Transcript

Brief Introduction

Welcome to the Week 3. Last week we have covered, characteristics of a successful product in terms of functionality, aesthetics etc etc. We also studied about market study before we start the product development. How do we understand, what is the market. Suppose you find out that there is only one product need, then there is no point in developing the product and no point in applying design thinking. So if there are a huge potential, and if you find there is a huge market for the product, then you start developing it, then there is a worth in terms of innovation and cost benefit.

How to build an efficient product development team. We should always understand, a product cannot be built by single person. It has to be a team. And in this team also; how are you forming this team is also very important. For example if a father, wife, mother, son. If they all start forming a team in developing a product. Their thought process for all the four will almost be similar. So it is better to have expertise from different areas in joining hands together and forming a team, so that there is a positive approach as well as people who present something, you should have counter to those positive you have, then it becomes a very good team.

So how to build an efficient product team, we saw. How to work on promotions, we saw. And finally we saw how to work on process and quality control. Though these things are very seldom talked about, but quality control and the process. Process can be even in terms of protocol development. So this is very important. So we will also see the 5 steps in product design. One is empathy which we saw as part of design thinking. Design thinking is a tool. So we saw all the 5 steps as part of design thinking.

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. And testing.

So let us start discussing each topic in a little elaborate manner. So step 1 is empathize. So please understand there is a difference between empathy and sympathy. Here we are more focused towards empathy study or empathize. So when we have to do empathy study, we should have these four points. So generally we divide it into four quadrants and we start discussing it. So first is,

See Their World

So when do we do an empathy study. When we want to develop a product. So the product is developed for whom. For a customer. Now what is the problem a customer faces. So that is what is ‘See their World’. Suppose if I tell that here is the solution for the problem and the solution is very expensive. A common man or the normal below the middle class, or below the poverty line agriculture farmer could never ever think about the solution. So if you want to solve a problem for him, please try to go, wear his  shoes, stay in a place what he has, live a life what is he doing and then try to develop a product for their drudgery. So see their world. That is very important.

Appreciate Them as Human-Beings 

And the next thing is, appreciate them as human-beings. As I told you in the beginning, design thinking approach is human centric. So your problem-solution should be for a set of human-beings. So appreciate them as human-beings. Treat them with respect. So then what happens, the solution whatever you develop will have that touch in it.

Understand Their Feelings 

The next one is understand their feelings. Many a times feelings cannot be quantified. So it is something like a love. So many a times we would like to use a product, because we love that product. Many a times we like a color. So we would like to purchase all of the products in that particular color. So it’s understanding the feeling.

Communicate Your Understanding 

The last one is communicate your understanding. Finally what have you understood their problem. Please communicate with them. And communicate means you negotiate with them. You involve them in the understanding of the problem. That’s what is communicate your understanding. So many a times when I teach a class, I keep iterating my understanding with the student’s understanding. I ask them okay I have covered up to this. Are you all with me. So that’s basically to understand what their level is and if they have not understood. I will go one step down and try to explain the same concepts so that they can pick it up. So communicate your understanding with the students or with the customer to get to know more about the problem.

So empathy can be divided into four quarters. One is see their world, appreciate them as human-beings, understanding their feelings and communicate your understanding. So the effort of a designer, to understand the way a user do things and why.

• So their physical and emotional needs for the solution.
• How they think about the world?
• And what is meaningful to them is called as empathy.

So this is what I told you in a very crude sense is wear their shoes, stay their life, understand their problem. That’s is what is empathy. Design thinking cannot begin without a deeper understanding of the problem, you are designing for. So if you don’t do this empathy study, then you will not be able to solve the problems. For example there was or there is a famous mobile company.

They developed wonderful products. Mobile products very rugged which is very robust. So this product was flourishing all across the globe. When they were trying to enter into the market of underdeveloped countries. They were looking forward for how to solve some problem of the customer in the underdeveloping country, such that they have a breakthrough in their sales. They tried several tricks, but finally they came out with a very simple problem understanding that in the underdeveloped countries, there is always an infrastructural problem, that is electricity. So they found out if I could integrate a torchlight with my mobile phone, then I will have a huge breakthrough in business. So that could happen for this big company, because they did a very thorough empathy study.

