Practical Design Thinking - Understand Your Audience | Online

About this class

Great products and services address the needs and desires of real people. When companies develop products or services without a true understanding of the people who are going to use them, they increase the risk of financial loss, damage to brand equity and failure.

In this class, we look at the role of empathy in the design process and introduce a series of rapid research tools to ensure the products or services we create are fit for purpose. Over three hours, you’ll learn and apply methods for performing user research in the field (contextual inquiry / observation / interviews), synthesising research (affinity mapping) and building personas to communicate users needs to others involved in the design process.

The primary goal is to provide students with a set of practical tools to enable them to apply an empathetic and human-centred approach to their design or business practice.

Takeaways

• Learn about empathetic design and why it is important
• Practice rapid research techniques (ethnography, affinity mapping & interviews)
• Understand what personas are, why they are important and how to use them in the design process