distinctive and represents your
team. Youll use this team name to post updates to the online NovoEd community.
TEAM NAME:
An Introduction
to HCD
04
Human-Centered Design Discussion
15 Minutes
The Class 1 Readings provided an overview of human-centered design. The Design Thinking for Social Innovation article
discussed the human-centered design process and its application to social challenges, and the Clean Team case study provided
you with a concrete example of how the human-centered design process has been used to create an innovative solution to a
real world challenge. The questions below are based upon these Class 1 Readings. Discussion should be facilitated by the Class
Leader, but feel free to refer back to the readings or prompt the group to reference them, if necessary.
Discuss
1. Your learnings from the

Class 1 Readings will likely
be slightly different from
the other members of your
group. Each person is coming
to this course with a slightly
different background, previous
experience, and prior level of
knowledge of human-centered
design and the social sector. Take
a few minutes each to briey
share your three most interesting
takeaways from the Class 1
Readings and pose any questions
that youre grappling with to the
rest of the group.
2. As a group, think about and

discuss what makes the
human-centered design
approach unique from other
problem-solving approaches.
What other approaches have
you heard about or used in the
past? What aspects are similar
to those other problem-solving
approaches? What aspects
are different? Consider your
rst impressions of humancentered design and its
strengths or weaknesses. This
may be something interesting to
readdress and reect on at the
end of your seven weeks.
3. Share ideas on various social

challenges that you think could
benet from the application of
human-centered design. Are
there certain types of challenges
you think would benet
particularly from the humancentered design process? Why
so? Or are there some that
youre having trouble seeing how
human-centered design could
play a role? How come?
An Introduction
to HCD
05
Mini Design Challenge:
Design a Better Commute
50 Minutes
Human-centered design begins with in-depth interviews and qualitative research. This helps us get a better sense for the
people were designing for. For this activity, divide into groups of two (or three, if your workshop team has an odd number of
people). Interview your partner and then switch. Keep track of the time alloted for each portion of the activity.
STEP 1
INSPIRATION
Interview: 15 minutes
Interview your partner. Begin by understanding their morning commute. Ask not just about logistics, though: nd
out how things makes them feel, what they wish could be different, what they enjoy, what gets in their way. Your
job is to listen and learn, so dont be afraid to ask Why? At the seven minute mark, start transitioningif you were
interviewed rst, now take a hand at being the interviewer, and vice versa.
A few techniques you might try

Try asking Why? in response to ve consecutive answers from your partner.
Ask your partner to visualize their morning commute with a drawing or a diagram
An Introduction
to HCD
05
50 Minutes
STEP 2
Interpreting needs: 5 minutes

Take ve minutes to read over your notes from the interview with your partner. Write down answers
to the questions below.
IDEATION
What are three unique aspects of your partners commute?
What are three needs that your partner faces each morning?
STEP 3
Brainstorm: 10 minutes
IDEATION
Nows your chance to imagine some new solutions that might address your partners needs. Work with your partner
and sketch four to six radical new ways to improve the commute. You should focus on ideas for your partner and
your partner should focus on ideas for you. However, work collaboratively and try to come up with a few ideas that
might improve the commute for both of you. Dont worry about being perfect, draw your ideas quickly to capture
them. Use more paper if you need it!
10
An Introduction
to HCD
05
50 Minutes
STEP 4
IDEATION
STEP 5
Prototype: 15 minutes
Okay, time to get tangible. Making something visual or physical will help you better imagine the possibilities and the
pitfalls of your solution, as well as explain it more easily to others. Your prototype can be a model, a diagram, or a
more detailed drawing. Its great to grab some scissors, construction paper, tape, and markers (or anything else
around you) and make that idea visual.
Feedback : 5 minutes
Share your favorite ideas with another team. Get feedback from them. Dont sell your ideas; explain them simply,
and nd out what they really think. What excites them about your ideas? How would they change or improve them?
IDEATION
11
An Introduction
to HCD
06
Reect & Share
15 Minutes
Congratulations on completing your first foray into human-centered design! Usually, you would repeat the prototyping
and feedback steps of the Ideation phase as you continue to integrate feedback and iterate on your idea . But because time
is growing short for this Class 1 Workshop, lets just take a few minutes to reflect on what youve learned about the humancentered design process.
Reect
Share
Take ve minutes to individually reect on the

following questions. Write your responses down
quickly in your notebook or on some Post-its:
Now come together with your full workshop group:
What did you learn through the experience of

prototyping during this mini design challenge?
Were there certain parts of the process that
were particularly surprising or helpful, or
struck you as an aha moment? Ahas can
bekey takeaways, new perspectives on an
issue, memorable comments or questions,
surprises, challenges, or parting thoughts from
this workshop.
What are parts of the human-centered design
process that you think are particularly useful
or insightful for tackling larger social sector
challenges?
Share your prototype with the group. Do you

have ideas for further rening your idea based
upon the feedback you received?
Share and discuss your Ahas with the group.
Were there similar or different takeaways?
OPTIONAL
Take pictures of your prototypes from this
design activity to share online later. Feel
free to also share your Aha moments or
other key takeaways from your reections.
12
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
2
Inspiration Phase
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Table Of Contents
Class 2
Inspiration Phase
Readings
Overview of Inspiration Phase
Step 1: Choose a Design Challenge
Step 2: Plan Your Research Methods
Step 3: Build Your Discussion Guide
Step 4: Additional Research Methods
Step 5: Capture Your Learnings
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
Overview of the Inspiration Phase

Creating meaningful solutions begins with gaining a
deep understanding of peoples needs.
In the Inspiration phase, youll learn directly
from the people youre designing for as you
immerse yourself in their lives and come to
deeply understand their needs and aspirations.
The Inspiration phase is about learning on the y,
opening yourself up to creative possibilities, and
trusting that as long as you remain grounded in
desires of the people youre designing for, your
ideas will evolve into the right solution.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Step 1: Choose a Design Challenge

As part of this course, you will be selecting one of three design challenges. Youll spend
time with your team to select the design challenge that you wish to tackle and then create
a common understanding of what you are working toward.
INSPIRATION
Collect Thoughts
Dene What You Dont Know
As a team, your first step will be to talk

about the design challenge you choose
to work on. Youll collect and write down
thoughts about your challenge. Your
team will discuss how you can refine
the challenge if it feels too broad, or too
specific.
Youll also want to write down and

share what you dont know or dont yet
understand about the challenge. And
remember, an important part of humancentered design is embracing your
beginners mind. Its not a bad thing if there
are aspects of the design challenge that you
dont yet grasp.
Review What You Already Know

Chances are good that members of your
team will have some knowledge about the
design challenge you choose. It will be
important for your team to share what you
already know, so you can build upon it and
then focus on discovering what you dont
yet know.
Review Constraints or Barriers

Your team will review a list of constraints
or barriers that might prevent you from
tackling the design challenge. Youll also
brainstorm solutions for overcoming or
working around these barriers.
This design team working on reproductive health in Zambia spent time as

a team reviewing their assumptions, knowledge of existing barriers, and
questions of things they didnt know, before heading to the eld.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Step 2: Plan Your Research Methods

Research is the fuel for your ideas. During the Inspiration phase youll want to plan
research activities to learn from the people youre designing for and explore unfamiliar
contexts. As part of this course, weve selected four good starting pointslearn from
people, learn from experts, immerse yourself in context, and seek analogous inspiration.
A. Learn From People

This team working on improving urban food security in Nairobi gathered information from
vegetable sellers at a local market.
Human-centered design is built upon deeply empathetic research. Its spending quality
time with people to gain insight about and inspiration from the people youre designing for.
But learning from people requires practice and preparation. Heres where to start.
This Gives You
In-depth insight into
peoples needs and
motivations.
Keep in Mind
Experts are everywhere
and you dont need
a degree to be one.
Treat your interviewee
as an expert. Youre
interviewing them about
their life, and in that,
they are the expert. Be
curious and always give
them the respect they
deserve.
Dene Your Audience
Recruitment Tools
Before you dig into your research, its

critical to know who youre designing for.
Think about the people or groups that are
directly involved in or reached by your
challenge, and then add those who are
peripherally relevant. Those are the people
you want to talk to.
Its important to have a strategy around who

you talk to, what you ask them, and what
pieces of information you need to gather.
Dont be afraid to tap into your personal
network: people are generally happy to
share what they know, particularly if you
tell them that you are learning a new design
process for creating positive social change
in the community.
Extremes & Mainsteams

When recruiting people to interview, target
both the big broad mainstream and those
on either extreme of the spectrum. An
idea that suits an extreme user will nearly
certainly work for the majority too. More
importantly, talking to extremes can spark
creativity by exposing you to use cases that
youd never have imagined on your own.
Create a Trusted Atmosphere

Start the conversation on a casual note.
Talk about a subject that is unrelated to
your research first to make the interviewee
feel comfortable. Be considerate of the
space you are in and make sure you have an
appropriate level of privacy.
Plan Logistics
Think about what exactly you want to do
with each participant. Where do you want to
meet them? How much time will you spend
with them? Is there an activity you can do
together to enrich conversation? What will
you ask them to show you?
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
CAPTURE...
Pay Attention to the Environment
Try to meet in the persons contextin their
home, ofce, or workplace. This will help
you get a better sense of whats important
to them. During the conversation, be
curious about the environment. Ask about
objects or spaces you nd interesting, and
if you sense the person might be willing, ask
for a tour.
Take Photographs
Photographs help you remember who you
talked to and what you saw. Photographs
taken during your interviews will make
your research more visual, meaningful,
and easier to recall and navigate. But
make sure to ask interviewees if its OK
to take photographs, and never use those
photographs for anything beyond internal
project use.
Capture Quotes
During your interview, capture important
quotes directly rather than interpreting
what you think the person is saying. Later,
when sharing back with your team, you
will have a more accurate record of who
the person ison their terms and in their
language.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
B. Learn From Experts

When designing a campaign for early learning, this team talked with an expert in child
development who is working a continent away.
Though human-centered design is all about talking with people, there are moments where
youll need more context or history than a typical interview can afford. This is where both
expert interviews and secondary research come into play.
This Gives You

Access to in-depth
knowledge in a certain
area of expertise.
Keep in Mind
Find the balance between
using experts to get a
good understanding of
the current situation
and preserving space to
think beyond the existing
models.
Expert Interview
Secondary Research
Experts can often give you a systemslevel view of your project area, tell you
about recent innovationssuccesses and
failuresand offer the perspectives of
organizations like banks, governments,
or NGOs. You will want to choose experts
based on your objective. Are you looking for
someone with a radical opinion, or do you
want to gain a more historical overview of
whats worked and what hasnt? Get a few
different perspectives to balance out your
information. You might also look to experts
for specific technical advice.
Social sector challenges can be really

thorny, which is why secondary research,
whether done online, by reading books, or
by crunching numbers, can help you ask
the right questions. A firm foundation of
knowledge is the best place from which
to tackle a design challenge. Try to find
recent innovations in your particular area.
They could be technological, behavioral,
or cultural. Better yet, take a look at other
solutions in your area. Which ones worked?
Which ones didnt?
Plan For The Conversation

Ask smart, researched questions and plan
how you want the conversation to flow.
Though you should come prepared with an
idea of what youd like to learn, make sure
your game plan is flexible enough to allow
you to pursue unexpected lines of inquiry.
You could even consider asking the expert
to actively help you work on an early
concept.
Using videoconferencing tools like Skype
will allow you to share and build on visual
concepts in real time.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
C. Immerse Yourself In Context

A team designing new ways to improve clean cookstove usage in Tanzania spent an entire
Saturday with a local family cooking a meal.
The Inspiration phase is dedicated to hearing the voices and understanding the lives of
the people youre designing for. Theres no better way to understand the people youre
designing for than by immersing yourself in their lives and communities.
This Gives You

Skills for learning from
whats around you.
Keep in Mind
Approach your
observation with an
open mind and imagine
this as the rst time you
have gone through this
experience. Look for
details you may have
overlooked before.
Plan Your Observations
Reect on What Youve Observed
The best route to gaining an understanding

of the people youre designing for is to
see in person, where they live, work, and
lead their lives. Choose an experience that
can inform your challenge. For example,
if you are looking for new ideas on ways
to provide healthier food options for
people in need, you might visit a low-cost
cafeteria or fast food restaurant during the
lunchtime rush. Wait in line, order a meal,
and observe the space as you eat. If you
have the opportunity, you can learn a lot by
shadowing someone for a few hours.
Immediately after your observation, take

some time to reflect upon the moments you
found most interesting. Capture them on
Post-its or in your notebook so you will be
able to share back with your team in a way
that is accurate, vivid, and visual.
Capture What You See

Its easy to interpret whats in front of you
before youve fully understood it, but first
be sure youre taking down concrete details
and quotes alongside your impressions.
Think of certain aspects you want to
capture, such as:
Map out the different parts of your
experience from beginning to end (we
call this the customer journey).
How did you feel at different parts of
the experience?
What was unexpected? Challenging?
Seamless?
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
D. Analagous Inspiration
When helping surgical teams deal with complex procedures, designers looked at how car
racing pit-crews optimized their workow for safety and efciency.
Youre probably familiar with what an analogy is: its an associative thought-process that
allows you to transfer meaning from one subject to another. Analogous research takes
inspiration from a different context to give you a fresh perspective.
This Gives You

A new perspective on the
challenge youre working
on, as well as inspiration
and energy.
Keep in Mind
Explore with an open
mind, even if you do not
immediately understand
how to apply your
experiences. After
you regroup, spend
time relating what you
found interesting to the
challenge you are working
on.
Brainstorm Analogous Experiences
Just Take It In
Start with a large sheet of paper, and list the

distinct activities, behaviors, and emotions
youre looking to research in your own
design challenge. Next to each one, write
down a setting or situation where you might
observe this activity, behavior, or emotion.
For example, when one of our teams was
designing an online college experience, they
narrowed down one objective to learn how
to create a sense of community. This team
sought out and interviewed a former Navy
SEAL to understand how they structure
bootcamp to create intentional bonds
amongst recruits.
Dont worry too much about making sense

of the experience in the moment. This part
of inspiration is all about gaining learnings
from unexpected places and experiences. In
fact, your design team may find it helpful to
keep an eye out for analogous experiences
throughout the process, not just in the
Inspiration phase. Later on, it might
influence your project in ways you never
imagined.
Make Arrangements
If you want to talk with people while in a
private (as opposed to public) space, its best
to get permission. For example, if youre
going to a hotel for inspiration and want to
interview staff or take pictures of the space,
speak with a manager ahead of time.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Step 3: Build Your Discussion Guide

Having a good conversation with someone you dont know isnt always easy. When speaking
with research participants, you rst have to help them feel comfortable. It might seem odd,
but conducting an interview with a casual tone and feel requires rigourous preparation.
Heres where to start.
Identify Objectives
As a team, think about the goal of your
design challenge. Ask yourselves some basic
questions: Why are you doing the research?
What are you trying find out? Who are you
going to talk to or observe? Know that the
most valuable part of creating a discussion
guide is the thinking that goes into it.
Brainstorm Questions
When writing your guide, think about
the kind of feedback thats going to be
most useful and inspiring. Discussion
guides should not be seen as scripts for the
observation, but rather guide rails to make
sure you stay on track. Make questions
easily scannable so you can maintain more
eye contact with your interviewee.
Organize Your Questions

A good rule of thumb is start specific, finish
deep. This will give your interviewee time
to get comfortable with you. Heres some
helpful guidelines:
Go Deep: ask more profound questions

about hopes, fears, and ambitions. Its
best if these questions are open-ended,
but relate subtly back to your design
challenge. For example, if you were
working on a project related to saving
money, you might ask someone to draw
the five big things theyre saving money
for over the next ten years and how
those things fit into their life goals.
Word Questions Strategically

Frame questions in an open-ended way. This
helps you to further explore your challenge
and elaborate on interesting themes you
discover during the conversations. Try:
Tell me about an experience
What are the best/worst parts
about ?
Can you help me understand about ?
Encourage people to tell you their whole
story and avoid questions that lead to yes/no
answers.
Open Specific: gather basic

demographics first. Ask people their
age, what they do for a living, if they
have children, etc. Begin with questions
your participants are comfortable
answering. For example, if you are
designing new savings products, you
might ask people to make a list of all of
the things they purchased yesterday.
10
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Use Tangible Conversation Starters

It can be helpful to share early ideas or
concepts in your conversation, particularly
when you are working on an abstract
challenge. You can create a sketch, build
a simple cardboard representation, or
describe a scenario to elicit a reaction or
response from participants. These are called
conversation starters.
Conrm Your Plans
You should confirm date, time, and location

for your research activities. Agree on
logistics, including transportation, with
your team. Can you conduct your research
during the Class 2 Workshop? Consider
scheduling Class 2 on a weekend so that
your team has more time to talk with and
meet people. We encourage you to take as
much time as you need for the research
activities. Dont feel like you must complete
Class 2 within the allotted workshop time.
Assign Roles
As part of your field research, youll

designate one person to lead the
conversation and a different team member
to take notes. Remember to encourage them
to write down direct quotes and capture the
details weve outlined on page 6. The team
should also select someone to photograph
your interview subject and the surrounding
environment. Make sure you ask for
permission before taking any photos. Its
often best to build trust with your interview
subject before asking to take photos, so you
may want to leave this until youve finished
the interview.
RESEARCH TIPS
Establish Trust With Participants.
Listen patiently. Do not interrupt, and allow
for pauses to give participants time to think.
Use nonverbal gestures, such as eye contact,
nodding, and smiling, to reassure participants
you are engaged and interested in what they
are saying.
Encourage Participants To Show As Well As Tell.
Have participants draw what theyretalking
about. Visuals often prompt more conversation.
Try asking why? in response to ve
consecutive answers.
Know What To Look For.

