Page 86. Watch the Lecture. Part D. LISTEN FOR DETAILS

Unit nine

page 86

watch the lecture

part D: listen for details

today were going to talk about design thinking; design thinking is a way to identify problems and find solutions.

and as you’ll see, it’s really an exciting way to bring innovation, creative ideas to a business.

to explain this process, I’m going to use a case study.

the story of how my company use design thinking to help a real business.

so a couple of years ago we received an email from a clothing store “sunflower”, they needed our help.

sunflower has stores in a dozen large shopping malls around the country and sales for the women’s clothing were good, but sales for the juniors clothing -clothing for teenage girls- were not good.

the owners of sunflower had tried to solve the problem by lowering the prices, buying different brands of clothing, moving things around in the store and buying more advertising.

but nothing worked.

so they came to us asking how do we raise sales in the juniors department?

Well, we said let’s think about it.

let’s design think about it.

the first phase of the design thinking process is to understand the problem from all sides.

in this understand phase, you throw out your old ideas; you gather fresh date about the problem so that’s what we did.

We didn’t just look at sales reports and product information; design thinking is a human centered process.

human centered means understanding the experience of the users, in this case that’s the customers.

so we visited several sunflower stores; we watch customers as they came in the store, observed where they went and what they looked at.

we also talked to them, asking about their shopping experience; why did you come into the store? what did you decide to buy? what did you decide not to buy?

we also talked to people especially teenage girls who walked by the store but didn’t go in.

we asked them what you think about the store? why did you decide not to go in?

over a few weeks we got some valuable information; for example, we learned that 72% of shoppers who entered the store were women over 21, while only 28% were teenagers.

and those teens mostly came in with their mothers; almost none came in by themselves.

when we talk to teen customers one thing was clear, most of the teenagers didn’t think the store had clothing for them.

they saw sunflower as a clothing store for older women.

And the teens who walked by the store, they didn’t even know there was a junior’s department.

so clearly at the store wasn’t attracting teen customers; with this understanding, we revise the owner’s original question.

their original question was how do we raise sales in the juniors department?

we revise this to how we create a store that attracts teenage girls?

Do you see the difference between these two questions?

with this new question in mind, we began the second phase of the design thinking process.

the second phase is the brainstorm phase; in this phase the goal is to think of as many ideas as possible to solve the problem, no matter how strange or unrealistic they seem.

no judgment, just say your idea; no matter how crazy it sounds.

In the brainstorm phase it’s also very important to have a diverse team with many different points of view.

so we included some potential customers, high school girls we had met at the mall.

we also included sunflower employees from different levels and departments.

in the end, high school students provided some of the most interesting and innovative ideas of all.

the brainstorming phase took place over several days in a large relaxing room; it had beanbag chairs, an espresso bar and a fridge stocked with juice.

Why? Well, we wanted the participants to relax; not to feel like they were in a conference room or classroom.

and after four or five days, we had several good ideas and quickly focused on one great idea.

A high school student said the junior’s department in the women’s department looked exactly alike; so we focused on making the two departments look very different.

specifically we used splashy fun colors in the junior section, and placed that section at the front half of the store this way, mall shoppers could see that the store was for both adults and teens.

the girls also told us that when they shop, they often try on an outfit and then take a picture and send it to friends.

so we added some photo stations with different backgrounds around the juniors department; we knew this would appeal to teens and be a really fun and lively addition to the store.

Okay; so are you still with me?

so after the understanding phase and the brainstorm phase, we moved to the final phase; the prototype phase.

in the prototype phase you build a model, a prototype that shows how the new design will look.

and then you test it with real people.

so we set up a prototype of the new design in one sunflower store; we watched customers and gather data for three full weeks to see if the new design made any difference.

and it did; it was very dramatic.

the store sold more juniors clothing in those three weeks than it had sold in the past three months.

in the end, sunflower implemented the new design in all 12 of its stores and saw a big jump in junior sales.

so this is a powerful example of how the design thinking process can lead to innovative solutions.

now I’d like to share another case study, this time in the medical field…