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Design Thinking Lecture

June 8, 2018

Design Thinking Lecture

In the Yifu Building’s courtyard, echoes of laughter and the occasional ‘Ta-da!’ resonated throughout the building. The students were playing a game in pairs that warranted much concentration– and it was easy to make mistakes. Despite that, the students treated these mistakes lightheartedly and learned from them, improving their performance the second time the game was played. This was the Design Thinking lecture that was held on May 29th from 4:15 to 6:15 p.m.

With more than fifty students attending the lecture, Design Thinking was a talk given by Mr Ariel Raz from Stanford University, who was generous enough to convey his experience with designing products and services. The first lesson he hoped to clarify was that in design, making mistakes is not only normal but should be embraced as they provide food for thought and improvement. To do so, he had the students play a simple game (depicted above) and had them accept and learn from each error they made.

Next, Mr. Raz outlined the detailed steps of design thinking, beginning with empathizing with clients and ending with ideating and creating prototypes. Unlike a typical lecture, Mr. Raz’s was interactive and had the students trying out each step for themselves. Provided a simple flowchart to guide thinking processes, the students, in the same pairs they played the game with, were challenged to design an improvement to their partner’s lunch experience. Starting with interviews and brainstorming of designs, the students eventually got the chance to build their own prototypes using simple materials like fuzzy wires, spaghetti, and paper.

Although all the students were SHSID students who we would expect to have a similar lunch experience, they came up with quite a diverse range of opinions. While some hoped for a cafeteria closer to the classroom, others enjoyed the long walks before lunch. While some disliked Sodexo’s food, others found it agreeable. As a result of different opinions, various prototypes were designed. We saw a cafeteria building that would replace ZhongXing Lake, and a picnic area on the grassy hills to reduce Lawson congestion, and so on.

Through this simple activity, the students not only learned more about their peers’ lunch preferences but also learned how to think creatively and design solutions to people’s problems. Better yet, after a long, thoughtful discussion on lunch, the students were rewarded with McDonalds for dinner to wrap up this interesting session.

(Written by Sophie Li Translated by Long Ruoyin Pictures by Liao Hui)