The document describes a design thinking workshop to empower students for lifelong success. It outlines the process of empathizing with students to understand challenges, defining problems in a way that inspires solutions, ideating many ideas without constraints, prototyping a potential solution, and sharing outcomes. Participants created personas of students, identified challenges through affinity mapping, then prototyped an idea to address a challenge framed as a "How might we" question. The goal was to generate innovative ideas to support students while considering impacts on underserved groups.

1. Advancing Student Success
a design thinking workshop
Rebecca Blakiston
User Experience Librarian & Strategist
University of Arizona Libraries

2. Rebecca Blakiston
User Experience
Strategist & Librarian
Hello!
● instruction and reference
● user experience
● strategic planning
● consulting & training
● improving all the things

3. User experience
Some key concepts

4. peoplevendor.co
m

5. The UX mindset
● Be curious
● Practice empathy
● Practice humility
● Consider all touch points
● Design with people in mind

6. Designing services
Includes interactions across an
organization:
● Support processes
● Backstage actions
● Frontstage actions
● Technology

7. Design thinking
An approach to problem solving

8. Nielsen Norman Group

10. Today’s outline
● Empathizing
● Defining
● Break (2:30)
● Ideating
● Prototyping

11. Ways of working today
● Be curious and keep an open mind
● Value everyone’s contributions
● Listen more than you talk
● Use the microphone
● Take care of your needs
● Get creative
● Have fun!

12. How might we empower students with the tools,
skills, and mindset for a lifetime of success?
Today’s challenge

13. Today’s limitations
● Rapid
● Linear
● Based on existing knowledge and assumptions

14. Understanding
Defining a problem through empathy-driven research.

16. Building empathy with
humility
● Observe
● Ask
● Listen
● Reflect

17. Watch out for bias
It’s easier to empathize with people who are like
us than unlike us.
— Jamil Zaki, author of The War for Kindness

18. Practice self-awareness
Build from all you don’t know so you can
empathize with humility, curiosity and
courage.
— David Clifford, Equity-Centered Design Framework

19. Many thousands of students are capable of
succeeding in college but don’t because they
don’t feel like they belong, or they don’t believe
they can succeed.
Belonging
— Gregory Walton, Stanford Psychologist

20. 3 out of 4
have experienced a stressful life event in the past year
50%
experience daytime sleepiness
70%
get insufficient sleep
Health
Depression & Anxiety, 2018
Nature & Science of Sleep, 2014

21. $30k
average student loan debt
43%
worry about paying monthly expenses
69%
are stressed out about their finances in general
Financial stability
Study on Collegiate Financial Wellness, 2017

22. What should we be studying and learning if
more than 65% of the jobs that will be available
in 10 – 15 years don’t exist today?
Job preparation
— Elatia Abate, entrepreneur

23. Let’s make personas!
A persona is a profile of a fictional character
that reflects an audience segment. It
includes goals, behaviors, and constraints.
It helps you build empathy and make
decisions.

24. descriptor
descriptor
descriptor
Goals
------------------------------
▪ Broad things they want
to accomplish
Behaviors
------------------------------
▪ Specific actions they take
Constraints
------------------------------
▪ Things that may
prevent them from
reaching their goals
Representative quote.
“ ”
Name target audience segment

25. Creating a persona
● Select an audience segment.
● Put it in context.
● Articulate real, observed behaviors and emotions.
● Recognize any untested assumptions.
● Avoid stereotyping.

26. Fay the new faculty member
passionate
driven
overwhelmed
Goals
------------------------------
▪ Secure funding
▪ Share research with the
world
▪ Obtain tenure
Behaviors
------------------------------
▪ Writes grants
▪ Supervises graduate
students
▪ Teaches online courses
Constraints
------------------------------
▪ Dealing with imposter
syndrome
▪ Finding time for
learning
▪ Balancing competing
priorities
My hopes and dreams? To work less than 100 hours per week. Finding time
to work on my research is a challenge.“ ”

27. Pick your audience segment
1. First-year, first-gen student living on campus
2. International graduate student
3. Part-time student and working parent
4. Student club and community organizer
5. Second-year undergraduate studying abroad this semester
6. Out-of-state undergraduate, living on the west coast for the first time
7. Military student transferring from a local community college
8. Final-semester student preparing for the workforce
9. Veteran student recently returning from combat
10. Commuter student who lives at home with several younger siblings

28. How might we empower students with the tools,
skills, and mindset for a lifetime of success?
Remember the context:

29. What do we already know
about students?
● Reference & instruction
interactions
● Observations
● GenZ research

30. Your turn: persona characteristics
Drawing on your own knowledge and experience, independently write
down on sticky notes:
1. Something your persona wants to achieve. (Goal).
2. Something your persona does. (Behavior).
3. A challenge that your persona faces. (Constraint).
One item per sticky note.