What people say is often different than
what they actually do. Look for cues in the
things that people keep around them or the
way they carry themselves.
Notice workarounds that people have made
to make a system or tool serve their needs
better.
Capture What You See.
Take lots of notes and photos of what you see,
hear, feel, smell, and taste during a eld visit.
Capture direct quotes when possible. Write
down immediate thoughts without worrying
about interpretation.
11
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Step 4: Additional Research Methods

Though likely difcult to explore given the time constraints of this course, these are some
other methods we use at IDEO.org to gain a deeper understanding of the people youre
designing for. Just some food for thought!
Personal Diaries
Card Sorts
Ask participants to reflect at the end of

the day on certain moments or themes.
This gives them time for personal and
uninterrupted thinking, and gives you an
interviewees thoughts captured in their
own words.
Create a series of cards with a single word or

image on it and ask participants to prioritize
whats most/least important, interesting, or
relevant to them.
Use this when: You want to get a longer

view of a participants experience over an
extended amount of time.
Photo Essays
Give participants a disposable camera
and a list of objects and/or experiences to
photograph throughout their day. This gives
you a firsthand, visual perspective about
your participants through things that are
important to them, or are part of
their everyday lives.
Use this when: You want multiple

participants to narrow down a set of ideas.
Concept Provocations
These are a series of concept drawings with
accompanying explanations. Concepts
could be outliers meant to elicit a strong
reaction, or early ideas you might want to
build into prototypes.
Use this when: You want early feedback on
why participants like or dont like certain
features.
Use this when: You want to compare and

contrast the different daily experiences and
realities of a set of participants.
Journey Maps
Have participants create a personal timeline
of an experience, then have them map how
they felt at different points along the way.
Use the map as a visual jumping off point
for conversation.
Use this when: You want to discuss a
complicated system or series of interactions
with a participant. (The process of buying a
car is a good example.)
12
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase

Its easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you have gathered after an
interview, so use a few minutes immediately after the session to capture what youve
observed, as well as any new ideas you have as a result.
Take Time To Regroup
Illustrate New Ideas
Plan extra time so that you can share

your thoughts and impressions with your
teammates right after your interview or
observation. This may often happen in a
coffee shop or while in transit.
Did the observation spark a new thought

or idea for you? Sketch it out. Dont
worry about the way your sketches look
or feel intimidated about being visual.
These illustrations will simply help you
communicate your ideas to others and
give you all a head start on brainstorming
concepts.
Share Your Impressions

What are the things you found most
interesting during the observation? Listen
to each others recollections. Compare
experiences and impressions, but dont
worry about interpreting these stories yet.
To cover the most important topics, consider
using these prompts:
Sound bites: What were the most
memorable quotes that people heard?
Why were they memorable?
Interesting stories: What was most
surprising to you?
Interactions: What was interesting
about the way he/she interacted with
his/her environment?
Remaining questions: What questions
would you like to explore in your next
conversation?
13
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Case Study: Vroom

A Human-Centered Take on Early Childhood Development
Advances in neuroscience and child development conrm what many

educators have long believed: Childrens readiness for kindergarten (and life
beyond) hinges on positive engagement with their parents and caregivers
during the rst ve years of their lives. This is the most active period for
brain developmentchildrens brains form new connections at a rate of
700 synapses per second. But as a society, we underinvest in children
and families during the earliest years, leaving far too much opportunity
on the table. For low-income parents, who may have lacked good models
themselves, much of the parenting advice is unattainable. The Bezos Family
Foundation and IDEO.org set out to activate engagement through new
tools and messages, and to broaden the prescription beyond commonly
heard (but not uniformly embraced) directives about reading to children.
Could there be a way to communicate brain science directly to parents in
ways that positively inuence behavior, and raises the value of all forms of
positive interaction with babies
and toddlers?
14
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
The Outcome
After extensive interviews with parents, child development experts, and pediatricians
around the country, the team developed a large-scale messaging campaign celebrating
everyday moments as learning opportunities. Whether sitting in the laundromat or
shopping at the supermarket, the fundamental message was that taking advantage of
the many chances to engage with a child strengthens the foundation of that childs brain
development. The Bezos Family Foundation built upon our design teams key insights,
further developed them, and in the spring of 2014, launched Vroom. Vroom advocates for
the time parents do have and using it in different ways to help build their kids brains.
INSPIRATION
The IDEO.org team undertook a highly

immersive inspiration phase, visiting
low-income communities in California,
New York, and Pennsylvania to conduct
interviews with parents and to observe
existing programs aimed at improving
child development outcomes. The team
learned that many of the parents they met
had had very tough upbringings. These
parents didnt feel fully equipped to engage
with their children, because their own
parents didnt engage with them. One of
the most successful programs the team
witnessed during their research was one
in which nurses went into peoples homes
for several hours each week simply to play
with the children in front of the parents.
By modeling play, they were able to affect

behavior change and shift the parent-child
dynamic.
Interviews with child development
experts and pediatricians tended to
reinforce the direct findings: If parenting
advice is limited to reading books, those
who dont feel comfortable reading aloud
may forego all forms of engagement. One
pediatrician in New York argued outright
that playing, talking to, and responding to
children trumps reading.
In the end, immersion turned out to
be absolutely critical to the design team
devising innovative solutions. Because
the designers found themselves working
on behalf of communities that are quite
different from them, they had to push the
boundaries of their own empathy, but in
15
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
doing so, they came to really understand the

needs of low-income parents.
To the delight of the individual team
members and to the benefit of the project,
this approach eventually led to open
doors in the participating communities.
By immersing in the neighborhoods and
communities they were looking to serve, the
team established trust with a core group of
individuals who then told their neighbors
and referred friends, creating the critical
mass necessary for understanding the
audience and building the right brand voice.
provid feedback on which character theyd

trust for advice on child-rearing.
From this feedback period, the team
discovered that most parents, though they
werent drawn to an academic approach
to engaging their children, were very
interested in the science behind behavior
and brain development. Through a host of
interviews, the team heard parents talking
about a eureka moment after meeting
with a neurologist who explained how the
science worked. It was a revelation that had
a big impact on how they saw their role in
bringing up their child.
IDEATION
When field research was complete, the team

returned to San Francisco to synthesize its
findings and look for patterns among the
interviews. As they synthesized everything
they learned, the team began to formulate a
voice, identity, and set of design principles
for the campaign.They came to some core
principles that still guide Vroom today,
ideas like Speak in the voice of their peers,
Withhold Judgment, and All parents want to
be good parents.
The team came up with a series of
personas, each of them representing a
woman from the communities being served,
then invited mothers to the office to review
mood boards, listen to sample voices, and
IMPLEMENTATION
By the end of the Inspiration and Ideation

phases, the IDEO.org team had created a
strong, well-defined creative brief that
could be handed to an advertising agency
and used as the foundation for a major
campaign. They came up with provocations
and prompts for people to play with their
kids as well as an advertising strategy that
included guerrilla interventions displayed
in laundromats instead of on big billboards.
After another couple years of refinement
and more design work, the Bezos Family
Foundation launched the pilot of Vroom in
2014 in King County in Washington State.
16
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Method in Action: Immersion
In 2012, IDEO.org began work on a project with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, an
organization that seeks to advance the global market for clean cookstoves. A compelling technology,
clean cookstoves have the potential to improve health by reducing exposure to smoke from traditional
res and stoves, improve livelihoods through increased savings from reduction of fuel use, and help
the environment via a decrease in carbon emissions. Emily Friedberg, a designer on the project, wrote
about a day spent cooking with a Tanzanian family as part of her teams Inspiration phase research.
Given language and cultural barriers, its

relatively difficult to really get to know
people in Tanzania in a short amount
of time. To remedy this situation, our
IDEO.org cookstoves team arranged to
spend an entire day with one family,
casually hanging out and cooking an
afternoon meal.
Daniel and Gaudensia welcomed us into
their family of nine in the Tanzanian town
of Buhongwe. Our first stop was the market
where we bought everything we needed
for our feast including meat, beans, sweet
potato, ugali flour, fruits and vegetables,
and a live chicken.
When we got home, the ladies quickly got
to work lighting the three charcoal stoves
and cutting up the meat and vegetables. The
oldest boy, Godwa, was told to slaughter
the squawking chicken. Cameras ready, we

watched as he cut through the birds neck,
drained the blood, and left the carcass
twitching in a bowl ready for plucking.
The meal took several hours to prepare.
There was swapping of pots and lids, lids
doubled as cutting boards, and each item
including water and the chicken went
through several discrete processes before
it reached the table. And when it was done,
three hours later, it was elaborately dished
onto plates for the men and the guests and
eaten out of cooking pots for women and
children, and all consumed in the space of
20 minutes.
And then, when it was cleared, they
lit the charcoal stove again and started
preparing for dinner.
17
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
2
Workshop Guide
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Table of Contents
The Class 2 Workshop involves getting out into the community for your
eld research and does take some time, so weve budgeted two weeks to
complete it. Spend the rst week planning your research (Activities 01-05)
and the second week conducting your research (Activity 06). Whether you
complete all of Activity 06 in one day or spread it out over a few days, we
highly recommend you go beyond the minimum two hours for this piece.
Class Leaders Guide


01 Questions, Comments, & Takeaways // 10 mins
02 Choose Your Design Challenge // 15 mins
03 Team Knowledge & Assumptions // 10 mins
04 Plan Your Research // 1+ hours
05 Build a Discussion Guide // 1+ hours
06 Conduct Your Research // To Be Determined by Your Team
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Class Leaders Guide

As your team completes Activities 0105 during the rst week, you will
begin to understand how long Activity 06 might take during the second
week. Some teams prefer completing eld research as a whole group, while
others nd it best to split up into two groups for conducting interviews. If
you do divide into smaller teams, we recommend you check in as a group
either in person or over Skype sometime during that second week to
debrief and determine if there are gaps in your research. If needed, modify
your Research Plan or add/subtract questions from your Discussion Guide.

Find a Meeting Space
Confirm with your team that you have a space for your workshop activities.
Plan, if Possible, to Hold the Workshop During the Day on a Weekend
For the second week of the Class 2 Workshop, we recommend scheduling a full
day on the weekend to conduct research. If that is not possible, your team may
conduct a few interviews or observations here and there throughout the week. It is
important that your team build agreements around how much research you plan to
complete and who will execute each task. As Class Leader, ensure your teammates
are aware of and comfortable with their assignments before jumping into research.
To save paper, it is not required to print the Class 2 Readings. Check with your team
Coordinate With Your Team to Bring Supplies
A notebook for blank paper, pens, felt markers or Sharpies, Post-it notes (or their
equivalent), and printed Class 2 Workshop Guide should be sufficient.
Lead the Workshop
This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions, and
assignments for Class 2. If your team does not come back together after youve
begun conducting your research as part of Activity 06, please make sure the group
takes a few minutes to discuss the Class 3 prepwork before departing.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
01
Questions, Comments & Takeaways
10 Minutes
Congratulations! Youve completed Class 1, which introduced you to the human-centered design process. Youve also read
more in depth about the first phase of the design process in the Class 2 Inspiration phase Readings. The activity below is a
way for you to reflect on what youve learned, and help clarify questions you might have. Take a few minutes to reflect on
the questions below and then discuss your answers with your group.
1) What were your big takeaways about the Class 2 Inspiration phase Readings?
2) Do you have questions about the readings?
3) Which research methods are you excited to try and why?
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
02
Choose Your Design Challenge
15 Minutes
Human-centered design requires practice, practice, and more practice. Because of this, this course is structured in terms of
a practice design challenge. Spend some time here in Activity 02 to select from the following, which have been prevetted to
be good, collaborative challenges for the given time frame. This challenge will be the basis for the next six weeks.
To Select a Practice Design Challenge, Follow These Instructions:
Individually read through

and rate each design challenge.
The following pages describe three
different design challenges. Read
through each challenge and then rate
it. Add up the score youve given to
each challenge and write that score
in the box provided. The design
challenge that youve given the
highest score may help you align
quickly around the challenge you
would like to pursue. However, this
score does not have to determine
how you select your challenge. The
score is just a jumping off point for
your team to discuss.
As a group review the scores given

to each challenge.
Compare the scores that the
members of your team have given
to each challenge. Which challenge
resonates most with people? Where
did you agree and where did you
not agree? Ask each other questions
about why you rated each challenge
a particular way and discover
what previous experience people
have with the challenge subject.
Remember, its often most effective
to learn the human-centered design
process via a design challenge that
you dont know much about.
Select one design challenge.

Since collaboration and teamwork
are critical to the human-centered
design process, decide on a single
shared challenge. Use this exercise as
a chance to begin to understand the
personalities and work styles in your
group. How will you hear each other
out? What is the best way to express
your opinions? What does each
person excel at? How will you nurture
your talents and highlight those of
your peers throughout this course?
Most importantly, how will you reach
a consensus?
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
02
15 Minutes
Challenge
How Might We Enable More Young People to Become

Social Entrepreneurs?
While more and more youth are interested in social entrepreneurship
as a means for tackling some of the worlds toughest challenges, many
aspiring social entrepreneurs fail to move beyond the initial idea phase
because the infrastructure to support them is lacking. Some are unable
to gain access to networks or mentors that could provide the knowledge
and experience to confront major decisions, while others lack the
capital they need to start their venture.
As part of this design challenge, youll work with your team to design
new systems or strengthen existing programs that cultivate and support
social entrepreneurship as a viable career path.
Rate the design challenge, then add up your score.

Least
Most
Instinctively, how excited are you about this design challenge?
What potential for impact in your community does this design challenge have?
How feasible is it to tackle this challenge over the next three classes of the course?
Total =
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
02
15 Minutes
Challenge
How Might We Provide Healthier Food Options For

People In Need?
In many neighborhoods, there is little infrasturcture for the
distribution and preservation of food. Food is often spoiled or lost
during distribution. In other places, healthy food options are simply
unavailable or community members lack the knowledge to make healthy
food choices. Another constraint is access to capital, both for small
businesses providing healthy food as well as potential customers.
As part of this design challenge, you and your team will design solutions
for providing healthier food options, which might include providing
people with better food choices, the skills to cook healthier food, or the
knowledge to make healthier food choices.

Least
Most
Total =
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
02
15 Minutes
Challenge
How Might Parents in Low-Income Communities Ensure

Children Thrive in Their First Five Years?
The rst ve years of a childs life are a crucial timelled with exciting
milestones and innumerable roadblocks. Skills, competencies, health,
and habits gained in these early years accompany children into
adulthood. Parents and caregivers play an inuential role in ensuring
children have the best start in life, but in low-income communities
there are substantial barriers to overcome. This challenge focuses on
designing solutions that help parents navigate these obstacles, so that
children everywhere not only survive but thrivein their early years.
With this design challenge, youll work with your team to design new or
strengthen existing ways to ensure children thrive in their rst ve years.

Least
Most
Total =
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
WHAT SHOULD YOU CAPTURE?

A NOTE ABOUT CHALLENGE 3
As your group is deciding which design challenge youd like to pursue, please take special note of
Challenge 3. This challenge represents a unique collaboration between this course and the IDEO.org
Amplify program. What is Amplify? Amplify is a program to make international aid more collaborative and
human-centered. Through a series of 10 innovation challenges over the next ve years, human-centered
designers from across the globe are encouraged to join the OpenIDEO platform and work together
to design a better world. Please nd out more at ideo.org/amplify. Then return to this Activity 02 and
consider if this is something in which you and your group would like to participate.
What would this mean for our design team?

If your group decides to pursue Challenge 3, it
means you have the opportunity to submit the
ideas that result from this course directly onto
the OpenIDEO platform. It means the solutions
your group creates at the end of this seven-week
course could become tangible solutions out in
the world!
Keep a lookout for announcements on the NovoEd
platform Challenge 3 forum as these will give
you special instructions on what to submit to
OpenIDEO and when.
What deadlines would we need to keep in mind?
The Amplify program is opening the Ideas Phase
from October 22 - December 2, meaning youll
have ample time as you pursue your design
challenge to both test and rene your idea before
putting it up onto the OpenIDEO platform. After
the Ideas Phase, the Amplify challenge then
enters Renement, where you can get feedback
and guidance from the community at large. The
sooner you get your idea up onto the platform, the
more feedback you can get from the community
to make it the best solution possible!
Could my idea be selected?

Yes, if you have joined the OpenIDEO platform
and submitted your idea then you are part of the
collaborative group of innovative problem solvers
working towards this #zerotove challenge. If
your idea is short listed, you should continue
to participate after the course is completed to
continue evolving your idea based on input during
the Renement Phase. If your idea gets all the way
to the nal stage, you could be in the running for
funding and design support from IDEO.org!
Please note that while Amplify challenges are
global in scope and ideas can originate from
anyone around the world, this funding and design
support are reserved for implementation of ideas
in the 28 DFID focus countries. See the full list of
countries on ideo.org/amplify_faqs.
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
03
Team Knowledge & Assumptions
10 Minutes
Now that youve selected a design challenge, its time to figure out what you already know (or believe you
know) about the challenge. Take five minutes to answer the questions below yourself and then five minutes
to discuss your answers with your team. If its helpful, use Post-it notes to organize your thoughts and look
for unique perspectives as well as overlaps in your teams knowledge base.
What are the aspects of the challenge that you already know a lot about? What are your assumptions?
Examples
- Many low-income families lack access to pre- and post-natal care.
- I know its difficult, if not impossible, to find fresh fruit in my neighborhood.
Where are the aspects of the design challenge where you need to learn more? What dont you know?
Examples
- Do people who need healthier food options want to eat healthier?
- I dont know the five most important developmental milestones in the first year of a childs life.
10
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
04
Plan Your Research
1+ Hours
The Inspiration phase requires you to get out into the world and learn from people. (We call this research fieldwork.)
To make the most of your time in the field, youll want to plan who to speak with, where you might visit, and the types of
research that your team will conduct. A full review of these methods can be found on pages 5-9 of the Class 2 Inspiration
Readings.
Review the Inspiration Methods

A. Learn from People
Who will you be designing for? Consider both the
core user and the extended community. Imagine
a map of all the people who might have something
to do with your design challenge. Think of
characteristics that would make them interesting
to meet. Also consider speaking with users who
represent extreme (as opposed to mainstream)
viewpoints.
B. Learn from Experts
Who are the inspiring researchers or organizations
in the space of your design challenge? Successful
members of the target population can also be great
experts. A telephone or Skype call with experts who
arent local often works very well.
C. Immerse Yourself in Context
With a curious mindset, inspiration and new
perspectives can be found in many places and
without much preparation. Sharpen your skills
and get started observing the world around you.
Plan your observations by choosing places where
you can have experiences that are relevant to your
challenge.
D. Seek Analagous Inspiration
What are the activities, emotions, and behaviors
that make up the experience of your challenge?
Now select similar scenarios that you would like to
observe in places and situations that are different
than your design challenge.
11
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Assignment for Submission
04
Plan Your Research
1+ Hours
Work with your design team to write down potential people to speak to and places to visit as part of your
research. Remember to choose some research targets that will be feasible to accomplish during the second
half of this workshop.
A. People to Learn from

(3+ individuals)
B. Experts to Speak to
(1+ expert)
C. In-Context Immersion Locations

