This document discusses a design thinking workshop held in Germany to develop inclusive communities. The workshop used design thinking methods like personas, brainstorming ideas, and prototyping solutions. Participants developed fictional profiles of neighborhood residents and identified barriers to social inclusion. They then generated and prototyped ideas to address an inclusion problem for one persona. The evaluation found positives in the interdisciplinary collaboration and creativity. However, participants felt it lacked ways to further develop ideas and assess existing solutions. The document concludes with lessons learned, like providing more guidance for diversity in personas and structured follow-up activities.

1. Design Thinking for Inclusive Community
Design: (How) Does it Work?
Dr. Stefanie Panke
Instructional Analyst
University of NorthCarolina at
ChapelHill, USA
Social Media Coordinator
Association for the Advancement
of Computing in Education(AACE)
aace.org/review
Prof. Dr. Thilo Harth
University of Applied Sciences
Münster, Germany
Institut für Berufliche
Lehrerbildung
Wandelwerk. Zentrumfür
Qualitätsentwicklung

2. Overview
o Design Thinking
Background
o Workshop Concept
o Evaluation Results
o Next Steps

3. What’s
the
idea?
Design
Thinking
Design Thinking is problem solving method geared to overcome wicked
problems.
o Transcend the immediate boundaries of the problem to ensure that the right questions are
being addressed
o Analyze, synthesize, diverge, generate insights from different domains
o Drawing, prototypingand storytelling (Brown,2009)
o Constraints as inspiration (Brown,2009)
o Not directed towarda technological "quick fix” but towardnew integrations of signs, things,
actions, and environments (Buchanan, 1992)
o Fosters civic literacy, empathy, cultural awareness and risk taking (Sharples at al., 2016)
Design Thinking

4. Design Thinking and Cognitive Bias (Liedtka, 2015)
• Projection bias: People have a tendency to project their past experiences
and thus over-estimate the extentto which the futurewill resemblethe
present.
• Hot/cold gap: People’s emotional state, whether emotion-laden (hot) or
not (cold), unduly influences their assessmentof the potential value of an
idea.
• Egocentric empathy gap: People consistently overestimatethe similarity
between what they value and what others value.
• Focusing illusion: People tend to over-estimatethe effect of one factor at
the expenseof others,overreactingto specific stimuli,and ignoring others.

5. o February2018: Design thinking workshop at Muenster
University of Applied Sciences(Germany)
o Workshop theme:Inclusive community development -
designing neighborhoods for engagement,social cohesion
and inclusion
o Part of the researchcluster‘participation and well-being’
o Participants:Faculty from differentdisciplines,city planners,
architectsand students
Case Study

6. Ice Breaker: Tell Me About Your Neighborhood – Who / What
Is Not On the Map?
o Draw a map of your own
neighborhood.
o What are some barriersto
inclusivenessand social activities
that you experience?
o Who do you never meet in your
neighborhood?Why do you think
that is?

7. ‘I do not interact with the
people in my neighborhood.
Everyone has a house with
garden,every yard is fenced
in.And everyone gets home
from work to do their own
thing.
Results: Unexpected Barriers

8. Audience:
Personas
Personasare fictional, yet data-driven,user biographiesthat allow design
teams to relateto the users’point of viewinstead of focusing on personal
experiencesand anecdotes.
Personas

9. Personas
o Input: brief overview of statistical data
on typical demographics in a German
neighborhood
o Material: Posters with prompts,variety
of headshots
o Goal: Construct fictional biography
outlines and reflect on needs and
barriers forcivic inclusion.
o Outcome: 11 personas

10. (1) DEFINE & FOCUS: Pick one of the personas and
specify which social inclusion problem you want to
solve forthis person.
(2) GENERATE & DEBATE Generate 3-5 ideas to address
the problem with novel solutions or disruptive
technologies.
(3) SELECT & SKETCH Choose one of your ideas and
sketch it out in more detail (literally).
(4) BUILD & PRESENT: Design a prototype orthree-
dimensional representation of your solution with
the materials in the room(card board,paper, tape,
clay).
Design Thinking Cycle

11. Design Thinking Outcomes

12. Evaluation Results

13. Evaluation Results – Positive Aspects
o To receiveimpulsesto think in other directions.
o Interdisciplinary approach
o The developmentof personas and the subsequent
prototyping
o The open approach and the integration of different
perspectives.
o Creativity, possibility to think through unconventional
ideas.

14. Evaluation Results – Negative Aspects
o It is unclear how to move from first ideasto further
development of innovative,marketableproducts / services.
o Unclearwhat is alreadyon the market.That would need to
be researched in a timely manner so that ideas do not fizzle
out.
o It lacks the opportunity to research whether the imagined
solution alreadyexists,and whether it makesany sense.
o Realistic assessments of models and ideas:all comments
and ideaswere treatedequal (both strength and weakness),
missing data (ideas arisefrom a ‘gut feeling’)

15. Give morespecific prompts to target
diversity,e.g.:
o Createa persona that significantly
differsfrom your own background.
o What feelsdifficult about telling this
person’s story?
o What assumptions are you making?
o How can you learn more?
Lessons Learned Personas

16. o # of rounds: Make surethat
participants do not get ‘tired
out’, and feeltheir creativity
whither.
o StructuredFollow-up: Allow
users to furtherdevelop /
researchan idea,and share
back with the group through
time delay,two-day, follow-up
meeting,blendedapproach
Lessons Learned Design Thinking

17. http://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/
80 minute, interactive
video with individual and
partner activities,more at
https://goo.gl/LU8q8F
Design Thinking: Resources