Day 89 - Participant Observation

1. What do people do now?
2. What values and goals do people have?
3. How are these particular activities embedded in a larger ecology?
4. What are the similarities and differences across people?
5. Pay attention to all the artifacts.
6. Look for work arounds and hacks.
7. Errors are a goldmine.
8. If you ask people what they want (lead in questions) as opposed to observing what they do, you can be easily led astray.
9. Find out what people's goals are.
1. Try and do.
2. Ask and listen.
3. Watch and observe.

Day 65 - Empathy and Collaboration in Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a process designers can use to create solutions that match people's needs. The process looks something like this:

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

Two things that must permeate the design thinking process are empathy and collaboration with the target audience.

Empathy is a feeling of affinity with others that is a soft skill. As a ux designer or product manager, you must continually possess and develop it in order to create useful solutions for your customers.

Collaborate with your target audience by directly talking to them to understand the context and culture of your users. As you gain an understanding by using direct observation and qualitative data, you can articulate the problem out of which you create user stories and solutions.