(2+ locations)
D. Analogous Inspiration Locations

(1+ location)
12
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
Assignment for Submission
05
Build A Discussion Guide
1+ Hours
Now its time to create a discussion guide to prepare for your interviews. Its best to create your question guide in teams
of two or three people. Youll likely need more space than this worksheet, so use your notebook to write down additional
questions. Start building questions following the structure below.
Open Specic
Then Go Deep
What are some specic questions you can ask to open the
conversation and help people feel comfortable?
What are some questions that can help you start to understand
this persons hopes, fears, and ambitions?
Examples
- What did you and your family eat yesterday?
- Describe your last family meal. Who was there? Where did it
take place?
- Do you have any specic mealtime rituals in your family?
Examples
- Draw your dream grocery aisle. What would be on the shelves,
the coolers?
- Describe your favorite meal. What do you love about it?
- Imagine you can only eat one meal everyday. What would it
be and why?
RESEARCH TIPS
Ask questions that will allow you to learn details related to each of these key categories:
Personal Details
Who are you meeting
and what are their
demographics (profession,
age, location, etc.)?
Motivations
What do people care about
the most?
What motivates them?
Frustrations
What frustrates them?
What needs do they have
that arent being met?
Interactions
What is interesting about
the way they interact with
their environment?
13
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
06
Conduct Your Research
To Be Determined by Your Team
Now its time to start your research. Conducting thorough research is extremely important because what you learn will
create the foundation for your design solution, as well as fuel the next two phases of the human-centered design process.
Getting the Most Out Of Research

Agree on the Length of Your Research
Select Roles
Before you start, spend a few minutes building agreements

around how much time you will spend researching and
who will complete each task. We highly recommend that
you take more than the usual two hours to complete all of
your research for this class, but also understand that you
have busy lives outside of this course. Try to strike a good
balance.
As part of your eld research, youll designate one person

to lead the conversation. This person should not be the
note taker. Select someone else to take notes during the
interview. If there is a third member of your interview team,
they can focus on observing your interview subject and the
surrounding environment. Each member of the team should
practice different roles with different interviewees.
Divide Into Research Teams
Do Quick Debriefs
If your group is two or three people, you should conduct

research as a full team. If your group is four to six people,
divide into two research teams.
Dont forget to take a few minutes after each interview

or eld visit to debrief with your teammates and start
capturing what you learned. You can do this debrief virtually
anywhere, but it should immediately follow the interview.
Select Locations to Visit

Choose where to go and who you can talk to. You can also
think about scheduling expert interviews via Skype, phone
calls, or in-person meetings.
If your research team doesnt plan to return to the

workshop venue after youve completed todays research,
take a few minutes to review Prep for Class 3 items on the
NovoEd platform so you can be ready for next week.
14
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
06
A. Learn from People

Remember to reference the discussion guide you created. Depending on who you are talking to, you will want to
tailor your questions to address this person specically. Remember to try and interview extreme users as well.
15
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
06
B. Learn from Experts

Remember to reference the discussion guide you created. Depending on who you are talking to, you will want to
tailor your questions to address this person specically. Remember, for experts, its also okay to communicate
via telephone or Skype if they arent readily available in person.
16
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
06
C. Immerse Yourself In Context

Visit organizations, institutions, and events that you can gather inspiration from. Plan your observations by
choosing places where you can have experiences that are relevant to your challenge. Take notes and photos.
Capture interesting quotes by talking to people that spend time in these spaces. What do they love? What is
frustrating? Draw sketches, plans, and layouts.
17
Class 2:
Inspiration Phase
06
D. Seek Analogous Inspiration

Visit places and situations that are different than your design challenge. These places should approach an angle
of your problem in a unique way. For instance, what could you learn from an amusment park about engaging
experiences that you could apply to the fruit aisle at a grocery store or waiting in line at a bank to open a new
savings account?
18
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
3
Ideation Phase
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Table Of Contents
Class 3
Ideation Phase
Readings
Overview of Ideation Phase
Synthesis
Step 2: Search for Meaning
Step 3: Create How Might We Questions
Step 4: Generate Ideas
Step 5: Select Promising Ideas
Prototype
Step 6: Determine What to Prototype
Step 7: Make Your Prototypes
Step 8: Test & Get Feedback
Step 9: Integrate Feedback & Iterate
Case Study: Moneythink Mobile

Methods in Action
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
Overview of Ideation Phase

The Ideation phase transforms your research into
meaningful and actionable insights that will become
the foundation of your design.
Youll begin by making sense of what you learned
from your design research. These themes and
insights will help you dene opportunities for design
that are differentiated and generative. Youll then
brainstorm lots of new ideas and set out building
prototypes to test these concepts. Continuing to
test and iterate on your ideas will help shape a more
innovative, effective solution.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Synthesis: Turn Learnings into

Opportunities for Design
The Ideation phase begins with synthesis, one of the most challenging parts of the humancentered design process. It often takes an IDEO.org design team several weeks minimum
to translate learnings into opportunities. For the sake of the time limitations of this course,
we have streamlined the synthesis piece of Ideation into a few steps that your team can
conduct over the course of a few hours during your workshop. Heres a glance at how your
learnings will eventually evolve into ideas that you can take forward into the second major
part of the Ideation phaseprototyping.
Learnings
Themes
Insights
How Might Wes
Ideas
Learnings are the

recollections of what
stood out during
a conversation or
observation: direct
quotes, anecdotes,
notes on sounds, smells,
textures, colors, etc.
Learnings should be
communicated in full
sentences to capture
the story. Youll capture
learnings as your
team recounts what
they observed during
research.
Themes are created after

you have organized
the stories from your
field research into
categories. Did you
hear similar statements
or observations from
multiple people? Themes
are the headlines for
clusters of similar
learnings.
Insights are a succinct

expression of what you
have learned from your
field research activities.
Insights offer a new
perspective, even if they
are not new discoveries.
They are inspiring
and relevant to your
challenge.
How Might We
questions are the
starting point for a
brainstorming session.
How Might We questions
are written in direct
response to an insight.
These questions feel
optimistic and exciting
and should help you
think of new ideas
quickly.
Ideas are generated

during a brainstorming
session. Ideas can be
practical and simple or
wild and crazy (like the
hypothetical delivery
drone in the example
above, which could make
low-cost fruit deliveries
in small quantities to
multiple locations in
a neighborhood). All
judgment is deferred
during a brainstorm, as
the goal is to come up
with as many ideas as
possible. Ideas are best
communicated with
quick sketches.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase

During your research you talked to many people and were inspired by immersing yourself in
their contexts. Now that youre back with your design team and starting the Ideation phase,
its time to talk about what youve learned.
Set Up a Space to Download
IDEATION
This Gets You

A deeper contextual
understanding shared by
your entire team.
Keep in Mind
Tell stories person by
person, one at a time.
Use vivid details, direct
quotes whenever you
can, and describe your
immediate experiences.
This is not the time to
generalize or judge.
Before you begin downloading, youll want

to make sure youre in a room with plenty of
wall space or boards to post your learnings.
Distribute Post-it notes (or their equivalent)
and markers to the whole team. It may also
be helpful to have large sheets of paper and
tape to attach these sheets to the wall.
Download Your Learnings

After weeks of design research in the
Inspiration phase, youve probably got a
huge amount of notes, photos, impressions,
and quotes. Now its time to start making
sense of them! Take turns pouring key
information out of your head and onto
Post-its. Spend time on each individual you
met and each place you visited. Be specific
when discussing what actually happened,
and revisit the notes you took during your
research. If possible, print out some of the

photos you took and using them to illustrate
your stories. Follow the prompts below
when deciding what information to capture.
Share Inspiring Stories

Tell the most compelling stories from the
field to your teammates. Try to be both
specific (talking about what actually
happened) and descriptive (using physical
senses to give texture to the description).
Report on who, what, when, where, why,
and how. And then invite each of your
teammates to share their own inspiring
stories. The goal is to build a repository
of stories for your team to draw from, tell,
and retell. Capturing those resonant ideas
and feelings, and building them into the
very narrative of your teams work will help
everyone down the line.
WHAT SHOULD YOU CAPTURE?

Personal Details:
details: who
Whodid
didyou
youmeet?
meet?(profession,
(profession,age,
age,location,
location,etc)
etc)
Interesting Stories:
stories: whats
Whatsthe
themost
mostmemorable
memorableor
orsurprising
surprisingstory
thingthey
they
told you?
Motivations: What
what did
did this
this participant
participant care
care about
about the
the most?
most? What
What motivates
motivates
him/her?
Barriers: What
what frustrated
frustrated him/her?
him/her?
Interactions: What
what was
was interesting
interesting about
about the
the way
way he/she
he/she interacted
interacted with
with
his/her environment?
Remaining Questions: What
what questions
questions would
would you
you like
like to
to explore
explore ifif you
you had
had
another conversation with this person?
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL TIPS FOR A DESIGN TEAM DOWNLOAD...

Actively Listen: While you are listening to each
other, compare and contrast the things you have
learned. Explore areas where you nd different
opinions and contradictions. Begin to look for
recurring themes.
Capture the Information in Small Pieces: While
you are listening to your design teammates tell their
stories, write down notes and observations on Postits (or their equivalent). Use concise but complete
sentences that everyone on your team can easily
understand. Capture quotesthey are a powerful way
of representing the voice of a participant.
Display Your Notes: You will want to write large

enough so that everyone can read your notes. Your
team will put all Post-its up on the wall, organizing
them into separate categories for each person that
your team interviewed and each place that your team
visited. At the end of story sharing, youll have many
sheets lined up on the wall with hundreds of Post-it
notes. This will be a great jumping off point for your
design team to begin imagining new opportunities
and solutions.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 2: Search For Meaning

Now that youve downloaded what you learned during the Inspiration phase, its time to
work with your design team to identify patterns and themes. These themes will inform your
insight statements and eventually lead your team to identify opportunities for design.
This Gets You

Topics to help you narrow
and focus your design
solution.
Keep in Mind
Not every insight is
entirely new information.
Often, you will nd things
that you knew about
before, but your research
may have given you a new
perspective. Dont be
shy about retelling these
stories.
Cluster Related Information
Turn Themes into Insight Statements
To start searching for meaning in all

that youve discovered during your field
research, your team will group your
learnings into categories or buckets. You
can start by having every team member
choose three Post-its they find most
interesting. Place each of them on a large
sheet of paper or spread them on the table in
front of the team.
Your team will take a closer look at the

themes you created for each of your clusters,
as well as the stories that support these
themes. Next, youll transform each theme
into a sentence, eg: There is no financial
incentive for distributors to deliver fruit in
the community. Write in full sentences.
Each theme may result in multiple insight
statements.
Begin to look for more evidence of how these

relate to one another. Have any patterns
emerged? Is there a compelling insight
you heard again and again? A consistent
problem the people youre designing
for face? What feels significant? What
surprised you? Start rearranging the Post-its
into these new buckets.
Revisit Your Challenge
Clustering will take some time. Arrange and

rearrange the Post-its, discuss, debate, and
talk through whats emerging. Dont stop
until everyone is satisfied that the clusters
represent rich opportunities for design.
Find Themes
Effectively identifying themes and naming
these clusters will help guide your insights
and How Might We statements down the
line. Name the clusters you have defined,
e.g., access to capital or problems
with distribution. Continue to sort and
rearrange the information until you feel
your themes accurately represent your
design researchmake sure no major
themes are missing.
Revisit the design challenge that you

started out with: How do your new insight
statements relate to your challenge? Narrow
down your insights to those that are most
relevant to the original design challenge.
Be prepared to let go of details that are less
important. Try to limit your insights to the
three to five most important ones.
Rene Your Insight Statements

Experiment with the wording and structure
to best communicate your insights. Create
short and memorable sentences that get to
the point. Make sure your insights convey
the sense of a new perspective or possibility.
Consider inviting someone who is not
part of your team to read your insights
statements and check whether they resonate
with an outside audience.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 3: Create How Might We Questions

Insights are most valuable when they can be used to generate inspiring new ideas. The trick
is to transform your insight statements into generative questions which will become the
springboard that your design team uses to brainstorm innovative new solutions. We call
these questions How Might We (HMW) questions.
This Gets You

Generative and
actionable brainstorming
questions that respond to
the insights you found.
Keep in Mind
Avoid brainstorm
questions that already
imply a solution. Ask
yourself: Why do we
want to do that? This will
help you reframe your
question more broadly.
Frame Your Insights as Questions

During this step, youll create generative
questions that build off of the insight
sentences that your team just created. Start
each statement with How Might We...?
as an invitation for input, suggestions, and
exploration. Generate multiple questions
for every insight statement. Write them in
plain, simple, and concise language.
Scoping a proper question can be difficult.
Too narrow and you may hinder creativity,
but too broad and it wont be actionable.
Take a look at these examples:
How might we provide transportation
options for distributors supplying fruit
in low-income neighborhoods? This
implies that the solution is related to
logistics. By framing the HMW question
so narrowly, we have limited the possible
directions that the team can take during
brainstorming. This statement is too
narrow.
How might we incentivize distributors

to make fruit deliveries in low-income
neighborhoods? This HMW question
is better because it leaves open many
possible directions that new solutions
can take, including logistics, financial
incentives, or even community pride.
This HMW question is scoped properly.
Select the Top Three

Your design team will select three of your
best HMW questions for your brainstorm
session. Trust your gut feeling: Choose
those questions that feel exciting and help
you think of ideas right away. Also, select
the questions that are most important to
address and feel like they have the biggest
opportunity for design solutions, even if
they feel difficult to solve for.
How might we sell more fruit in lowincome neighborhoods? This question

doesnt give enough direction because
it doesnt imply a starting point or
immediately help people generate
ideas around one category (such as
distributors). This HMW statement is
too broad.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 4: Generate Ideas

Brainstorming may often be thought of as wild and unstructured, but it is actually a
focused activity that involves a lot of discipline. Follow the brainstorming rules, but also
have lots of fun. This is the stage of the human-centered design process where you really
get to tap into your creativity.
This Gets You

The right kind of
space for a dynamic
brainstorming session,
and ultimately lots of
fresh, new ideas!
Keep in Mind
When you make
brainstorming part of
another activity, lesson,
or meeting, remember
that generating ideas is
a mode that participants
need a little time to get
into. Create the time and
space for a transition into
that mindset.
Choose an Appropriate Space
Introduce the Brainstorming Rules
Make sure to conduct your Class 3 Workshop

in a room with sufficient wall space, where
participants can comfortably get up from
their chairs and move around.
Explain each rule and its purpose to set the

right tone for the activity. You can find an
overview of brainstorming rules on the next
page of these readings.
Provide Tools to Capture Ideas
Equip Everyone for Participation
Gather materials like Post-it notes (or their

equivalent), markers, paper, and snacks
dont underestimate the power of sugar in a
brainstorming session!
Gather your team near a wall or flipchart.

Give everyone a Post-it pad and a marker.
Encourage people to draw and be visual.
Remind them to write in large letters and to
note only one idea per Post-it.
Invite a Diverse Group of People

Consider involving people who are not part
of your team to the Class 3 brainstorming
session, as theyll have a fresh perspective.
Try to include six to eight people.
Plan for 45 Minutes or So

Its best to keep brainstorming sessions
less than an hour, so plan on two to three
brainstorm questions, and spend no more
than 15-20 minutes on each. This is the best
approach for maintaining focus and energy.
Select a Facilitator
The Class Leader should lead the
brainstorm. Familiarize yourself with
brainstorming protocol.
Move One by One

Post the question you are brainstorming
about on the wall so everyone can see it. Ask
participants to take a few minutes and write
down their first ideas before starting as a
group. Then facilitate the brainstorm and
capture each individual idea.
Keep the Energy High

Provide encouragement or alternative
topics if the flow of ideas slows down.
Switch to a new brainstorm question every
15-20 minutes. Throw out some wild ideas
yourself. Remind your team of the rules if
needed. Set a goal for how many ideas you
want to generate in total.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
BRAINSTORM RULES
1. Defer Judgement. There are no bad ideas in a brainstorm. There will be plenty
of time to narrow the ideas later.
2. Encourage Wild Ideas. Even if an idea doesnt seem realistic, it may spark a
great idea for someone else.
3. Build on the Ideas of Others. When you hear an idea from a teammate, think
and... rather than but... in order to be as generative and open as possible.
4. Stay Focused on Topic. To get more out of your session, keep your brainstorm
How Might We question in sight.
5. One Conversation at a Time. All ideas should be heard, so only one person
should talk at a time. Wait your turn to share and make sure the whole group is
listening.
6. Be Visual. Draw your ideas, as opposed to just writing them down. Stick gures
and simple sketches can say more than many words.
7. Go for Quantity. Set an outrageous goalthen surpass it. The best way to nd
one good idea is to come up with lots of ideas.
10
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 5: Select Promising Ideas

The passion and energy of your team around particular ideas will make the development
of your designs successful going forward. To get a sense of which brainstorming ideas
generate the most excitement, everyone on the team will vote on their favorites while they
are still fresh in your minds.
This Gets You

A selection of ideas that
the whole team is excited
about taking forward.
Keep in Mind
Trust your gut feeling.
As long as there is
excitement about an idea,
it will be a good basis to
work from.
Bundle Your Ideas

Spend a few minutes immediately after a
brainstorming session grouping together
similar ideas.
Vote for Favorite Ideas

Your team will then select their favorite
ideas to move forward with for the
remainder of the Ideation phase. Everyone
will make two selections the idea that
you think is most likely to succeed and the
idea that you find to be most innovative. Let
people decide in silence first, so that they
are not swayed by others opinions.
Vote directly on the brainstorm Post-its,

either using sticky dots or simply drawing
a dot.
Discuss the Results

Count the votes and determine the most
popular ideas. As a team, evaluate the most
promising ideas and decide which ones
to develop further. Be realistic about the
number you can pursueaim for two or
three ideas to start with.
11
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Prototype: Make Your Ideas Real

Following the synthesis of your ideas into opportunities, the Ideation phase is a chance
for you to make your ideas come to life and test them with the people youre designing
for. Theres a few key things to remember about prototyping. First, remember your
Class 1 Readings when you rst learned about the Mindsets of human-centered design?
Prototyping is all about learning from failure. Build and test your ideas quickly so that you
may learn and continue iterating on them. Second, dont think of prototyping as a linear
process. As you test your concepts, you will have to jump between the following steps
often. This cyclical process of testing your prototypes, getting feedback, and iterating is an
important one in order to create an effective, innovative solution in the end.
Ideas
Create a Concept
Prototype
Get Feedback
Iterate
As youve now seen, idea

generation is all about
coming up with as many
ideas as possiblewild
and crazy or simple
and practical. Youve
then narrowed these
ideas down to what you
most practically see
succeeding and what you
think is most innovative.
These final ideas will
serve as the basis for you
to build out the concept
for your solution.
First, before we create

onewhats a concept?
A concept is a more
polished and complete
version of your idea. Its
starting to look like an
answer to your HMW
question. This is where
you move from problem
to solution and it drives
everything that comes
next. In this Class 3
Workshop, well teach
you one way to visualize
your conceptthrough
an experience map.
This is the fun part!