The development of this mobile company was happening alwaysin the developed countries, where there is no power cut. So until and unless they did this empathy study they were not able to do. Second thing when we recently visited a marshy land in a close by agricultural farm, we were not able to quantify what will be the marshiness. We were always thinking it will be slightly viscous and we will try to drag our equipments there. But moment we entered the field, we realized, that okay it needs lot of energy to do it. So that type of understanding comes from your empathy study. That’s what I said, a deeper understanding comes from empathy study. In order to gain those insights, it is important for a design thinker to empathize with people, we are designing.

So this is you can see a designer is spending time with a customer to understand the problem what he faces. So he can have an interview; he can have a casual chat. And while doing this interview you can’t go stand in front of them and say. I am from so and so. You are from so and so. So can we start discussing on these problems so and so. No, you have to first make the customer feel comfortable with your questions, with your background, with your understanding, and then they start opening a doubt and you should start developing products.

In fact if you want to develop a successful product, you have to bring a vow! effect to your product. That means to say you are supposed to develop a solution to a customer who has not thought about a solution in that similar lines. That’s the way people think today for successful products. So interviewing is a very basic step. So you should spend a lot of time in interviewing and understanding the problems what the people face.

How to Empathize

• So interviewing can be one to one interview.
• Or it can be talking directly to the people you are designing for. It can be one to one or it can be talking to a set of people, a group of people
• So, that’s what I said, people and then on top of it, it is also insisted that we do video recording or audio recording of the conversation, so that we start building the interview, and when we come back and sit and replay, we get to know more insight about the problem.

And please do understand just by one day, half an hour interview, you will not be able to understand the problem. You have to spend hours together, maybe days together, to understand the problem more in clarity.

Ask questions like What? How? and Why?

These three questions are very important, while doing empathy study. What? How? And Why? So what are we trying to develop. How are we trying to develop? And why are we trying to develop? So these three questions you should ask in the empathy study itself to have a better understanding of the problem.

• So by asking the three questions. What? How? Why? We can move to concrete observations, that are free from assumptions.

Many a times we try go by assumptions. And then we try to solve problems based on the assumptions. A simple example. All tyres are black in color. Who said it has to be black in color. It can be red in color. It can be green in color. But people said that okay it is black and they said that it is part of vulcanization, it is done black, so then even today we follow it as black. The assumption has still continued. Can we have a red tyre. Yes you can have a red tyre. Nobody stops it. Can you have a yellow tyre? Yes, the kid’s cycles come with varying colors, but not with a truck. So that’s basically an assumption, the color black.

Right! So What? How? And Why? We can move to concrete observations that are free from assumptions.

• During our observation for an instance, we might find separately recording that “What’s”, “How’s” and “Why’s” of a person.

So that means to say when you have an interview, you are trying to divide the interview into three questions, and ask him what, record their conversation and how, record the conversation and why, do the conversation. So you have three different recordings. One is for ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ from a person to understand more about the problem.

• In “What” we record the details of what has happened. So ‘what’, we will ask what has happened. Why are you facing this problem? Why is this drudgery? And because of this drudgery what happens. So what has happened.
• Then “How”. We analyse how the person is doing. What he/she is doing in the existing situation. For example if you are cooking food. If you are cutting shrubs. If you are cutting sugarcane. So then how are you doing it now.
• Then the next question is “Why” we may educate guesses regarding the person’s motivation and emotion. Why do you want to solve this problem?

For example today we don’t have flexible sugarcane cutters available in the market. Sugarcane cutting is manual intensive. It is human intensive. And today the cost of human employment is going very high. So people are looking for low cost automation. So in low cost automation, they are looking for cutters. There are grass cutters. But there are not many sugarcane cutters in low cost. So that’s what is why. Okay so what, how and why are three very important questions which has to be filled up in the empathy study

Observe

So the next important thing a person should have is observation. Observation skills are very important for a human-being. Moment you have a very good observational skills. I am sure, you take it from me, that you will become a very good designer. Your observation skills should always look at, why is it done this way or why cannot I do in that way. So moment you observe, then you can come for multiple solutions. So observation is very important. Observe.

