Transcript

Brief Introduction

Till now we have been discussing about different stages of Design Thinking. So we were discussing about empathizing, then we were discussing about the definition of the problem. Then ideation. Followed by ideation we had prototyping. And then finally we were discussing about validation or testing your idea, with prototype, with the users. This week we will try to discuss more in detail about empathy study.

Understanding Customer

This is the first step in the entire design thinking process. So we have to identify and understand our customer. Identifying our customer is also a very important task. So we know that design thinking is more human centric. We might have a cluster of data. This cluster of data or customers have to be segmented. And we try to focus only on a particular segment, and that segment we call it as customers.

Who is Our Customer?

So who all can be our customers as far as agricultural products are concerned.

• It can be an agricultural science student.
• It can be a faculty member.
• It can be an agricultural scientist
• It can be a personnel, who is working for State and Central Govt, Dept of Agriculture
• It can be an NGO who is working for it
• It can be even a progressive farmer or a farming community.

All these people can be a customer for us. So to understand this customer we have to use scientific tools, and with that tools we will try to go more focused towards the problem. Anyone who wants to do something for improvement of current agricultural practice to either increase yield or decrease efforts of the workforce employed in agriculture is our customer.

So there are several empathy tools which are practiced today. There are many out of which I have taken 5, more significant and prominently used tools.

Empathy Tools

They are,

• Blueprint
• Then, Persona
• Story telling
• Map of empathy
• And, taskflow.

Blueprint

Blueprint is nothing but the physical resources provided by the customer, it can be by telephone recording or it can be by transcript. Generally in blueprint we use four of these points.

• The actions performed by a customer. So in blueprint what we do is, we note it down and it is noted down step by step by step. So first what we will do is, we will go to the customer. Ask the customer about the current problem they face, or if they don’t even have a product, we ask them what are all the problems they face. For those problems or drudgery what they face, can we come up with a solution. So the first thing will be. If we have a product. If we wanted to improvise the product, we are discussing about that here. So what we do is we try to give it to the customer, and ask the customer to execute the operation. And while execution, we try to record, the operation how they do. So that means to say we are trying to find out the practice. What is involved by using this current tool.
• So next is the material evidence of the service. So we try to look at what all happens to the material point of view, the responses.
• Next we try to note down the complaints and go back and contact the front office with the customer problem.
• And then we finally try to contact the technical support.

Live Example

I have given a live example. Here is a tea plucking machine, which is used nowadays, while tea plucking operations. The current state of the art is, people use their hands. They pluck and then they drop it behind the basket, which they carry with them. The process is inefficient and it is fatigue. So people have come out with a tool which is very flexible tool for plucking of the tea leaves. So here it is very handy and this handy tool is having a cell, a battery attached to it. So it is energy portable device. Wherein it does the same thing what a hand does. But here the plucker has to use his hands, only to orient the plucking device, such that he gets a maximum yield.

So considering an example of a tea plantation worker in Assam who has been provided with a novel innovation of leaf plucking; which is designed for worker in plantation for China. So this is designed by a worker who is doing the same job in China. He has developed this device. So we wanted to take this device, give it to a Assam, so a particular focus of customer and ask him to try and see this, whether the same device can be used, or does it need some improvisations.

Next depending upon the whatever problems he faced. We are going to contact the front office of the company to solve our problems. If we have more technical problems, then we go back to the source fabricator and ask him to solve the problem. So here, step by step by step, what is to be done, how are we going to execute is given in this blueprint. So that means to say, you have an algorithm ready, you will have to follow this algorithm, note down whatever is undergone by the customer. And how he will try to solve the problem. That is what is done in blueprint tool.

Persona

The next tool is a persona.

Persona means you go to the site, note down all the problems or the action whatever a customer is undergoing. You have noted it down. Now after noting it down you would like to have a narration of all the points and then you would like to link these points. So many a times when we have it as very abstract and if we have it point wise, we might miss out. So in order to have a connection between all the points, what we do is, we try to develop an imaginary persona.

And for this imaginary persona, what all we have noted it down, we try to add characters to him and we try to add problem statements to him, Why is this done? This gives a better understanding of the problem. And when you try to narrate the same to  yourself or to your colleagues, who are there in the team. So then they have a better understanding of the problem.

• Persona is an expected target to create an innovative solution.
• Persona is an imaginary model used for designing.

It’s an imaginary model. You have undergone a blueprint study. You have noted down what all the actions the person is undergoing, and now you have abstractly noted it down. Now this persona gives a more understanding about the problem.

• They are invented from scratch by practitioners.

So here let us go back to the cashew example. You can see here a woman, cashewnut shelling operation she does. So she wears a saree, and when she, while she picks cashew out of the shell, the cloth which is covered in the black spot, where the cashew acid has squirted out from the shell. It tries to hit, react and try to make holes of it. So it is prone for her to have injuries.

So here we have noted down the keywords. They are

• Women worker
• Informal segment
• Work hazard
• And then, acidic environment

Because when you try to note down a scene, we try to note down only the key points. Now with these key points if you start thinking it is your thought process, becomes very difficult. So we try to give a persona. So that is called as persona.

Storytelling

Then next thing is completely storytelling. I don’t put a fictitious character. But I tell the entire points which I have grasped into a story

• So here the customer history of using a service or a product through a reliable source can be created in the form of a story.

Once you start telling an entire event in the form of a story. It becomes more interesting. Your thought process goes more appealing and while narrating the story you can add individual characteristics or characters who come into the scene. So here in which you see a scene, wherein which two women are used to plough the field. So now if you tell, oh! They while ploughing, they undergo a major hurdle or there is a huge fatigue on them, rather than saying that, if you say oh! They undergo a pain. This pain is equal to a labor pain. So now what is happening, you are trying to give more emphasis towards the pain. And you are trying to correlate the pain with another pain. Or it is, as though lifting 100 kilos of weight by these two ladies. So now when you say 100 kilos of weight by these two ladies, then you have a feel for it.