Prototyping is the time
to make ideas tangible,
to learn more about your
idea simply by trying it.
Remember, you learn
just as much from the
failures as the successes.
Your prototypes should
be rough and only as
accurate as needed
to get key feedback
from the people youre
designing for.
Soliciting feedback
on your concept and
prototypes helps keep
the people youre
designing for at the
center of your project.
Collecting feedback from
potential users is what
pushes things forward
and allows you to iterate
and refine until your
solution is working.
Now youll want to

synthesize some of the
feedback you got and
brainstorm how your
concept could change
based on your feedback.
Once youve determined
how your prototype
should change to reflect
the feedback you got,
go ahead and build it.
This loop of prototyping,
getting feedback, and
iterating based on
feedback will happen a
number of times.
12
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 6: Determine What to Prototype

Your design team has thought of some big ideas over the last three classes. Now that its
time to prototype, the rst step in this process is breaking apart your idea into smaller
components that you can test.
This Gets You

A better sense for the
big picture of your idea
but with an actionable
plan for prototyping and
testing smaller elements
of the concept.
Keep in Mind
The key is testing small
pieces of the whole
instead of investing heavy
time and resources into
bringing the entire idea
to life. Build prototypes
only around those details
which help you address a
core assumption.
Break Down the User Experience
What Do You Need to Learn?
Any idea or service that you create will

have a beginning, a middle, and an end for
a user experiencing it. How will a person
find out about your idea? What will their
first experience with the product or service
be like? How does the experience end?
Your design team will break down the
user experience for your idea into several
discrete parts.
Each step in the user experience that youve

created has questions that your team needs
to answer in order to understand how your
idea might work in practice. For example:
How will people hear about your product?
Will users be willing to pay in advance
for your service? Your team will identify
these questions and then brainstorm
prototypes to help you get answers from the
community.
Create an Experience Map

Next, youll visualize the experience of your
idea over time through a series of images,
sketches, cartoons, or even just text blocks.
Stick figures are greatyou dont need to
be an artist. Use Post-it notes or individual
sheets of paper to create the storyboard so
you can rearrange their order.
Create an Order of Operations

Your team will identify which questions are
the most important to answer first and what
form of prototype will best help you answer
those questions. Once you begin receiving
feedback from these prototypes, youll
iterate and refine your idea accordingly.
FFER
1
2
A friendly SmartLife sales agent comes to your

home weekly to customize your orders and
provide you with top quality service.
Order and pay for a personalized selection of

water and products on a weekly basis.
Your order is sent to our treatment facility where

we filter your water and fill your containers.
Your water and product order is delivered by

truck and carried into your home by friendly
SmartLife Delivery staff.
An IDEO.org design team creating a water and hygiene product subscription service
started by roughly mapping out the full service experiencefrom how the customer rst
becomes aware of the offering to when the subscription arrives at their door.
13
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
GREAT IDEALETS PROTOTYPE!

A prototype is essentially a tangible answer to a theoretical question. And rather than testing an entire
idea, the best prototypes help to get you answers to very specic questions about an idea. Sometimes
designers have great ideas, but create prototypes that are much too broad to give them good answers.
As part of a recent IDEO.org workshop, a team was tasked with thinking of new ways to help youth with
alcohol addiction. The team had an idea involving mobile counseling centers that could visit different
neighborhoods. The team decided to build a scale model prototype of the mobile counseling center.
While this prototype helped the team get more clarity on what the center might look like, it didnt help
them answer any of the specic questions about how the users in the community might want to interact
with their idea.
More useful prototypes might have helped the team answer some of the following questions related to
smaller parts of the larger mobile counseling center idea:
How might someone learn
about the alcohol counseling
sessions offered by the
center?
What if we prototyped:
New ways of disseminating
information. How about
printing information about
the center on the paper and
plastic bags liquor stores
require people to place
their purchases in?
How would members of the
community respond to this
prototype? Would it make
them more likely to visit the
mobile counseling center?
How might this person sign

up for a counseling session at
the mobile center?
Different places where
people could sign up for
counseling sessions. What
about jails, in the hospital
after a drinking-related
incident, after getting
arrested?
How might the counseling

center help someone stay
sober once they are no longer
in counseling?
Different ways to keep in
touch with people. Do people
prefer monthly check in
calls? Emails? Buddy groups?
Is there a way we might help
people design their own
support system?
Would creating a hotline for

friends or partners who know
someone with a problem be
another way to connect with
potential individuals?
14
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 7: Make Your Prototypes

Prototypes enable you to share your ideas with other people, get feedback, and learn how
to further rene them. You can prototype just about anything. Below are a few examples of
different types of prototypes that you can create.
This Gets You

A tangible representation
of your idea that you can
share and learn from.
Keep in Mind
Keep a running log of
questions that come
up while you build
prototypes. Revisit and
answer them as you
develop your idea further.
Take photos and capture
the evolution of your
prototype over time as
you make changes and
increase its resolution.
Create a Model
Create a Diagram
Put together simple three-dimensional

representations of your idea. Use paper,
cardboard, pipe cleaners, fabric, and
whatever else you can find. At the start,
keep it rough and at a low fidelity. Evolve the
details and resolution over time.
Map out the structure, network, journey, or

process of your idea. Try different versions.
Diagrams can be especially helpful to share
a service youre imagining.
Create a Mock-Up
Build mock-ups of digital tools or websites
with simple sketches of screens on paper.
Tape the mock-up to an actual computer
screen or mobile phone when testing it.
Create a Role-Play
Act out the experience of your idea. Try on
the roles of the people that are part of the
situation and uncover questions they might
ask. Consider assembling simple props and/
or uniforms to help people experience your
product or service as a bit more real.
Create a Story
Tell the story of your idea from the future.
Describe what the experience would be like.
Write a newspaper article reporting about
your idea. Write a job description.
Create an Advertisement
Create a fake advertisement that promotes
the best parts of your idea. Have fun with it.
Now change the tone of the advertisement
to appeal to different types of customers
(your grandmother versus your cousin the
college student).
15
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
While designing new mobile tools for Mercy Corps in the Philippines, this
team prototyped a mock-up of a phone screen on a giant posterboard.
Building a social entreprise in the

DRC, this team gave uniforms to
community ambassadors to promote
and test price points.
When working on a clean cookstoves

project, this team created a model
prototype to mimic the shape of a
cooking burner.
This team working on nancial solutions

project, used role play to act out the
user experience of navigating an ATM.
While testing a water subscription service, this team made sample

advertising pamphlets of what the service would include.
16
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 8: Test & Get Feedback

Feedback is one of the most valuable tools in developing an idea. Sharing prototypes early
in the design process helps you see what really matters to people and which aspects need
improvement. Its time to go back and talk to the people youre designing for and begin
getting feedback on your ideas.
This Gets You

A plan for your feedback
activities.
Keep in Mind
You only need a handful
of conversations to
get robust feedback.
Consider the few
constituents that might
help you learn quickly.
Consider the Setting

Decide what context you want to share
your idea in. Is it helpful to first show a
rough idea in an informal setting you are
familiar with (such as the workshop room
where your team has been meeting)? Or
will you learn the most from seeing your
prototype in the context where it will
ultimately be used (in other words, out in
the community)?
Dene What to Test

With your team, determine what kind of
feedback you are looking for: Do you want
to get feedback on the first impression of
your idea? Are you trying to learn whether
people would participate in a new activity
you designed? Are you wondering whether
people will change behaviors over time
because of your concept? Capture your
thoughts and create a list that will remind
you of the goals of your research.
Dene Feedback Activities

Based on what you are trying to learn,
carefully plan your feedback activities.
Arrange for a conversation if you are

interested in a first impression. Set up an
activity or service as if it were real if you
want to observe peoples actual behaviors.
Consider letting people use a prototype over
a period of time if you are interested in its
longer-term impact.
Invite Honesty and Openness

Introduce your prototype as a work in
progress. Make it clear that the development
of your idea is still in progress, and that
based upon their feedback, you will
continue to make further changes and
improvements to the prototype.
Stay Neutral
Present all concepts with a neutral tone.
Dont be defensive or sell your idealisten
to all feedback and take notes both on the
positive and negative comments.
Adapt on the Fly

Encourage participants to build on the idea,
and revise the prototype as you go. Be ready
to eliminate or change parts of the idea.
17
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
This Gets You

Constructive feedback on
your prototype and new
ideas and perspectives
on how to improve your
concept.
Keep in Mind
Try to let participants
experience your concept,
rather than just talking
about it. Let them
interact with a prototype
in their own context, or
integrate them into a role
play. Dont shy away from
changing your prototype
in between feedback
conversations. Test your
iterations right away.
Provide Multiple Prototypes

If time permits, or if you have a prototype
that is easily adaptable, consider preparing
various versions of your prototype to
encourage people to compare
and contrast.
Find a Space & Time

Plan for some extra time after a feedback
session so you can share your impressions
with you team right after your conversation
when they are still fresh in your mind.
Capture Your Ideas & Design Iterations

Discuss how to improve your prototype
and capture ideas for a next iteration
immediately. If permitted by participants,
take photos of the prototype testing in
actionit will help jog your memory later.
Consider using the following prompts:

What did participants value the most?
What got them excited?
What would convince them about the
idea?
Which parts would participants like to
improve?
What did not work?
What needs further investigation?
Share Your Impressions

Discuss the conversation with your team.
Compare each others learnings. Take notes
on your conversation.
A design team looking to reimagine a hotel experience built a mock-up room using foam
core. They asked potential guests to tour the space on their own and write down
their observation as they walked through. What things did they like? Was there
something missing?
18
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Step 9: Integrate Feedback & Iterate

Feedback is invaluable to developing an idea, but can also be quite confusing. It may be
contradictory or may not align with your goals. Sort through the responses you receive and
decide on what to integrate in your next iteration.
This Gets You

A way to rene your idea
based on what youve
heard and insight into
the next prototype you
should make.
Keep in Mind
Iteration can happen
after your full testing
and feedback session
is complete, or it can
happen on the y. Dont
be afraid to iterate
quickly!
Cluster the Feedback
Prioritize the Feedback
As a team, discuss the reactions you

received to your prototypes. Start by sharing
the impressions you captured right after
your feedback conversations. Take notes on
Post-its. Sort and cluster the feedback: What
was positively received? What concerns
came up? What suggestions and builds did
you find?
As a team, come to an understanding about

the feedback that is most important to
making your idea a success. Sort your notes
and create an overview of which feedback
you want to respond to.
Evaluate the Relevance

Take a moment to revisit where you started.
Look at your earlier learnings and ideas.
What was your original intent? Does it still
hold true, based on the feedback you have
received?
Evolve Your Prototype

Incorporate valuable feedback into your
concept. Make changes where people saw
barriers. Emphasize what was well received.
Then, create a new prototype that you
can share. Go through feedback cycles
repeatedly and continue to improve your
concept.
During some product design projects, a team may go through dozens of iterations
evolving the shape, color, and materialamong other characteristicsuntil they nd out
whats working and whats not.
19
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Case Study: Moneythink Mobile

Designing Digital Tools to Build Financial Literacy
In Chicagos public high schools, many teens get their rst formal taste of
nancial literacy training thanks to a mentoring program called Moneythink.
Founded by students from the University of Chicago Booth School of
Business, the volunteer-run program teaches strategies like how to budget,
save, and build credit. Its an innovative model that has scaled rapidly. To
further cement their teachings outside the classroomwhere real-life
nancial decisions are madeMoneythink partnered with IDEO.org and
Cause Labs to develop a mobile app to put tools in students hands when
theyre making spending decisions for themselves.
20
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
The Outcome
Working closely with the high school students, IDEO.org and CauseLabs created an
interactive, social mobile app that encourages participants to track and share their
financial behaviors in an unintimidating, peer-to-peer context. An Android version of the
app is currently live in the Google Play store and Moneythink has recently completed a pilot
with over 100 students in high schools on Chicagos South and West sides. Learnings from
the pilot are now being assessed, and the apps creators are preparing to develop an iOS
option in addition to the existing Android version. The full app experience will launch in
fall 2014 for both operating systems, with the goal of reaching a wider circle of schools and
organizations.
INSPIRATION
Over the course of six weeks, the team

made two trips into the field to observe
the Moneythink mentoring program in
context, and to better understand the
students experiences in school and at
home. Interviews focused on how students
use their mobile phones, what apps they
like, and what they gain from heavy use of
social media. We found there was a great
energy around young people sharing and
getting feedback and affirmation about
themselves, observed John Won, the
teams project lead. The team witnessed
the popularity of apps like Snapchat, and
the ubiquity of selfies as a primary mode
of sharing. We wanted to capture the fun
and the currency of being a young person,
socializing with friends.
One of the teams main insights in this

phase was that young people do not have
regular sources of income, so its hard
to follow traditional financial practices,
like setting a monthly budget. They tend
to receive money around holidays and
on their birthdays, and then plan their
purchases around inflows. The IDEO.org
team also observed that spending goals
were often motivated by the desire for
peer affirmation; a kid might save $200
to buy a pair of sneakers that would draw
approval from friends. If thats normal,
Won reflects, how do we stop labeling the
sneakers as reckless spending, but rather
find tools that are better suited to take
advantage of these spending patterns?
21
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
IDEATION
Initially, the team envisioned an app that

would merge a mint.com model with game
dynamics, leveraging the gamification
trend in technology for youth. One idea
arose from the possibility of encouraging
students to use eBay or Craigslist to sell
items they werent using. Another revolved
around celebrating instances when they
resisted the temptation to spend.
Based on early interviews, however,
the designers found that without a social
element, the students werent particularly
engaged. At this stage, the team created
a more flexible platform where they could
issue interactive financial challenges.
Using an Instagram-style format, the first
challenge invited students to post a photo
at the moment of a purchasing decision,
then tag it spend or save. Other students
could then like and comment on the photos,
creating a positive feedback dynamic that
spurred continued engagement.
In designing technology for teenagers,
the input of those young people is critical
to creating something appropriate and
engaging. In the case of Moneythink, the
designers asked the stakeholders how they
would design their own app, inviting them
to sketch screen interfaces and invent
challenges. Human-centered design is all
about designing for adoption, and you cant
be more confident that the person youre

designing for will use what youve made
than when they help make it themselves.
Once prototypes were in use that spirit
of co-creation was all the more valuable.
Knowing they were safe to give feedback,
students were able to voice their desire for
social features. The IDEO.org team may not
have realized as outside observers just how
make-or-break this element of the app was
to get students to use it on a regular basis.
IMPLEMENTATION
As part of the project timeline, the IDEO.

org team released live prototypes of the
app in several Chicago high schools, using
two different challenges to evaluate user
engagement. One challenge, the Business
Selfie, was geared toward helping students
dress appropriately for interviews. Thought
the classroom version of this exercise
would have involved looking at photos and
talking about etiquette, the app enabled
the experience to be interactive, personal,
and fun. Students went into their own
closets, selected an outfit, and shared it
with friends. The challenge let them apply
theory to action, explains Won, This is
a core element of the app design: shifting
from in-classroom to in-context, from
in-theory to applied, from once a week to
real-time, from mentor to peer.
22
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Method in Action: Rapid Prototyping
IDEO.org partnered with Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor to design a new pit latrine
emptying business in Zambia. The team designed a service called Pump Away, and needed to learn if
the service would be desirable to consumers in Lusaka. So the team created a rapid prototype to get
to the bottom of its unanswered questions.
After a few days in the field in Zambia, we

learned more than we ever thought we
would know about pit latrines in Lusaka.
Although we were getting smart quickly, we
had many unanswered questions about our
business model:
service called Pump Away. We expected

large parts of our prototype to fail, but,
much to our surprise, the potential service
was a huge hit. Seven of the ten families we
spoke with said they would be willing to
sign up for the service.
Is there actual demand for a new pit latrine

emptying technology in Lusaka?
Can we sign up several people in one
neighborhood to save on transport costs?
How do we reach customers?
Many of the potential customers we met

were unhappy that we werent yet offering
a real pit latrine emptying service and were
instead prototyping a hypothetical service.
A prototype, a former IDEO.org Fellow
Sarah Lidgus says, is a tangible answer
to a theoretical question. As we continue
to refine and improve our work in these
communities, well continue askingand
prototypingour way to the answers. In the
meantime, well continue building Pump
Awaywe have seven customers waiting
patiently for us to arrive.
Unable to answer these questions, we built a

prototype to test them. It was rough around
the edges, but in less than 24 hours we built
and launched a hypothetical business.
Two translators served as salesmen for the
daywe created name tags, clipboards,
brochures, receipts, and a sales pitchand
we went door-to-door in a compound of
Lusaka to talk with residents about whether
they would purchase a pit latrine emptying
To read the full story about the Pump Away

project in Zambia, visit:
23
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
3
Workshop Guide
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Table Of Contents
The Class 3 Workshop also involves quite a bit of hands-on activities, and
will require two weeks of time to complete. Spend the rst week completing
synthesis activities (Activities 01-05) and the second week creating and
testing your prototypes (Activities 06-12). Again, we suggest you go beyond
the minimum two hours when building and testing your prototypes.
Class Leaders Guide

Before Class 3 Workshop

02 Share Inspiring Stories & Learnings // 1 hour
03 Cluster Into Themes // 20 mins
04 Create Insight Statements // 1 hour
05 Create How Might We Questions // 30 mins
06 Brainstorm // 40 mins
07 Select Your Best Ideas // 10 mins
08 Gut Check // 20 mins
09 Create an Experience Map // 20 mins
10 Determine What to Prototype // 20 mins
11 Start Prototyping // 45 mins
12 Test Your Prototype // To be determined by your team
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
Class Leaders Guide

During this workshop, your team will be synthesizing your research into
opportunities and then translating them into prototypes to test in the eld.
Its important to keep your team on track during these next two weeks,
as its easy to get caught in debate about what concept to move forward
with. Remember, this course is a learning experience, and you will all have
ample opportunity after its over to try the process again and pursue as
many other ideas as you want! Decide as a team how much time is most
appropriate to spend in the eld prototyping.
Before The Class 3 Workshop

Confirm That You Have a Meeting Space
This space should have ample wall or table space where you can post ideas.