• The user and their behavior should be viewed in the context of their lives.
• The most powerful realization comes from noticing a disconnect between, what someone speaks and what he she does.

Many a times if you ask, everybody says I have read it. I have read the book 10 times. But when they come to the examination, they don’t perform very well. So while doing the reading you should just watch; what are they reading, how are they reading. Maybe they read, but they don’t get into their mind. Or they don’t acquire or absorb the knowledge what is there in the book. So this what we say observe. So the most powerful realization comes from noticing a disconnect between what someone speaks and what he/she does. Doing will be completely different from what we speak.

Engage

So then we try to engage ourselves into solving this problem.

• Sometimes this technique is also called interviewing. But it should really feel more like a conversation.

Engage. So for example if you want to try to solve a problem for a farmer. Go get into the field. Star cutting. Suppose he is trying to develop a cutting device. You also start cutting along with him. Engage yourself. Do conversation. Try to acquire more knowledge. You have physically got now over the conversation; what is that and then you try to solve the problem.

• Listen to stories from people you interact with. And always ask why to uncover deeper meaning.

So this why is always very important. There is a Japanese philosophy which says ask 5 why’s continuously, so then you will go to the root cause of the problem. So that is what is why. Why are we trying to develop this? Because we wanted to have a comfortable life. Why do you want to have a comfortable life? We want to become more productive. So you see, every time you ask a why it tries to go towards a deeper understanding.

Benefits of Empathizing

What are the benefits of empathizing?

• Empathizing attempts to enhance the design team’s understanding. As I said earlier itself. You will have to have a team to solve a problem.

So when we have this team. So the team should have an understanding of the problem. So for the better understanding of the team and asking the team to work towards a target solution. So we try to do the empathize study. So it tries to have an understanding of the target user and the market, since observation methods are not meant only for gathering of raw data, statistics and demographics. So that’s where we do an empathy study.

• We must to an appropriate degree, ‘become’ our user. If we are to offer them fine-tuned solutions that lead to the market.

So if you just record the data. If you start recording the data. Yes you will have all the points. But you will not have a deeper understanding. So empathy is much more than recording of the data. That’s what we are trying to say. Until and unless you have done a thorough empathy study, you will not be able to solve any problem in a judicious manner.

Empathize— Case Study of Cashew Processing.

So here is a case study for you. So the case study is cashew nut processing. Cashew processing. So cashew what happens. It comes with a husk. So you have to de-husk, so that you get the cashew out of it. And when you start doing this process, you have to de-husk. And this husk whatever is there. The cover, whatever is there is very hard. So it is not so easy with low pressure you can open it out. You will have to hammer it with a load. So the current practice in underdeveloped countries. They try to hit it with a stone. Or they try to hit with a rod or with a small other device. So they manually feed it, hit it and then they try to remove the shell rim and take the cashew and process it further. So when they do that, many a times there is enough of damage which is done to their fingers.

• So here is hand displayed by a lady who does this process. Invariably she gets lot of cuts in a day while processing. And apart from that the cashew has an interesting property. It has both cardol and anacardic acid. This acid is very reactive to the human skin. It tries to create lot of burns. And over 5 lakh women employees are involved in this business.

Until and unless you break the cashew for a full shift of 8 hours, you will not be able to understand their drudgery problem. And this is only one part. And then live a life everyday like what they live. Then you will understand what is the maximum costing you can give for the device. So this is a typical empathy study which we conducted on cashew processing industry.

So now you will understand. If you have to do empathy study. Get into their shoes. Become like themselves. Spend days to gather, to understand their socio-economical problems, and their drudgery problem. Try to solve their drudgery problem within the cost what they can afford. At the end of the empathy lecture I would like to consolidate. The three important questions are going to be. What, How, and Why. So these three questions are very important as part of empathy study. The designer has to undergo these three questions along with the customer to identify the problem.

So thank you very much.