• So here the emotion expressed by the customers and their successive states of mind can be very easily told in the story telling tool

Story Telling of a Cotton Seed Plantation

• In Gujarat, small and marginalized farmers are dependent upon cash crops like cotton
• Depending upon monsoon, plowing can either be a single or deep depending upon the moisture of the soil.
• Since most farmers have less resources, they are dependent upon the frugal agricultural implements such as plow shown in the figure.

So depending upon the moisture content, the amount of load what they apply has to be decided. So if you say they are asked to pull heavy load. But this does not tell what is the customer mind state. Okay, so storytelling is the third one. Till now we have discussed three points. One is blueprint, another one is persona, and the third one is storytelling. In fact I would suggest if you have a very difficult poetry to be memorized, you can try to make it into a song, add a music to it and go through that poetry for ten times. The eleventh time you will be able to memorize and reproduce the same, with the musical intervention up and down. So this is almost like a storytelling. So you try to remember all the characters, you try to remember all the states of mind. Why is this very important, as I told you earlier.

Design Thinking is more focused towards human-centric. And of course this problem solving is all possible, if you have a product. But if you don’t have a product, still you can narrate the entire empathy study, using a story telling approach.

Map of Empathy

The next one is map of empathy.

• So here, map the emotional status of the user, while performing some action. You have given him a tool. We have given the customer a tea plucking device. A tool is given. Now what you do is while operating the tool, you look at the face of the customer. If he is happy, if he is sad, if he feels it is more of pain. Then from there you can try to realize; okay, these things are emotional study. This emotional study can be converted into engineering spec, and we can start working on engg spec, moving towards a better solution.So here the map of the emotional status of the user, while performing an action will be recorded. So that is done as map of empathy.
• Note down which part of the activity is creating a stimuli to his or her emotional status. While cutting, where is he getting this happiness, where is he getting the frustration. Who creates this? So that is what it is. How is it created? So all these things, note down with which part of the activity he is creating. While holding the plucker, or halfway through the plucker, or end of the plucking operation. Where is it.
• What he or she is doing while that emotion state is triggered. For example if your battery is drained. So now you should look at, he has to run back to the charging station, put it on charge. So these are some of the status, emotional status. Once it is over, an event, the battery is over. Now still the machine is there. The machine is heavy. Half way through the field he is cutting. So now you try to record his emotions.

So that’s what. What he/she is doing while that emotion status is triggered. So transcript that thought process. So we say,

1. User is satisfied with the activity.
2. User is extremely delighted with this activity.
3. User is unhappy with this activity.

While giving you the plucking device. So while plucking he is doing an operation and he is extremely happy, he does it with a smiling face. His productivity is enhanced by 20%, 40%, 100%. So he is extremely happy. So that’s what is. User is extremely delighted, by you doing this activity.

Task Flow

The next one is task flow. This is very important. Task Flow is also a tool which is used in the path of empathy study. So here we record every event. And each event its flow is done sequentially. So that while we try to understand the problem. We see the flow and we make it much more, precisely understanding the problem.

• So a journey with task performed by the user in a chronological order. Time dependent is given here. For example this is a cashew, which is there, a fruit which is there in the tree. And then we try to break this part. This is a cashew with a shell. Then we try to break the shell, wherein which we are talking more about it. There will be acid which comes out. This acid when it falls on the skin, it tries to react, when it tries to fall on the cloth, it tries to react. And it has to be hammered by a stone, so when we do that the finger get damaged. So then after this we try to get the cashew nut. So this is the sequence of events. If the sequence of events are not known, so many a time you will not be able to define the problem clearly.
• Recording successive tasks can help in dissecting the amount of resources consumed at each stage.
• It helps in prioritizing solution to the problem if there is any.

So first, maybe before even doing the de-shelling operation, it is better you soak and do it. This is one alternative. In the sequence if there is a provision for water, then we can say please add water, soak the cashew and then try to remove. If there is no, then we will have to record this prior and then start doing along with this.

Conclusion

So to conclude this module.

• We have understood the customer more. Understanding the customer to create a user-centric design is an idea that is needed to be explored, in order to create most creative and effective solutions. So for this there are several tools. We have seen five tools. So they are. First we saw about a Blueprint, then we saw about Persona, then we saw about Storytelling, then Map of Empathy we did, and then sequence of events. So these are the five prominent tools which are used as part of empathy study.
• Engaging with our user emotion, by putting our self in their shoe can help us in identifying the problem, that hid from an organization and keep affecting the product acceptance to its potential user. So it is also better, apart from doing the only recording of the event, we our self practice the operation what is to be done, after learning it from the customer.

So I was teaching my son yesterday. While teaching my son, it was pretty interesting. I just told him 2+2 = 4. But it is easy for me because I have memorized it. But for my son who does not have a feel for a number 2 and then add another 2. So if I don’t understand him, his level of understanding about the Maths subject. His level of understanding about number 2. Physical existence of number 2, adding number 2. Then I will not be able to solve the problem. I will not be able to teach him. Many a time when a teacher teaches, we try to teach in one way and we assume that is the unique way of solving a problem. But there are N number of ways to solve the same problem to lead to the same solution.

So until and unless we undergo the customer shoe. Or we understand the customer feeling. We will not be able to do empathy study more. Go through all the steps that our user walks throughout his/her working period. This is the other thing which is done, when we try to understand the customer.

Thank You.