Coordinate with Your Team to Bring Supplies

For the synthesis portion of your workshop,a notebook for blank paper, pens, felt markers
or Sharpies, Post-it notes (or their equivalent), and printed Class 3 Workshop Guide
should be sufficient. But for the second part of your Class 3 Workshop, youll need some
prototyping supplies. These could include but are not limited to: paper (white & colored),
tape, scissors, a stapler, foam core boards, X-acto knives, pipe cleaners, fabric, clay, colored
markers, etc...
Lead the Workshop

This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions, and assignments
for Class 3. Make sure to read the Class 3 Readings thoroughly so that you can effectively
lead your team this class. If your team does not come back together after conducting your
prototyping, make sure the group takes a few minutes to discuss Class 4 before departing.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
01
Questions, Comments, & Takeaways
10 Minutes
Congratulations! Youve completed your Class 2 Inspiration phase research! Youve also learned about the second phase of
the design process as part of the Class 3 Ideation Readings. This Activity 01 is a way for you to reflect on what you learned
in the field, ask questions, and discuss some of your aha moments from the last class. Take a few minutes to reflect on the
questions below. Then discuss what you are most excited about or interested in with your group.
1) What would you most like to discuss with the group about your experiences during the Class 2 Inspiration phase
research? What was most surprising? What was the hardest part for you? What were your aha moments?
2) Did anyone check out what other teams were doing on the Online Community? Would you like to share something
inspiring you saw? Did you learn anything interesting from other teams around the world tackling your same challenge?
3) What were your big takeaways from the Class 3 Ideation Readings? Do you have questions?
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
02
Share Inspiring Stories & Learnings
1 Hour
Your design team spent the last class getting out there and learning from people in your community. As part of this
activity, youll begin the Ideation phase by sharing stories about what you learned with your design team.
1. Make a List
Start by making a list of everyone your team spoke

with and the places you visited as part of your Class
2 Inspiration phase research.
2. Identify Any Holes
Identify the types of research that your group was

and wasnt able to conduct over the last class. Do
you still have obvious holes in your research? Do you
have a plan for trying to ll those holes?
3. Share Stories
Now its time to share stories about the people

that you spoke with and the places that your team
visited. Start at the top of the list you made in step
# 1. Spend about ve minutes on each person or
place. If you took pictures and have access to a
printer, print a few of the best photos from each
interview or location and hang them on the wall as
you go through your list. This will help your team
more easily organize your thoughts and remember
details as you begin making your thoughts visual.
Here is a rough outline about what you should try to
share about each person you spoke with:
4. Capture What Everyone Is Saying
While you are listening to your teammates tell

their stories, write down notes and observations
about what they are saying. Use concise and
complete sentences that everyone on your team
can easily understand. Try capturing quotesthey
are a powerful way of representing the voice of a
participant. Jot one observation per Post-it note
for exibility in sorting and clustering later. Make
sure you write large enough (and neat enough!) so
that everyone can read your notes. Remember to be
as visual as possible.
5. Hang Your Notes on the Wall
When youre done talking about a particular person

you interviewed, hang the Post-its with the notes
youve just taken on the wall underneath their
photo (if you have one) or a Post-it containing their
name (if you dont have a photo). There should be
a separate section on the wall for each person that
your team interviewed. When possible, keep quotes
and images together in order to paint a rich story.
Personal Details: Who did you meet?

(name, profession, age, location, etc.)
Interesting Stories: What was the most memorable
and surprising story they told?
Motivations: What did this person care about the
most? What motivates him or her?
Barriers: What frustrated them?
Interactions: What was interesting about the way
they interacted with their environment?
Remaining Questions: What questions would you
like to explore if you had another conversation with
this person?
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
03
Cluster Into Themes
20 Minutes
As part of this activity, your team will start to make sense of the stories you heard and begin looking for
themes to design around. The Class Leader should lead the team through this activity.
1. Find the "Gems"
From the Post-its that your team just hung on the

walls, each person should choose the ve that you
nd most interesting or most insightful. Remove
these Post-Its from the group and put them in a new
blank area with lots of emtpy space around them.
Let's call these Post-its your "gems".
2. As a Group, Cluster Information Into Themes
Review the "gems" that your team has selected

and try to organize them into similar groups or
categories. These are called "clusters". Did many
people mention the same thing? Are there behaviors
you saw repeatedly? Which issues were obvious?
Did you hear conicting statements? Is there an
explanation for this conict?
3. Find Supporting Evidence
Quickly review the rest of your Post-its on the

wall (the "non-gems"). Find additional notes
that support the clusters you've created. Can you
include some photographs or visual observations
that substantiate the categories your group
has created?
4. Rene Your Clusters
Create a minimum of three and a maximum of ve

clusters. Is there a new cluster that you might need
to create? Could two existing clusters be combined?
5. Write Headlines
For each of the clusters that you've created,

create headlines, such as "proximity" or "hygiene"
or "payment".
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
04
Create Insight Statements
1 Hour
Now that youve created clusters and given them headlines, its time to identify the distinct challenges that your team has
uncovered related to each theme. This activity will help you understand why certain themes have emerged and what makes
them potentially important areas for design. This part of the Ideation phase can be a bit complicated to explain, so weve
outlined step-by-step instructions below and completed our own worksheet on the following page. Review our examples,
then use the last page of this activity to complete this as a team.
1. Write your design challenge at the top of

the page in the space provided. Being
able to quickly reference your challenge
will make this exercise easier because it
will help you connect your insights back
to the question you are ultimately trying
to answer.
2. Write your cluster headlines from
Activity 03 on the lines provided in the

worksheet. For each cluster headline,
try to draft three concise sentences that
explain why the theme you've identied
describes a challenge for the people in
the community that you spoke with. Feel
free to work individually or as a group.
3. Once you have a few sentences for
each theme, work with your full design

team to revise and rewrite your insight
statements until the group has captured
the most unique and compelling points
related to each theme. Use the template
provided, or extra sheets of paper if you
run out of room.
A TIP ABOUT CREATING INSIGHT STATEMENTS

It may be helpful to place p. 2 and 3 of this Activity 04
worksheet side-by-side so that you can more easily follow
our examples.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
04
1 Hour
Write Your Design Challenge
EX
AM
Our design challenge is to increase demand for clean, low-cost toilets in the community.
PL
Payments
are a challenge faced by the community because...
Kids often don't use clean toilets (or any toilets at all) because they don't have any money to pay.
People often only have money to pay for toilets at the start of the month after they have been paid.
Many residents find themselves without money to make a payment at the exact time they need to use the toilet.
Hygiene
is a challenge faced by the community because...
Children will not use the toilet if it is too clean.

People aren't aware of the diseases they can catch from dirty toilets.
People learn best from their friends or family members, but this isn't how clean hygiene information is disseminated now.
Proximity
is a challenge faced by the community because...
When toilets are too far away, young children or older people can't make the walk to the toilet in time.
Many people don't realize that there are closer, cleaner toilets to their home than the ones they are actually using.
People have shifted their behavior to use cleaner toilets closer to their workplace, either getting to work early or staying late.
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
04
1 Hour
Write Your Design Challenge
is/are a challenge faced by the community because...
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
05
Create How Might We Questions
30 Minutes
Human-centered design is most powerful when we turn existing challenges into opportunities for design. As part of
this activity, your team will turn the insight statements that you created in the last activity into questions which will be
the launchpad for your brainstorm. These questions often start with How Might We (HMW) as an invitation for input,
suggestions, and exploration. Weve included a few examples to review on the following page, and then your team will craft
your own opportunities for design. Similar to Activity 04, it may be helpful to lay p. 2 and 3 of this Activity 05 worksheet
side-by-side.
1. As a team, select your three favorite insight

statements that you crafted collaboratively during
Activity 04. Try to choose three insight statement
relating to three different cluster headlines. This
will lend more variety to the HMW questions you
ultimately create. Additionally, make an effort to
select statements that convey a new perspective
or sense of possibility. Write the three insight
statements your team selects in the space
provided on the worksheet.
2. Work individually for a few minutes to try turning
the selected insight statements into HMW
questions. Be sure to read the scoping tips to the
right and pay close attention to our examples on
p. 2 of this worksheet. You can also refer back to
p. 8 of the Class 3 Readings for more guidance.
3. Share your HMW questions with the group. Then
work as a group to rene your HMW questions
until they feel like strong questions that you are
excited to answer as part of your brainstorm.
Remember, they should be neither too broad, nor
too narrow.
PROPERLY SCOPING HMW QUESTIONS
TOO NARROW
HMW create a cone to eat ice cream

without dripping?
This question implies that
redesigning the cone is the solution.
However, the team should be
thinking more broadly about a range
of possible solutions.
TOO BROAD
HMW redesign dessert?

This question doesn't give enough
direction because it doesn't imply
a starting point or immediately help
people generate ideas around one
category of desserts.
JUST RIGHT
HMW redesign ice cream to be more

portable?
This question is scoped properly
because it frames the challenge but
does not imply a solution. Rather
it allows people to brainstorm
multiple solutions.
10
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
05
30 Minutes
State Your HMW Questions
EX
AM
Insight:
PL
People often only have money to pay for toilets at the start of the month after they have been paid.
How might we...
create more flexible payment options for toilet use?
Insight:
People learn best from their friends or family members, but this isn't how clean hygiene information is disseminated now.
How might we...
involve the community in creating and disseminating information or campaigns about clean hygiene?
Insight:
Many people don't realize that there are closer, cleaner toilets to their home than the ones they are actually using.
How might we...
create new ways to inform people about clean toilet options close to their homes?
11
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
05
30 Minutes
State Your HMW Questions
Insight:
How might we...
Insight:
How might we...
Insight:
How might we...
12
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
06
Brainstorm
30 Minutes
Now that your team has created HMW questions, youre ready to start brainstorming! The intention of brainstorming is to
leverage the creative power of the group by engaging with the full design team, listening carefully, and building on each
others ideas. You will use the three HMW questions defined in Activity 05 to brainstorm around.
1. Make Sure You Have Enough Room
6. Gather Your Team Around a Wall
2. Gather Materials
7. Hang the First Opportunity on the Wall
Finding sufcient wall space to hang and display your

ideas is key.
Everyone should have a stack of Post-its (or their
equivalent) and a marker to write with. Bonus
supplies = snacks. Again, never underestimate the
power of sugar!
3. Write Questions Largely and Clearly
Write out the three selected HMW questions in large

lettering on three separate sheets of paper.
4. Get Excited
The Class Leader will lead the brainstorm. This

requires lots of energy and a strong knowledge of the
brainstorming rules.
5. Review Brainstorming Rules
Take turns reading the brainstorming rules out loud.

Are there any questions?
Note: you can also stand around a table if there isn't

sufcient wall space.
Everyone should be able to see it and the Class

Leader should read the question aloud.
8. Start the Clock!
Take ten minutes per opportunity, one idea per

Post-it, and be visual! Hang each idea underneath the
written question as your team creates them.
9. Start HMW Question #2
After ten minutes, move onto #2. Have the team move
to the right or the left where there is free space.
Leave #1 and your brainstorming ideas on the wall.
You'll need them soon.
10. Start HMW Question #3
After ten minutes, move onto #3. Provide

encouragement. Pass out more candy if necessary!
Have everyone do ten push-ups if really necessary!
REMEMBER THE BRAINSTORMING RULES

1. Defer Judgement
2. Encourage Wild Ideas
3. Build on the Ideas of Others
4. Stay Focused on Topic
5. One Conversation at a Time
6. Be Visual
7. Go for Quantity
13
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
07
Select Your Best Ideas
10 Minutes
Congratulations! You finished brainstorming. Now its time to select the brainstorming ideas that generate the most
excitement from your team. Everyone on the team will vote for two ideas and youll spend the second half of this Class 3
Ideation Workshop to prototype them.
1. Survey the Ideas
Read over all the brainstorming ideas.

Let people decide in silence rst, so
you aren't swayed by others on your
design team.
2A. Vote for the Most Innovative Idea

Everyone will make two selections.
Draw an O in the upper right corner
of the idea that you think is most
innovative.
2B. Vote for the Most Successful Idea

Draw a
in the upper left corner of
the idea that you think is most likely
to succeed.
3. Count the Votes
As a team, select the most promising

ideas and set them aside. Is there
consensus around a handful of ideas?
REMEMBER TO MARK IDEAS LIKE THIS:
The idea you think

is most innovative
The idea you think

will most likely succeed
14
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
07
10 Minutes
Your team generated many ideas during your brainstorm session and then selected a handful of the most promising ideas
for a vote. Activity 07 will help your team evaluate those ideas and decide which ones to move forward with.
1. Hang your team's most promising ideas on the wall

or place them at the center of the table. Try to limit
the total number to ve or fewer. If you have more,
are there places where you can combine similar
ideas into a single concept?
2. As a group, consider the following questions about
each idea:
Instinctively, how excited is your design team
about this idea?
How innovative and different from what's out
there does this idea feel?
How practical do you think this idea is? Does
implementing it seem realistic?
3. Number or name each idea that you've hung on the

wall so that you can easily track them on the next
page of this Activity.
4. Working individually, rate each idea using the
scoresheet located on the next page. Use a
separate sheet of paper and create your own
scoresheet following our example if you run out of
space.
5. As a group, compare the scores that the members
of your team have given to each idea. Which
idea received the highest score? Where did you
agree and where did you disagree? Is there clear
consensus about which idea to prototype now that
you've gone through this exercise?
Has a clear consensus emerged about an idea that

your team would like to prototype? If yes, great!
Move on to Activity 08. If no, continue to step #5.
A NOTE ABOUT GROUP SIZE

If your design team is two or three people,
its best to choose one idea to prototype.
If your design team has four or more
people, we suggest choosing two ideas to
prototype as part of this workshop.
15
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
07
10 Minutes
Least
Most
Instinctively, how excited are you about this idea?
How innovative and different from what's out there does this idea feel?
How practical do you think this idea is? Does implementing it seem realistic?
Total =
Least
Most
Total =
Least
Most
Total =
16
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
08
Gut Check
20 Minutes
Before we dive into prototyping, it's important to make sure that the idea you are excited to go forward with both relates
back to the insights you identified in the beginning of this Ideation Workshop, and helps to answer your original design
challenge. Review our example below, and then use the next page of this worksheet to complete this activity as a team. If
you are working in a larger group, you should conduct this activity for the two ideas that your team selected.
1. As a group, review the format that we've

used in our example to the right.
2. Now, working individually, answer these
same questions about your own idea on
the next page of this worksheet.*
Members of your team have potentially
interpreted the idea you plan to
prototype differently or imagined the
idea's benets in a variety of ways.
Conversely, a team member might
not believe in the benets of this idea
and may have an opinion on why the
idea should be modied. This exercise
should help your team align around the
idea you'll be prototyping, as well as how
it relates back to the design challenge
your team is trying to solve, and what its
potential benets could be.
3. Come together as a group and discuss
your answers. If a majority of your team
believes that the idea doesn't help to
solve the original design challenge,
consider going back to Activity 07
and selecting an alternative idea to
prototype.
E X AMPLE
Design Challenge:
HMW Question:
Increase demand for

clean, low-cost toilets
in the community.
HMW create more flexible payment

options for clean toilet use?
Selected Idea:
Describe the Idea:

Prepaid cards for use at clean, public toilets in
the community. These prepaid cards might be used
in a similar manner to a public transit pass or
prepaying for minutes on a mobile phone.
How Will This Idea Have Impact On The Challenge

You're Addressing?
We learned that people were not using clean
toilets as regularly as they would like because they
often didn't have money available to pay for toilets
throughout the month. This idea allows people to
pay for toilet use in one lump sum after they
get paid and then budget bathroom use into their
monthly expenses. This solution also makes using a
clean toilet easier for children (who we learned were
often unable to pay because they didn't have money)
because parents can give them prepaid toilet cards.
*Since you likely only have one Post-it note with

your selected idea for your full design team,
consider redrawing the idea individually on your
own worksheet or place the Post-it note with the
selected idea in a central location where everyone
can see it.
17
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
08
Gut Check
20 Minutes
Evaluate Your Idea

Design Challenge:
HMW Question:
Selected Idea:
Describe the Idea:
Place Post-It Note

Here or Redraw the
Idea Yourself
How Will This Idea Have Impact on the Challenge You're Addressing?
18
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
08
Gut Check
20 Minutes
Evaluate your idea

Design Challenge:
HMW Question:
Selected Idea:
Describe the Idea:
Place Post-It Note