31. Your turn:
As a team,
create your
persona.
descriptor
descriptor
descriptor
Goals
-------------------
▪ Broad things
they want to
accomplish
Behaviors
----------------------
▪ Specific actions
they take
Constraints
------------------
▪ Things that
may
prevent
them from
reaching
their goals
Representative quote.
“ ”
Name target audience
segment

32. Outline
● Empathizing ✔
● Defining
● Break
● Ideating
● Prototyping

33. Defining the problem
What constraints are these students experiencing that
prevent them from being successful?

34. Framing the problem as “How might we…”?
● Allow for many potential solutions
● Inspire innovative thinking
● Consider the Goldilocks test: too broad, too narrow, or just right?

35. Avoiding assumptions about a solution
Original Revised
How might we expand our laptop
loan program for students?
How might we expand student access
to technology for out-of-classroom
learning?

36. Your turn: identify a challenge
In your teams:
1. Identify a challenge to student success
2. Write a “How might we…” question next to your persona.

37. Your turn: identify a challenge
In your teams:
1. Identify a challenge to student success
2. Write a “How might we…” question next to your persona.
Examples:
● “How might we prepare graduating students for careers in the 4th
industrial revolution?”
● “How might we reduce financial burden for first-gen students in STEM
fields?”

38. Helpful verbs
Expand
Allow
Foster
Reduce
Support
Help

39. Outline
● Empathizing ✔
● Defining ✔
● Break
● Ideating
● Prototyping

40. Exploring
Generating ideas and iterating upon potential solutions.

42. Ideate
● All ideas are good ideas.
● Wild ideas encouraged.
● “Yes, and…”

43. Ideation
example

44. Your turn: ideate
Independently and rapidly, write
down as many ideas as you can
think of in response to your
“How might we” challenge. No
constraints. Wild ideas
encouraged!
One idea per sticky note.

45. The affinity map
Gather large amounts of data and organize
them into groups or themes based on their
relationships.
— Interaction Design Foundation

46. Example of
affinity
mapping

47. Your turn: affinity mapping
As a team:
1. Put all your sticky notes up on the wall.
2. Group your ideas into themes.
3. Discuss your ideas.
4. Build upon one another’s ideas. “Yes, and…”

48. Equity pause
An Equity Pause is a time to share our
learning and see what we can do better next
time in the service of equity and inclusion.
— David Clifford, Equity-Centered Design Framework

49. Equity pause
Who would benefit the most from these ideas?
Who would benefit the least?
Consider underserved students which might include non-native English speakers, students
with disabilities, non-traditional students, commuter students, and undocumented
students.

50. Your turn: pick your best idea
As a team, pick one idea to work on for the rest of the workshop.
Create a brief (one-sentence) description and write it up on the wall.

51. Outline
● Empathizing ✔
● Defining ✔
● Break ✔
● Ideating ✔
● Prototyping

52. The prototype
A draft version of a product that allows you
to explore your ideas and show the
intention behind a feature or the overall
design concept to users before investing
time and money into development.
— usability.gov

53. Creating a prototype
● Visualize your idea by sketching it out!
● No drawing skills required
● Imperfect on purpose

54. The Back of the Napkin,
Dan Roam, 2008

55. Examples of prototypes

56. Examples of prototypes

57. Your turn: prototype
In your teams, create a prototype of your potential solution.
Get creative.
Iterate, iterate, iterate.

58. Outline
● Empathizing ✔
● Defining ✔
● Break ✔
● Ideating ✔
● Prototyping ✔

59. Time to share
● Your persona
● Your “How might we” challenge
● Your proposed solution

60. Final thoughts and discussion
Stay in touch
Rebecca Blakiston
blakisto@arizona.edu
@blakistonr