Framework
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking means taking a human-centric approach to solving problems. Anyone can use design thinking to “transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy” (IDEO, n.d.).
In instructional design, understanding user (“learner”) behaviours and expectations is an integral part of the interaction design process. For my ePortfolio, I adapted the Design Thinking Process from the d.School at Stanford. The process is non-linear and iterative, which supports my understanding of eLearning as an ongoing cycle of change and reflection.
The framework moves through five stages, which I use to organize my artifacts:
Empathize
Engage, observe and empathize with learners to understand behaviours and expectations.
Define
Analyse observations, ask critical questions to define and focus on the problem.
Ideate
Generate ideas for solutions to the problem through collaboration and brainstorming.
Prototype
Build representations of your ideas that you can test and play with, to get feedback.
Test
Gather feedback from learners, redefine and rework the problem and prototype as needed.
Adapted from Dam and Siam (2021), Shanks (n.d.)
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