Here or Redraw the
Idea Yourself
How Will This Idea Have Impact on the Challenge You're Addressing?
19
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
Now that your design team has selected an idea to prototype, it's very important to break your concept into bite-sized
pieces that can be easily made and tested. A great way to do this is by creating an experience map. An experience map is a
visualization of the end-to-end experience a user might have with your idea over time. (It is also sometimes referred to as a
"journey map.") We've outlined step-by-step instructions below and completed a worksheet on the following pages. Review
our examples, then use the second half of this Activity 09 worksheet to complete an experience map as a team.
1. As a group, visualize the experience that a

person might have with your idea over time.
Any idea or service that you create will have
a beginning, a middle, and an end. How will
this person nd out about your idea? What
will their rst experience with the product
or service be like? How does the experience
culminate at the end?
2. As a group, identify the ideal type of person
youre designing your product or service for.
Give this person a name and write down a
few characteristics about themname, age,
profession.
3. Place Post-it notes in each of the empty boxes
in the space provided. Now draw the key
moments that your team has just identied
in the journey for a person experiencing
your product or service. Rough sketches or
cartoons are great. Stick gures are ne too
you dont need to be an artist. You should
limit these key moments to six or fewer.
4. As a group, discuss the experience map
you've just created. Do you need to rearrange
the order of the Post-it notes? Are there key
steps in the journey that you've missed? Add
them now.
5. For each moment you've sketched, give that
moment a title in the space above the Post-it and
write a brief description of what's happening in
the space provided below the Post-it as modeled
in the example on the following pages.
A HELPFUL TIP
Try hanging your user journey up in a place where
the entire team can see it. Quickly walk through
the experience together.
20
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
EX AM PL E
The Person
Title
AWARENESS
Title
Awareness
AWARENESS
Concisely Describe the Person Youre Designing For
Concisely Describe What Is Happening
Name: Josephine
Josephine hears about a new service

on the radio called "Best Latrine." The
service sounds unique because it allows
cardholders to pay for visits to the toilet
in advance.
Age: 28
Profession: Tailor
Any other key characteristics: She is a
mother of two children.
21
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
EX AM PL E
Title
Initial Purchase
Title
First Use
AWARENESS
AWARENESS
She notices that "Best Latrine"

prepaid cards are being sold at a
nearby kiosk in her neighborhood and
buys one. There is enough value on
the card to last her family for
one month.
On her first visit to the latrine, Josephine

inserts her "Best Latrine" card into the
slot and the door unlocks. Inside, the
toilet is clean and comfortable.
22
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
EX AM PL E
Title
Ful l Adoption
Refil l
Title
AWARENESS
AWARENESS
Josephine gives both her children a

prepaid card so they can use the
bathroom on their own when they
need to.
Happy after a month, she signs up to

transfer money via M-Pesa (a service
that allows her to send money from her
cellphone) to her Best Latrine account.
23
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
EX AM PL E
Loyalty
Title
AWARENESS
Each time the Josephine refers a

neighbor to Best Latrine, she is
rewarded with an incentive of some
kind, such as a free single use at a
Best Latrine toilet.
24
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Concisely Describe the Person Youre Designing For
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
25
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
26
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
27
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
09
20 Minutes
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
28
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
10
Determine What to Prototype
20 Minutes
Now that youve created an experience map, its time to identify and prioritize the questions that youll need to answer
with your prototype. Just like the last exercise, weve outlined step-by-step instructions below and completed our own
worksheet on the following page. Review our examples, then complete the activity as a group.
1. Transfer the Post-its on which you sketched your
nal experience map from Activity 09 to the blank

spaces on this Activity 10 worksheet. Re-title the
headlines for each key moment.
2. For each moment in the experience you've
identied, there is at least one question that you'll

need to answer in order to understand if your idea
resonates with people. Write at least one question
for each moment in the space provided.
3. Now that you've identied questions you need to
answer, work as a group to brainstorm different

types of prototypes that will help get answers to
each question. It will be helpful to review the various
prototyping methods listed in Activity 11 of this
Workshop Guide. You can also refer back to your
Class 3 Readings.
4. As a group, decide which questions it makes sense
to answer rst. For example, you wouldn't worry

about a smaller feature related to your idea or
service, if you haven't rst tested if there is demand
for your idea in the community. Prioritize your
potential prototypes by numbering them from 1X
in the space provided on the worksheet, with "1"
being the most important to prototype rst.
5. Be sure to review our examples on the next page.
We did not show you all of the moments in our

user experience. Instead, we chose an example we
thought was best to test rst and a moment we felt
made sense to test a bit later on.
29
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
10
20 Minutes
EX AM PL E
Title
Initial Purchase
Title
Refil l
place
place post-it
post-it or
or
drawing
drawing here
here
What Is the Most Important Question to Answer?
Will people be willing and able to make

payments up-front for this toilet service?
How Might We Test It?
Create a mock-up Best Latrine card to help

people understand the look and feel of our
idea. Set up a table and make some posters
advertising the Best Latrine service. When
people stop by, explain the service and learn
if they might be willing to sign up for the card
and how much money they would be
willing to put on the card.
Priority Ranking #
Is transferring money to a pre-paid account via

mobile a feature consumers want or need?
Create mock-ups of how a customer might use

their phone to recharge their Best Latrine card
by making simple drawings of a proposed user
interface on Post-its and sticking them on a
mobile phone screen. Learn how much time this
might save them or any concerns they might
have about using this feature.
Priority Ranking #
30
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
10
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Priority Ranking #
Priority Ranking #
31
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
10
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
What Is The Most Important Question To Answer?
What Is The Most Important Question To Answer?
Priority Ranking #
Priority Ranking #
32
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
10
20 Minutes
Title
Title
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Place Post-It
Drawing Here
Priority Ranking #
Priority Ranking #
33
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
11
Start Prototyping
It's time to start making! You've selected an idea to prototype and identified the most important elements to test first.
Fingers crossed, your team also has a good sense of how to go about building your first prototype. Just in case, we've listed
some of our favorite prototyping methods below.
Create a Model
Put together simple three-dimensional representations

of your idea. Use paper, cardboard, pipe cleaners, fabric,
and whatever else you can nd. Keep it rough and at a low
delity to start, and then evolve the resolution over time.
Create a Mock-Up
Build mock-ups of digital tools or websites with simple

sketches of screens on paper. Paste the paper mock-up
on an actual computer screen or mobile phone when
demonstrating it.
Create a Role Play
Act out the experience of your idea. Try on the roles of

the people that are part of the situation and uncover
questions they might ask. Consider making simple
uniforms and assembling simple props to help users
experience your product or service as real.
Create a Diagram
Imagine you are going door-to-door and showing potential

customers what your idea or potential service is. Map out
the structure, journey, or process of your idea in a way
that will be easy for a potential customer to understand.
This prototyping method will have a lot in common with
the experience map you already created during this
Class 3 Workshop.
Create a Story
Tell the story of your idea from the future. Describe

what the experience would be like. Write a newspaper
article reporting about your idea. Write a job description.
The purpose is to have people experience your idea as
if it were real and then respond to it.
Create an Advertisement
Create a fake advertisement that promotes the best parts

of your idea. Have fun with it, and feel free to exaggerate
shamelessly. Now change the tone of the advertisement to
appeal to different types of person.
34
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
11
Start Prototyping
As Your Team Is Creating, Keep in Mind:
Be creative
Have fun
Design to get
answers
This part of the workshop is up to you. Remember, the goal of prototyping is to be as creative
as possible. Don't feel restricted by the methods listed on the previous page, but do construct
prototypes that will help you get real feedback from the community and help your team answer
the most important questions that you identied as part of Activity 10. Don't forget to document
your prototyping process with photos to share with the Online Community.
Now get started!
35
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
12
Testing Your Prototype
It's time to test the prototype or prototypes that you've created. We've captured a few guidelines below for getting the most
out of this activity and then provided you with a format for capturing feedback on the next page of this worksheet.
Select Locations to Test Your Prototype
Decide what context you want to test your prototype in.

Will it be most helpful to rst show a rough idea in an
informal setting such as your workshop space? Or will
you learn the most from testing your prototype in the
community where it will be used?
Dene Feedback Activities
Capture Feedback Learnings
Take notes of both the positive and negative comments

from people as you test your prototype. The subtle
impressions of a participants reactions are often most
important to remember. Use the prompts that we've
provided for you on the next page of this worksheet to
assist in capturing feedback.
Based on what you are trying to learn, carefully plan your

prototype feedback activities. Arrange for a conversation
if you are interested in a rst impression. Set up an
activity or service as if they are real if you want to observe
peoples actual behaviors. Consider letting people use
your prototype over a couple of days over the coming
weeks if you are interested in its longer-term impact.
Do Quick Debriefs with Your Team
Invite Honesty and Stay Neutral
Iterate Your Prototype (If There Is Time)
Introduce your prototype as a work in progress and make

sure to present it in a neutral tone. Dont be defensive
listen to all feedback.
Plan for some extra time after a prototype feedback

session to share impressions with your team while they
are still fresh in your mind. Discuss how to improve
your prototype and capture ideas for a next iteration
immediately. You can do this debrief virtually anywhere
(on the sidewalk, in a car, or while riding on the bus).
Based upon feedback you receive, incorporate valuable

feedback into your concept. Make changes where people
see barriers. Emphasize what was well received. Go
through feedback cycles repeatedly and continue to
improve your concept.
A HELPFUL TIP ABOUT PLANNING YOUR TIME

Be sure to come to a consensus with your team about the best way to test your prototypes. If youre holding
this workshop over the weekend, consider scheduling a few hours of prototype testing after this workshop.
Alternatively, it might make more sense for your team to test your prototypes throughout the upcoming
week. If your design team doesnt plan to return to the workshop venue after youve completed todays
prototype testing activities, take a few minutes to review and discuss as a group how you should prepare for
the Class 4 Workshop.
36
Class 3:
Ideation Phase
12
Testing Your Prototype
The questions below have been categorized to help you organize your feedback. If you need more room please feel free to
answer these questions in your own notebook. Be sure to debrief with your teammates after each prototype testing session.
Who, What, Where?
The Good?
Where did you go?

Who did you test your idea with?
What were you testing for?
What did people value the most?

What got them excited?
What convinced them about the idea?
The Bad?
The Unexpected?
What failed?
Were there suggestions for improvement?
What needs further investigation?
Did anything happen that you didn't expect?
37
Class 4:
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 4:
Table Of Contents
Class 4
Readings
Overview of Implementation Phase
Step 1: Understand Your Target
Step 2: Create an Action Plan
Step 3: Launch Your Solution
Step 4: Keep Getting Feedback and Iterating
Step 5: Scale Towards Impact
Case Study: SmartLife

Methods in Action
Class 4:
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
Overview of Implementation Phase

The Implementation phase is about understanding
how to bring your solution to life, and to market
in the real world. In the end, youll know that your
solution will be a success because youve kept the
very people youre looking to serve at the heart of
the process.
This Class will give you the tools necessary to
consider how you would build partnerships, rene
your business model, pilot your idea, and eventually
get your idea out thereif you were to truly
implement your idea, that is!
Class 4:
Step 1: Understand Your Target

Before implementing, youll want to understand what your solution will mean to both the
people implementing it and to those youre designing for. Everyone wants a revolutionary
idea, but long-term success might come from incremental change. Also, think about the
capacity of the implementing group; youll want a solution that they can actually carry out.
Keep in Mind
One key to success is
nding the right balance
between where your
solutions fall on the 2x2
and the capacity of the
people implementing.
This excercise is a quick and visual way to

understand just how difficult your design
solutions might be to implement. This
exercise will help you identify whether your
solutions are incremental, evolutionary, or
revolutionary and whether your solutions
extend, adapt, or create a totally new
offering. Youll also clarify whether your
solutions are targeted at your current user
group or whether it expands to a new group
of users. By seeing your solutions in relation
to each other, youll quickly ascertain which
ones your organization has the means,
manpower, and capacity to undertake.
New Offerings
E V O L U T I O N A RY
R E V O L U T I O N A RY
I N C R E M E N TA L
E V O L U T I O N A RY
New Users
This Gets You

A snapshot of where your
solution falls from baby
steps to groundbreaking
innovation.
Innovation 2x2
Existing Users
IMPLEMENTATION
Existing Offerings
HERES HOW TO MAKE YOUR MATRIX

Draw Your 2x2: On a large sheet of paper,
draw your gridthe vertical axis represents
the novelty of your offering and the
horizontal axis represents its users. Totally
new offerings land above the horizontal axis
and existing ones land below. An idea aimed
at new users falls to the right of the vertical
axis and one that affects existing users falls
to the left.
Write Your Solutions on Post-its: Place
revolutionary new ideas that will attract new
users in the top right quadrant. Incremental
ideas that offer small builds on existing
services will hit below the horizontal axis.
Assess Your Distribution: Look at the

spread of your solutions from incremental
to revolutionary. Are there gaps in your
portfolio of solutions? Are parts of the
matrix blank and others full? If so, you may
want to go back to brainstorming in order to
develop solutions that will intentionally ll
that gap.
Whats Your Matrix Telling You?: Lots of
organizations say that theyre interested
in revolutionary thinking, but often,
incremental change can have the greatest
chance for big impact. Think hard about
what your organization can realistically
achieve and what will benet your
constituents most.
Class 4:
Step 2: Create an Action Plan

Devising an innovative solution and putting it into practice are two different propositions.
Creating a plan for implementing will help you understand what will be required to get your
solution out in the world and where your organization will have to seek help.
This Gets You

A better sense of what
it will take to make your
idea work in a real-world
context.
Keep in Mind
The more diligent and
intentional you are about
nding partners, staff,
and a strategy that are
the right t, the more
youll set your idea up for
success.
Make a Roadmap
Build Partnerships
Roadmapping is a chance to gather the key

stakeholders in your project and collectively
figure out a timeline, who is responsible for
which elements of the project, and establish
key milestones. Sometimes its helpful to
print out a big calendar for the next year
or 18 months and use it to map out what
needs to happen whenkey dates such
as a Pilot launch in addition to tasks that
need to happen in order to support these
milestones, such as manufacturing start
and end dates.
As you move through the Implementation

phase you may realize that youll need to
rely on a variety of partners. For example,
youll identify potential funding partners
when you Develop a Funding Strategy
below or craft your Sustainable Revenue
model (Class 4, Step 5). The key idea here
is identifying the kinds of partners youll
need, and starting to build relationships
with them.
Staff Your Project

The methodology here is pretty similar to
how you first build a team in the Inspiration
phase, only this time youll want to be
far more targeted. Whereas a multidisciplinary team is great during design
research for arriving at unexpected ideas
and novel solutions, in the Implementation
phase youll be looking for specialized
know-how, technical capacity, outside
partners, and funding. Consider the needs
of your project, and evaluate if nows the
time for some team members to roll off your
project and for others to roll on.
Develop a Funding Strategy

A funding strategy will get you the
money you need to get your solution
out into the world. Get any key funding
partners together with your design team
and brainstorm the best ways to get your
project off the ground. This strategy may
be different than your ultimate sustainable
revenue approach so focus on your shortterm financial approach here.
Create a Pitch
At this point in the project, it will become
more and more crucial to be able to
communicate your ideahow it works,
why it counts, and who it benefits. And in
the process of making a pitch, youll clarify
the key elements of your idea and refine
how you talk about them. Keep in mind the
different types of people you may talk to
from banks to potential customersand
make the appropriate changes based on
your target listeners.
Class 4:
Asili, a community-owned social

enterprise, was designed and launched
to bring improved health, water,
nutrition, and agriculture to the DRC.
To ensure a successful launch and

sustainable model, signicant time went
into dening the roles of Asilis staff
members and what skills were key.
This roadmap of Asilis launch plan provides an overview of the next ve

years where Asili is projected to expand its offerings to include energy,
education, and sanitation.
At the end of three years, Asili is projected to be operating within ve

communities. This is another roadmap that shows which phases of the
social enterprise will be rolled out in different communities.
For Asili to operate as planned, the team

needed to plot out where the funding
gap was and when the social enterprise
model would break even.
Class 4:
Step 3: Launch Your Solution

Take your idea to the next level by testing it in the marketplace. A Live Prototype or a Pilot
are important tools designed to test the desirability, feasibility, and viability of your idea
with customers at a small scale and on a limited budget. Here is a broad overview of what
to keep in mind when rst testing an idea in the marketplace.
This Gets You

An important look at how
your solution reacts to
real market forces.
Keep in Mind
Though iteration is still
the name of the game,
it will be less frequent
at this point. Live
Prototypes and Pilots
are meant for concepts
that are pretty high
resolution.
Run a Live Prototype

Live prototyping is one of the most
powerful ways to test your solution in a
real marketplace context. Until now, your
prototypes have been rough, doing only
enough to convey the idea you wanted
to test. Consider a Live Prototype to be a
stress test for your solution in real-world
conditions. It can run from a few days to a
few weeks and will help you understand the
feasibility and viability of your idea.
Dene What to Test

As with prototyping during the Ideation
phase, youll want to determine what it is
you want to test in your Live Prototype.
Here are a few places to start:
PricingHow much will you charge
for your product or service? Might
this price vary from community to
community? How do these prices
compare to your competitors?
Payment optionsHow will customers
pay for your product or service? Upfront? Installments? Might they want a
subscription?
IncentivesWho are your employees
and what are their incentives for
making your product or service a
success? Do they work on commission?
Customer retentionAre repeat

customers essential for your business
model? What incentives might you
provide to keep them?
Customer experienceCan you
experiment with different ways that
customers might interact with your
product or service during different
touchpoints of your experience map
created in the Class 3 Workshop.
Go to Pilot
If a Live Prototype is a quick look at how
your solution behaves in the marketplace,
a Pilot is a sustained engagement. Pilots
can last months and will fully expose your
solution to market forces. At this point
youre not testing just an idea, but rather
youre testing an entire system. Ideally
youll have run a few Live Prototypes before
going to Pilot so that some of the kinks are
worked out.
During a Pilot youll fully execute on your
idea finding out if it truly works the way you
envisioned by running it with all the staff,
space, and resources necessary. Youll learn
if your idea really is desirable, viable, and
feasible, and what it might look like to do it
at scale.
Class 4:
An IDEO.org team designing a new teen experience for reproductive health services live
prototyped a colorful, teen-friendly clinic in Lusaka, Zambia. The design team tested if
their teen ambassadors outreach strategy would effectively spread the word and get
teens in the door. Once there, would the space resonate with teens?
PROTOTYPING CHEAT SHEET

We know weve thrown a lot of testing techniques your way in the past several weeks. Heres a quick way
to think about the differences between a Rapid Prototype, a Live Prototype, and a Pilot.
Rapid Prototype
Live Prototype
Pilot
Answers the Question:

How well does one particular
piece of the solution work
and does it resonate with the
people youre designing for?

How well does this solution
resonate with the market?

Is this solution as a whole
feasible and viable in the
marketplace?
Key Features:
- Low delity
- May test a small piece of the
whole idea
- Likely not market-ready
Key Features:
- Moderate delity
- Tests multiple pieces of the idea
as they interact together
- Appears to be market-ready
Key Features:
- High delity
- Tests the whole idea
- Actually is market-ready
Class 4:
Step 4: Keep Getting Feedback and Iterating

Even though your idea is now as close to market as its ever been, you still need the input
of the people youre designing for. With their feedback, continue iterating and rening your
concept so that it best meets their needs.
This Gets You

A peek at how your idea
as a whole is resonating
with the people youre
designing for and a better
understanding for its
viability and feasibility.
Keep Getting Feedback
Keep Iterating
Dont lose sight of the iterative approach

that youve taken so far. As counterintuitive
as it might seem, youre solution is never
truly finished. Even when youve gone to
market you can always improve it.
Keep in Mind
Even years after launch, a
solution always has room
to grow and improve.
Gathering feedback from the people youre

designing for is a never-ending process and
will be critical as you keep pushing your
idea forward. As you run Live Prototypes,
pilot your idea, and measure and evaluate
your work, youll want to have team
members dedicated to getting feedback
from key partners and the people youre
looking to serve.
As youve likely noticed by this point,

iteration is the name of the game in humancentered design. Though your solution is
now nearly ready to get out into the world,
you need to keep iterating. If you need a
reminder of iteration as a core mindset, take
a look back at the Class 1 Mindsets video
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate.
Include Key Stakeholders

Convening the right group of stakeholders
at once can bring up a lot of feedback in a
single session.
What are the ways in which your solution

could be just a little bit better? Can you
tweak your communication strategy, maybe
youll need to evolve your revenue plans,
or perhaps your distribution plan needs a
tweak. As soon as you get your solution out
into the world start to notice what could be
better and assess how you can make it so.
By continuing to iterate, solicit feedback,
and build those learnings back into your
solution youll get further and further
toward having a huge impact.
Make sure to capture feedback in your

notebook and share back with the entire
design team. You can do this by using a
similar approach as you used when making
sense of information in synthesis. Take
a look back at methods from the Ideation
phase, such as Download Your Learnings
and Share Inspiring Stories (Class 3, Step 1).
Class 4:
Step 5: Scale Towards Impact

Your goal has always been to have big impact, and thats what human-centered design is all
aboutproviding effective solutions for the people youre trying to serve. Its important to
sit down with your team and map out what success looks like and how to get there.
This Gets You

A well dened goal to be
working towards and a
look at all of the things
that need to happen to
help you reach this goal.
Keep in Mind
Success and impact
will look different for
every solution. Though
youll want to make sure
everyone is on board and
working towards the same
goal, you should check
in periodically with your
team to be sure your
goal is still achieving the
intended impact.
Dene Success
In the course of the Implementation phase
youll think about staffing, funding, and
mapping out your project timeline. This is a
great opportunity to figure out what success
looks like. Determine important milestones
in the life of your solution, and think in
terms of a variety of time horizons. What is
success in the next two months, in the next
year, in five years?
Sustainable Revenue
A funding strategy will get you through
launch, but youll need a long term revenue
strategy to have maximum impact and
maintain a sustainable solution. This is the
time to sit down with your design team and
key partners and stakeholders to assess if
youve got the right revenue strategy or if
your thinking needs an update.
Here are some points to address:
What are all of the costs that the
solution would incur, from staff to
marketing and production?
If youre relying on grants or donations,
think critically about how youll raise
money and how reliable your funding
sources are. What kind of relationships
might you need to build to ensure your
venture?
If youre selling a product, how much of

it do you need to sell to hit your revenue
goals? How can you keep customers
coming back? How much should
your product cost? Will you need to
introduce new products over time?
Think about scaling your project. In
five years, will you be operating in
more than one location? Will you have
multiple products? Is this first offer
part of a family of potential goods
or services? How can you grow your
long-term revenue plans alongside your
solution?
Measure and Evaluate

Throughout the design process youve
constantly been learning, evaluating, and
improving your solution. And now that
youre on the verge of getting it out into the
world youll need a plan to find out if youre
having the impact that you want. There are
lots of ways to measure and evaluate your
solution, the key is to understand what
approach is right for you. Sometimes its
easy, either your solution makes money
or it doesnt. But if youre trying to change
a communitys behavior or increase the
adoption of a service, you may need a more
nuanced approach. Keep in mind, it may
take years to truly understand the impact of
your solution.
10
Class 4:
SCALING STRATEGIES TO CONSIDER

Even in the early days of your solution, youve probably been thinking about how you would scale your
potential ideas. But no two businesses or programs are alike. Here are a few ways to jumpstart your
thinking about how you could expand the reach of your solution.
BOOTSTRAPPING
FRANCHISING
INTEGRATION
What is it?
Raising capital to expand and
replicate your pilot model
without external partners.
What is it?
Selling or licensing a business
package to entrepreneurs
consisting of a fully branded,
ready-to-run social enterprise.
Entrepreneurs might pay a
franchise fee to use your idea
and branded materials, and
would maintain a salesforce
and handle all operations.
What is it?
Just like you looked for
partners to help launch your
pilot, sometimes the key to
scaling might be combining
forces with an existing social
enterprise, government
program, or nonprot.
When does it makes sense?

Bootstrap scaling can be
very capital- and resourceintensive, but can make
sense if working with local
social entrepreneurs or other
community partners proves
unfeasible. Alternatively,
bootstraping can make sense
if your idea, when piloted,
seems so promising that it can
potentially be a lucrative and
investor-friendly business.
+ Pros
Full control over brand and service
Ability to make sweeping changes
Doesnt rely heavily on willingness
and abilities of external partners
- Cons
Capital-intensive
Large staff to hire and manage
High risk
Slow growth
Potentially in competition with local
partners, instead of collaboration

Franchising works well if there
are other social entrepreneurs
who are interested in your
idea and would be in a position
to run their own sales and
operations.
+ Pros
Moderate control over brand and
service
Supports local businesses
Less capital-intensive than
bootstrap scaling
- Cons
Difcult to maintain quality and
consistency
Relies on willingness and abilities of
other social entrepreneurs

Integration works best when
the best route to scale isnt
necessarily keeping your
product or service as an
independent business, or
when youve identied how
your design might complement
or leverage the offers of
already existing organizations,
products, or services. Perhaps
a community organization
could implement it more
effectively at scale as a new
program? Or an existing social
enterprise could add it as a
new product line?
+ Pros
High potential for impact
Much less capital intensive
Supports local businesses or
community organizations
- Cons
Relies on willingness and abilities of
external partners
Potential loss of control
Difcult to maintain quality and
consistency
11
Class 4:
Case Study: SmartLife

Designing a Scalable Water and Hygiene Business
In recent years, Nairobi, Kenya has become an exciting hub for technology
and entrepreneurship, with high-speed Internet connectivity linking the
city to a global innovation network. However, Nairobi is not immune to
the challenges that so many developing countries share. In Kenya, only
61 percent of people have access to clean drinking water; 84 percent of
preschool-aged children are vitamin A-decient; and diarrheal diseases are
among the top 10 causes of morbidity and mortality.
Though numerous organizations are working to combat these crises,
solutions are often siloed, inefcient, and unsustainable. IDEO.org, along
with partners Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), Global
Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Aqua for All, and Unilever, saw an
opportunity to create a social enterprise that would improve access to clean
water, personal care products, and health education.
12
Class 4:
The Outcome
After an intensive prototyping period on
the ground in Nairobi, the team launched
SmartLife, a scalable retail business and
brand that offer clean water and health and
hygiene products. SmartLife is now running
successfully in several sites around the city.
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
Half of the team continued conducting

interviews and other research, talking to
locals about their water and health needs,
market value, and seasonal variations. The
other half quickly pulled together their
prototype business, and with the help of a
translator, they launched a one-day test run.
An eight-week sprint of rapid iteration

and real-time customer feedback, the
design team hit the ground running on its
trip to Nairobi. The accelerated timeline
necessitated a fascinating flip of how we
typically run our design projects. Instead
of synthesizing its ideas and developing
solutions after a trip to the field, the team
leaned on its existing knowledge of the
problems facing Nairobis poor and then
dreamed up a handful of entrepreneurial
ideas that they could get into the hands of
low-income Kenyans to test.
The team had hired a local kiosk vendor

and cart operator to wear branded apparel
and sell water in jerry cans that had been
adorned with Live Well stickers. They sent
their translator around as a door-to-door
salesperson, selling hygiene products
and talking to people about health and
sanitation. The translator came back with
key learnings that would help inspire a
subsequent version of the business. It was
completely chaotic but fertile with learning
experience, recalls project lead Robin Bigio.
After half a day, the team already learned
enough to prepare the next rev of Live Well.
In the weeks leading up to the trip, they

came up with three business concepts that
they could prototype on the ground. One
idea was Live Well, a dummy brand with a
logo and brand collateral that could be used
to set up a business prototype on arrival
in Kenya.
Among the challenges, they realized water

needed to be ordered ahead to reduce the
physical demand of transporting unsold
cans and to enable optimization of the
delivery route. On the positive side, the
team found that the strong branding
instantly inspired trust. Nobody questioned
13
Class 4:
that it was good water and multiple

customer touch points and physical, stable
sites gave Live Well credibility.
Three days later, the team launched the next
version of the business in a new location in
town, changing the name from Live Well
to SmartLife. This time customers actually
placed orders at a kiosk and made a payment
for water delivery. People were willing
to give money up front for service that
would come the next day, which is unheard
of in Kenya, says Bigio, We discovered
that there was an aspirational side to this
business. People were excited about having
a great source of drinking water.
When the market testing was complete, the
team visited each of the customers whod
paid ahead to explain that the business did
not yet exist, but was coming soon. They
refunded the down payments and gave out
cans of clean water for their participation.
IMPLEMENTATION
Upon returning to San Francisco, the team

worked on revising the brand and business
model to account for logistical factors such
as how much water could be processed
and transported, how much space it would
require, pricing strategies, retail design,
and educational materials. Working at

a breakneck pace, the IDEO.org team
delivered a comprehensive design concept
to its partners, along with strategies,
brands, and business models.
WSUP, GAIN, Aqua for All, and Unilever
took all of this information into account
when they launched the SmartLife Pilot, a
critical part of the Implementation phase,
and a chance to test a solution against real
live market forces. Thanks to relentless
prototyping, rapid iteration, and the
integration of customer feedback from the
design team, SmartLifes pilot was hit and
led to launch.
By the time the design team wrapped up
their field visits, the versioning process had
led them to a well-defined business plan
and, most importantly, had helped them
establish trust from the market they would
be serving.
Because so much had been sorted out
during the prototyping phase, SmartLife
was able to use the Pilot to test only a few
high-fidelity versions of the service, all of
which had a great shot at working. As with
any element of the human-centered design
process though, Pilots still afford crucial
moments to test, iterate, and learn.
14
Class 4:
Method in Action: Live Prototyping
Partnering with the Rockefeller Foundation, IDEO.org engaged in a 16-week project to better
understand and identify opportunity for change surrounding the issue of post-harvest food spoilage
in Africa. The team travelled to both Senegal and Kenya to explore the agricultural value chain and
gained a strong understanding of the behaviors of rural, smallholder farmersranging from unstable
to transitional to fully stable farmers. When considering opportunities in a real market context, the
design team spent time Live Prototyping business solutions to reduce post-harvest loss.
While building out and testing our concepts
in Thiess, Senegal, we were introduced to a
group of five women. This group had tried
to start a juice operation using fruit that
would otherwise spoil with 35 women last
year, but it failed for a variety of reasons.
In speaking with them about using marketbased solutions for reducing food spoilage,
they expressed knowledge of what they had
learned from their mistakes the first time
around, and an interest to try it again. So
we decided to test the solution and give the
group of five women some seed capital to
start the project again.
This time they elected to try a smaller group
and to run their operation as a business
so they could share the profit. We gave the
women 10,000 CFA (~$20 USD) and we told
them they needed to make all decisions as
a group. We also asked them to document
what the money was used for and keep a
journal about what happened. Within four
days, the group bought the raw materials
they needed, secured a space to sell
from, set up a refrigerator and packaging

operation, and had started to generate a
profit!
The group chose to do the project in a
small group of five, which allowed them to
manage decisions. They all knew each other
and had a high level of trust for one another.
They carefully monitored the composition
of the juicelast time they used too much
sugar so they were not making a profit with
each packet sold. Finally, when they were
doing the juice in a large group, the profits
were fed back to the organization, and the
individuals were never paid for their efforts.
With the current business, they know they
will profit, so they are giving it their all.
We have noticed that with farmers, many
times when a solution fails, they do not try
again. By removing the initial cash outlay
for these women with just $20, we were able
to show them that there are multiple ways
to process their spoiling fruit, and that they
could iterate and learn from past mistakes.
15
Class 4:
4
Workshop Guide
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 4:
Table Of Contents
The Class 4 Workshop can be completed over the course of just one
week, and will include a number of activities to help you and your team
understand what it might take if you were to bring your solution to market.
This course is afterall just a learning experience, so youre not expected
to actually implement your solution. But for the sake of learning the
Implementation phase, lets pretend you are!
Class Leaders Guide

Before Class 4 Workshop

01 Questions, Comments, & Takeaway // 15 mins
02 Create Your 2x2 Matrix // 15 mins
03 Make an Action Plan // 1 hour
04 Share Your Solution // 1 hour
Class 4:
Class Leaders Guide

In the Class 3 Workshop, you tested your prototypes in the community and
received feedback. Typically this would lead to several rounds of iteration,
but for this class youll just take a moment in Activity 01 to reect on
what your team would change and then move forward in thinking about
implementation. Some of these Class 4 activities will be more hypothetical,
but implementation does, in fact, take intentional thought and planning.
At the end of this workshop, your team will take some time to share your
solution with the greater course community. And who knows, maybe you
really could set your idea up for success!
Before The Class 4 Workshop

Confirm That You Have A Meeting Space
This space should have ample wall or table space where you can post ideas.

Coordinate With Your Team To Bring Supplies

A notebook for blank paper, pens, felt markers or Sharpies, Post-it notes (or their equivalent),
and printed Class 4 Workshop Guide should be sufficient.
Lead The Workshop

This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions and assignments
for Class 4. You will also want to keep track of time so that your group makes it through
the full workshop in approximately two and a half hours. Make sure to read the Class 4
Readings thoroughly so that you can effectively lead your team this class.
Class 4:
01
Questions, Comments & Takeaways
15 Mins
Congratulations! Youve completed your Class 3 Ideation phase activities and turned your opportunities for design into real
life concepts! Youve also learned about the last phase of the design process as part of the Class 4 Implementation phase
Readings. This Activity 01 is a way for you to reflect on your experiences synthesizing your learnings and testing your ideas
in the field, ask questions, and discuss what iterations you would make if you were taking this idea forward. Take a few
minutes to reflect on the questions below. Then discuss what you are most excited about or interested in with your group.
1) What would you most like to discuss with the group about your experiences during your Class 3 Ideation phase
workshop? What was most surprising? What was the hardest part for you? What were your aha moments? Discuss the
iterations you would make on your idea and what learnings led to these new iterations.
2) Did anyone check out what other teams were doing on the Online Community? Would you like to share something
inspiring you saw? Did you learn anything interesting from other teams around the world tackling your same challenge?
3) What were your big takeaways from the Class 4 Implementation Readings? Do you have questions?
Class 4:
02
Create Your 2x2 Matrix
15 Mins
Now your design team has spent time testing your idea. Youve made your ideas tangible, created prototypes to test your
core assumptions, and hopefully gained some valuable feedback from those you tested your ideas with. In this Activity 02,
were going to take a moment to pause and see where your idea falls on the Innovation 2x2 matrix. This will serve as a great
starting point for your team to understand just how much work your idea would take to really implement.
1. Draw Your 2x2

Use the following page as a template. On a large
sheet of paper, draw your gridthe vertical axis
represents the novelty of your offering and the
horizontal axis represents its users. Totally new
offerings land above the horizontal axis and existing
ones land below. An idea aimed at new users falls
to the right of the vertical axis and one that affects
existing users falls to the left.
2. Write Your Solutions on Post-Its
Revolutionary new ideas that will attract new
users should be placed in the top right quadrant.
Incremental ideas that offer small builds on existing
services will hit below the horizontal axis.
3. Assess Your Distribution
Look at the spread of your solutions from
incremental to revolutionary. Are there gaps in your
portfolio of solutions? Are parts of the matrix blank
and others full? If so, you may want to go back to
brainstorming in order to develop solutions that will
intentionally ll that gap.
4. Whats the Matrix Telling You?
Lots of organizations say that theyre interested
in revolutionary thinking, but often, incremental
change can have the greatest chance for big
impact. Think hard about what your organization
can realistically achieve and what will benet your
constituents most.
Class 4:
02
Create Your 2x2 Matrix
15 Mins
New Offerings
RE VOLU TIONARY
INC REMENTAL
E VOLU TIONARY
New Users
Existing Users
E VOLU TIONARY
Existing Offerings
Class 4:
03
Make an Action Plan
1 Hour
Typically, your design team would create an action plan while in the room with key partners and stakeholders, requiring
more lengthy discussion and collaboration. For this Class 4 Activity 03, however, lets get some practice making an action
plan just with your team. Spend some time discussing with your team which type of staff members, partners, and funders
you would need to get on board to make your idea happen.
Staff
Partnerships
Funding
- What core skills do you need on your

team to successfully implement?
- Do you need a project manager to
coordinate your growing team?
- What support staff will help your idea
to get off the ground?
- What types of partners will you need

to support your implementation?
- Are they funding or capacity partners?
If capacity, what do they contribute
(i.e. web development, telecommunications, a distribution network)?
- Will you apply for grants or fundraise

to get your idea off the ground?
- Will you continue to need this type of
funding as your idea scales or will you
shift to a sustainable revenue model?
- When do you need to break even?
Class 4:
03
Make an Action Plan
1 Hour
When bringing your solution to market, youll need to get very used to talking about your idea. The more you tell the story
of your potential solution, the more likely you are to get funders, partners, and staff members on board to support your
work. First, work as a team to create a pitch for your solution. Then take turns each practicing your pitch in front of the
group and receiving feedback from the rest of your team members. Refer to some of the tips below to improve your pitch!
Create a Pitch: For the Person Youre Designing For

Some tips to drafting a good pitch:
- Concentrate on the main thrust of your idea, why its different, and any call to action youre making.
- Try to succinctly explain it in less than a minute.
- Be clear and unambiguous. Dont get bogged down in the details!
- Get creative with your storytelling formatit could be a pamphlet, a website, a book, or a presentation.
Class 4:
03
Make an Action Plan
1 Hour
Great work! But remember, the way you pitch your idea to different stakeholders and partners often varies quite a bit. Now
lets think about what your pitch would look like if you were talking to a potential funder. Role play with your group to
pretend youre giving your pitch in front of a social impact investor or large donor. Then, give each other feedback.
Create a Pitch: For a Potential Funder

Some tips to drafting a good pitch:
- Concentrate on the main thrust of your idea, why its different, and any call to action youre making.
- Try to succinctly explain it in less than a minute.
- Be clear and unambiguous. Dont get bogged down in the details!
- Get creative with your storytelling formatit could be a pamphlet, a website, a book, or a presentation.
Class 4:
04
Share Your Solution
1 Hour
Congratulations on completing Class 4your solution is that much closer to being ready for
the real world!
Lets pause for a moment and reflect on how far youve come. From the original design
challenge, youve gone out into the community to hear about and see the issue first hand
from the people youre designing for; youve organized and synthesized everything
you learned into actionable opportunities for design; youve generated lots of ideas for
possible solutions; youve brought a small handful of those solutions to life through rapid
prototyping; and then youve even put the time and thought into how you would introduce
that final solution into a real-world context. Thats quite a feat for six weeks. Good job!
We would hate for all of those solutions to just end right there. So now for the fun part. You
get to share your solution with the rest of the NovoEd course community!
There are over 16,000 other registered course takers who have been working alongside
you the past several weeks, and the power of this course comes from being able to share
learnings, feedback, and excitement with the broader community. Take some time as a
group to find the right way to share your solution in whatever way appeals most to your
group. This could be a deck, a powerpoint presentation, a video, or anything else you can
imagine that helps communicate your idea to the broader community.
We recommend around an hour to build something to submit to the Class 4 Assignment. If
your team is interested in putting together something a bit more elaborate, make sure youre
in agreement with the rest of your team on how much time youd like to allot for this activity.
Dont worry, weve given you some extra time following the end course date, so you have
time to get creative if you so choose!
Please see the NovoEd Assignments page for further instructions on how to submit
and share your solution.
10
Class 5:
Moving Forward
5
Moving Forward
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Table Of Contents
Class 5
Moving Forward
Readings
How to Scope Your Next Challenge
Step 1: Dissecting a Design Challenge
Design Challenge Example 1
Reect on the Process

Gain Inspiration from the Online Community
Class 5:
Moving Forward
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
How to Scope Your Next Challenge

During this course, youve moved through the
Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation phases
of the human-centered design process to arrive at
innovative solutions to your challenge.
The process is not a one-time deal, however.
Becoming a good human-centered designer
means lots of practice. So in moving forward, well
leave you at the end of this course with a better
understanding of how to scope your own design
challenge so you can go out in the world and put
your new skills to work.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Step 1: Dissecting a Design Challenge

At IDEO.org, we always frame our design challenges as questions. Not only does phrasing
our work as a question put us in the mindset of arriving at impactful solutions, but it also
helps us generate as many ideas as possible along the way.
Scoping a Design Challenge
Too Narrow or Too Broad?
This process is more art than science, but

were going to break it down for you, show
you what a good design question looks like,
and help you refine the problem you see
into an inspiring and thought-provoking
opportunity to design a better world.
But theres a real trick to turning a problem

in need of a solution into an opportunity for
design. Ask your team to solve too broad a
question and you wont know where to start.
Ask them too narrow a question, and you
risk stifling creativity. So as we scope each
new project, we frame our design question
with some key factors in mind.
WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND
A. Is the question focused

on ultimate impact?
B. Does the question allow
for a variety of solutions?
C. Does the question take
into account context
and constraints?
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Design Challenge
Example
How Might We Help Teens In Lusaka Take Control Of Their

Reproductive Health?
A sexual health non-profit with clinics all over the world engaged IDEO.org for an initial
14-week project to help achieve a variety of goals in Lusaka, Zambia. They wanted
to make youth more proactive about their sexual health. This included preventing
unwanted pregnancies, quelling the spread of STIs, and reducing the stigma and
prevailing myths around contraception.
Ask The Right Question
TOO BROAD
JUST RIGHT
How might we end

unwanted pregnancy?
This question is massive, and
though it does allow for a
huge variety of solutions,
how do you know where to
start? With parents, teens,
teachers, the public health
system? Too broad.
How might we help teens

in Lusaka take control of
their reproductive health?
TOO NARROW
How might we get Zambian

teens to use condoms?
This one is too narrow because
it focuses on one type of
contraception. What if IUDs,
the pill, or abstinence are
actually better more effective
solutions for Zambian teens?
Too narrow.
HERES WHY THE QUESTION SATISFIES OUR CRITERIA

on ultimate impact?
Yes. The question is framed
around a clearly stated end
goal, helping teens take
control of their reproductive
health. A key element of the
question is that it does not
specify how the impact will
occur, which brings us to our
next criteria.
B. Does the question

allow for a variety of
solutions?

and constraints?
Yes. Possible solutions might
Yes. We know immediately
include a communications
campaign, a service
experience, a mobile tool,
a physical space, or even
an interaction. Because the
organization has clinics,
staff, and local know-how, we
know that we could execute a
variety of different solutions.
Understanding what your
partners can do brings us to
our next criteria.
who we are designing for,

teens in Lusaka. We also know
about the organizations
capacitybecause they work
across the sexual health
eld, they could implement a
number of potential solutions.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Design Challenge
Example
How Might We Design a Better Way to Plant Teff in Ethiopia?

Teff is a vastly important grain in Ethiopia, but its seeds are miniscule and its been
planted in the same way for thousands of years. In a yearlong project, IDEO.org was
engaged to figure out how to plant teff efficiently and quickly while taking into account
different soil types and terrain. The brief also told us that wed have to design a method
that was inexpensive, easy to use, and could be built and repaired in Ethiopia.
TOO BROAD
JUST RIGHT
How might we help

Ethiopians grow
more food?
TOO NARROW
How might we design a better

way to plant teff in Ethiopia?
This question is too big to

gure out what to design.
You may as well reinvent the
weather. Too broad.
How might we design a

plastic, solar-powered teff
planter for under $15?
An idea like this one might
be an avenue to consider, but
it rules out too many other
possible solutions. Too narrow.

on ultimate impact?
Yes. The project is focused
on one crop and in one place,
and were doing it to improve
farmers livelihoods.

solutions?

and constraints?
Yes. The question doesnt
Yes. Knowing that we had
suggest a particular way of

planting teff. Though we
suspected that wed design
a planting device, we could
also have designed a behavior
change campaign, or a new
planting strategy for extension
workers to teach.
to design for the whole of

Ethiopia meant that wed need
to contend with hard earth
as well as mud. Knowing that
designing around small seed
size was important, as well as
understanding the constraints
of building and working in
Ethiopia.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Design Challenge
Example
How Might We Encourage Good Financial Habits Among Underserved

Youth In Chicago?
For this project, IDEO.org had six weeks to design a tool to support the work of a
Chicago-based nonprofit working to educate low-income teens around financial literacy.
Though the program had success in the classroom, they wanted a digital tool that would
reinforce their teachings when students were out in the world.
TOO BROAD
JUST RIGHT
How might we get lowincome teens in Chicago

to save money?
Its a nice idea, but this
question doesnt build off of
the work of our partner. The
aim here is to support their
classroom teachings, not to
reinvent their program.
How might we encourage

good nancial habits among
underserved youth in
Chicago?
TOO NARROW
How might we design an

app to get teens to sign up
for a bank account?
By focusing on just one
nancial habit, this is too
specic. Though saving
may be part of the solution,
focusing on just one action
limits how you might
encourage a wider set of
behaviors.

on ultimate impact?
Yes. The question clearly
states that the goal is to build
good nancial habits among a
particular group of people in a
particular place.

solutions?
Yes. We could have designed a
website, an app, a game,
or even a social network, all
of which could encourage
good habits. And the tool itself
could focus on a variety of
behaviors like saving, applying
for credit, budgeting,
and more.

and constraints?
Yes. Right away we knew we
were working with low-income
teens in Chicago. We also
knew that the tool has to be
digital and support students
when theyre out of the
classroom. We wanted to be
able to use the tool within the
next six months, so we had to
be able to build it quickly.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Reect on the Process

As part of the Class 5 Workshop, youll get a chance to reect as a group on team
dynamics, working styles, and what it was like to collaborate as designers. However, take
some time here in the quiet of your house, apartment, or ofce, to reect personally on
what you liked or didnt like about the human-centered design process and course.
What was it like to work as a design team? What was most inspiring? What was most frustrating?
What were the most successful aspects of the course for you? What were the weakest parts of the course?
How Might We improve the course for next time?
Class 5:
Moving Forward
You likely felt more comfortable during some parts of the human-centered design process than others. This is entirely
normal. Think back over the last four classes. Which areas felt most natural? Where did you struggle? Why? For each
phase in the human-centered design process (Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation) mark where you fall on the axis
between I struggled and I excelled. Below that, write a few sentences about why.
I struggled
I excelled
Inspiration
Why? What was your biggest aha moment during this phase?
I struggled
I excelled
Ideation
I struggled
I excelled
Implementation
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Gain Inspiration from the Online Community

Spend some time diving into the Online Community and exploring what others have been
doing for the last four classes. Use the questions below to guide your searchyoull be
discussing what you nd during the Class 5 Workshop with your team. If possible, consider
bringing a few printouts of the ideas, pictures, or comments that were most inspiring.
Find Similarities
Find Differences
What concepts can you nd on the Online Community that closely

resemble the idea(s) that your team prototyped? Can you nd
examples of a team working in a vastly different geographic context
that designed something similar? Write down team names and a brief
description below.
Find examples of teams that created vastly different solutions

to your design challenge. Can you nd a team that had a similar
design solution to you, but prototyped it in a much different
manner? Can you nd a team working in a similar geographic
context as your team, but with a radically different solution?
10
Class 5:
Moving Forward
5
Workshop Guide
INSPIRATION
IDEATION
IMPLEMENTATION
The Design Process
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Table of Contents
Class Leaders Guide


02 Dene Your Challenge // 10 mins
03 Frame Your Challenge as a Question // 20 mins
04 Build Your Team // 30 mins
05 Build a Budget // 30 mins
06 Build a Timeline // 30 mins
07 Reect on the Course // 20 mins
08 Moving Forward // 10 mins
Class 5:
Moving Forward
Class Leaders Guide

During this Class 5 Workshop, youre team will learn how to scope your next
design challenge. You may choose to work as a team in scoping a single
challenge or each team member can choose to scope one separately.
Discuss this option as a group. It may depend on whether your team would
like to embark on the design process again together or branch out and try
the process with new team members. Finding new members may offer new
perspectives and provide a richer learning experience. However, maybe
your group has found a good groove and you want to keep up the energy!

Find a Meeting Space
Confirm with your team that you have a space for your workshop activities.
Conrm That Everyone Can Make the Workshop
If some members of the team will be missing, consider rescheduling or have a plan
in place to go forward with a smaller number of team members for the class.
Coordinate With Your Team to Bring Supplies
A notebook for blank paper, pens, felt markers or Sharpies, Post-it notes (or their
equivalent), and printed Class 5 Workshop Guide should be sufficient.
Lead the Workshop
This guide will walk you through facilitating the activities, discussions and
assignments for Class 5.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
01
Questions, Comments, & Takeaways
10 Minutes
Congratulations! Youve made it to the last Class of the Course for Human-Centered Design. You spent some time this week
diving into the Online Community to check out the work of your peers and gather inspiration from other peoples projects.
Take some time below to share your inspiration with the rest of your group and reflect as a team.
1) What concepts did you see that closely resemble the idea(s) that your team prototyped? What concepts were vastly
different? Did you nd any teams that had a similar design solution, but prototyped it in a much different manner?
2) How might what you learned from your colleagues on Online Community impact your own design solution? Are there
any changes that you might make to your overall idea or specic prototyping approach?
3) Is there any opportunity for collaboration with other teams? Might you exchange ideas as part of a Google Hangout or a
Skype call? Are there teams in your area with whom you might combine forces?
Class 5:
Moving Forward
02
Dene Your Challenge
10 Minutes
In the next two Class 5 Activities, well take you through the steps of how to properly frame a problem as an opportunity for
design. By asking the right question at the beginning of your project, youll put yourself on the path to a more innovative
solution. The process of scoping a good design challenge, however, is more art than science. Refer back to the examples
in the Class 5 Readings as you go through this Workshop Guide, and at the end of these activities well have refined the
problem you see into an inspiring and thought-provoking opportunity to design a better world.
What is the problem youre trying to solve?
KEEP THESE IN MIND

As you work on turning your design challenge into an opportunity for design, your challenge will be dynamic. As you learn
more about the people youre designing for and come up with different and new ideas, that central question that youve
just created is bound to evolve and grow. Its all part of the process and you should expect it to happen. However, to
ensure that youre always on track as your design challenge grows, remember to always keep the three factors in mind:

on ultimate impact?
B. Does the question allow

for a variety of solutions?

into account context and
constraints?
Class 5:
Moving Forward
03
Frame Your Challenge as a Question
20 Minutes
At IDEO.org, we always frame our design challenges as questions. Not only does phrasing our work in How Might We
questions put us in the mindset of arriving at impactful solutions, but it also helps us generate as many ideas as possible
along the way. Now youve seen what makes for a great design challenge. Based on what youve learned in the three
examples from your Class 5 Readings see if you can frame your problem as a question.
1) Take a stab at framing it as a design question.How might we...
2) Now state the ultimate impact youre trying to have.
3) What are some possible solutions to your problem?

Think broadly. Its ne to start a project with a hunch or two, but make sure you allow for surprising outcomes.
4) Finally, write down some of the context and constraints that youre facing.
They could be geographic, technological, time-based, or have to do with the population youre trying to reach.
5) Does your How Might We need a tweak? Try it again.How might we...
Class 5:
Moving Forward
04
Build Your Design Team
30 Minutes
Human-centered design takes an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems because we believe that different
perspectives make for better design. But building a team means being intentional about what you need and who youre
looking for. Finding people with complementary skill sets can be a challenge, and you will most likely not have everything
you need on one team. As your project progresses you might need new kinds of skills, so remember you can always reach
out to outside experts for help. Here are some ways to start thinking about what you need in a team.
1) First, evaluate yourself. What are you great at? Good at? Not so good at?
2) Then, think about your challenge. What are you trying to make? Do you need a specic set of skills? An engineer? An illustrator? A
programmer? Do you need content expertise (or could you interview experts instead)?
3) Finally, consider whats needed for your team. Who else is on your team currently? What skill sets are you still lacking? What is
your plan for attracting them to your team?
Class 5:
Moving Forward
05
Build a Budget
30 Minutes
Now that youve determined what kind of team youll need, its important to think about your budget. It might just be the
biggest constraint youve got. Do you have to pay your team members, whats your prototyping budget, do you need to
incentivize research participants? Be sure to build in a little wiggle room too. Things always cost more than you expect. Fill
out this worksheet and youll be a lot closer to understanding the services, talent, and tools you need and how much money
it will take to cover them.
1) Do you have a budget already? If so, how much have you got?
2) Will you have to fundraise to complete your project? If so, write down a few places where you might get the money.
3) Do you have all the talent you need on your team? Or will you need to hire outside help to complete your project?
4) What kind of supplies, technology, or tools will you need to complete your project? How much do they cost? What kind of
supplies might you need just to test your idea?
5) How many people do you need to talk to in your research? Will you need to compensate or provide a gift for their time?
6) Will you or your team have to travel? Estimate those costs here.
7) Now, based on these previous questions and any other project-specic expenses not mentioned, write down how much you
expect your project to cost.
Class 5:
Moving Forward
06
Build a Timeline
30 Minutes
Setting up a good workplan is a critical part of scoping your own design challenge. Not only will it help you hit your
deadline, but it can instruct you when to bring on new talent, when to share your ideas with your partners, and when you
need to put your head down and race toward the finish line. At IDEO.org, we put huge calendars up on the walls and map
things like deadlines, travel dates, reviews, interim meetings, and more. We recommend doing the same, and by answering
these questions below youll make a good start to scoping your workflow.
1) First things rst, do you have a start date for your project? How about a deadline?
2) The human-centered design process is broken into three parts: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. Given the time frame
youre working with, how would you like to allocate time for each phase?
3) Will you need to travel to the eld on this project? How much time will you need there and where in the span of the project
should your trip occur?
4) Do you have a full-time team dedicated to the project? A part-time team? Realistically, how many hours can your team spend on
this project per week?
5) Do you have key dates to take into account? Interim meetings, team members joining or departing the project, vacations,
holidays?
Think about leaving some exibility in your timeline. Things dont always go as planned!
Class 5:
Moving Forward
07
Reect on the Course
20 Minutes
As part of the Class 5 Readings, you evaluated what you liked or didnt like about working together as a design team, this
course, and the human-centered design process overall. Use the worksheets you filled out during the Class 5 Readings as a
starting point for this group discussion.
Discuss
Team Dynamics
What was it like to work as a design team? Did you like working together?
What was the most inspiring moment for your team?
What was the most frustrating?
Were there moments of conict or disagreement? How did your team reach a resolution?
The Course
What were the most successful aspects of the course?
What were its weakest parts?
Imagine we received a grant from a very generous donor to improve the course. Could you give us three suggestions about
where to start?
1)
2)
3)
You!
Members of your team likely felt more comfortable during some parts of the human-centered design process than others.
This is entirely normal and one of the reasons that having an interdisciplinary design team is so important. Think back over the
course.
Which areas felt most natural for members of your team? Was it the Inspiration phase? Ideation phase? Implementation?
Where did members of the team struggle? Why?
Were there skill sets that were missing from your team? What were they?
If you could draft a new member to your team for your next design challenge, what key skills would they possess?
10
Class 5:
Moving Forward
08
Moving Forward
10 Minutes
Good work! Your team has successfully

completed the human-centered design process.
If you brought beverages to this nal workshop,
give yourselves a toast. You learned a lot and
hopefully made some great progress toward
designing an innovative solution to the challenge
your team took on.
So whats next? Armed with this new humancentered design approach and equipped with a
new design challenge, your options are almost
unlimited. We do, however, want to give you a
few immediate action steps to choose from.
Talk through the options weve highlighted on
the following page with your team and discuss
whether any of them make sense for your
team to pursue as a group. Alternatively, you
might wish to pursue some of these options
individually.
Thanks for taking the time to learn about humancentered design. Have fun out there!
11
Class 5:
Moving Forward
08
Moving Forward
10 Minutes
1
2
3
4
Move Forward with the New Design Challenge Youve Just Scoped.
At the beginning of this Class 5 Workshop, youve learned a bit about the art of scoping your own
design challenge. Wed love to see you follow a social issue that youre passionate about by way of
your own unique design challenge. As youve heard throughout this course, human-centered design is
all about practice, practice, practice. So take this new design challenge as a chance to put your
new skills to work. Use your teammates and the Online Community to assemble a design team and
get started!
Move Forward with the Design Challenge Your Team Has Been Working On
Since Class 2.
Just because this course is ending doesnt mean that your great work on this design challenge
has to end. Could you team up with other human-centered designers in your area? Perhaps
you can collaborate remotely via the Online Community?
Share Your Ideas, Final Prototype, and New Challenges During an In-Person Meetup.
Consider organizing your own meetup. Use the Forum topics on NovoEd and the Acumen Meetup
resources to nd other like-minded individuals and connect with them in person. And if an in-person
meetup just isnt practical, be sure to share as much as possible with the Online Community.
Moving a Bit Slower?

Perhaps youre not quite sure what challenge youd like to tackle next, but you care deeply about
a certain topic area. Clean drinking water? Girls education? Mobile technology? With thousands
of coursemates represented on the Online Community, youre sure to nd other human-centered
designers who care passionately about the same social issues as you. Use the resources of the Online
Community to track down potential teammates and get started brainstorming. And if you havent done
so already, we urge you to visit Design Kit, a learning platform and community of over 58,000 members
using human-centered design to tackle social sector challenges around the world.
12

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The Course for

A seven-week course brought to you by:

Before You Start

This Course Is For You

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conducted over seven weeks. However, you

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Before You Start

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Indeed, not even the term human-centered

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The Course for Human Centered Design

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Before You Start

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Before You Start

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I have a design challenge.

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