designing for teamwork / inspiring design teams / re-framing complex problems / public experience design

 

how might we
inspire design teams
by consulting nature?

Point of Departure

  • teams can get bogged down by complications in the middle of a project, or feel uninspired to continue

  • reframing is a necessary step in most projects, but it often depends on an unexpected, “magic” connection being made in someone's brain

  • biomimicry might inspire a reframe, but many of us don't have extensive biological knowledge from which to draw inspiration

hypothesis:

A guided Inspiration Walk through Nature informed by previous research into inspiration, attention, re-framing, and biomimicry can help designers find new inspiration — and maybe even reframe complex problems.

Design Principles

  • the guide for this Inspiration Walk through Nature should be able to work independently, without live facilitation

    • but also in a facilitated group of people sharing reflections with each other

  • be able to be used without need for smartphone

    • so that a sustained attention to nature can have a chance to spark a new insight

  • the guide should set realistic expectations for the experience, and offer a coherent sequence of steps

    • but leave space between the methodical steps for something magical or unexpected to happen

Prototype

First Iteration

  • small paper booklet with clear, ordered steps; independent of smartphone

  • includes prompt to view the problem at different scales, inspired by the different scales in nature

  • includes prompt to consider natural patterns as metaphors for human systems

  • hand-drawn illustrations make it more engaging; greyscale illustrations help not to distract the eye from the colors in nature

  • bibliography lends credibility to an unusual activity

  • in order to validate the users’ leap of faith in using the guide, bibliography also links to examples of the successful use of biomimicry

Testing

meetup screenshot.png

tested on three groups: financial service executives, undergraduate anthropology students, MeetUp group members

What I learned through testing:

  • users not only leaned into it, but drew satisfying and stimulating connections

  • strangers shared very personal stories with the group

  • however, possible reframes of personal problems were limited by not seeing them as part of a larger social system

  • many users are quick to engage in metaphoric thinking — but without an infusion of new information from natural science, their metaphors may only reinforce pre-existing mental frameworks

New Iteration

Screen Shot 2021-07-26 at 1.37.53 PM.png

because testing showed:

that users needed guidance

  • to expect to reframe their problem, rather than ideate solutions for it

  • to see their problem in systemic terms (which would allow them to arrive at a reframe by reconfiguring parts of the system)

I changed:

the part of the guide preceding the walk in nature

  • to set expectations

  • to cast the initial problem in systemic terms

get more info.PNG

because testing showed:

some users needed a prompt to learn something new from natural science, in order to get out of their usual way of thinking

I added:

a prompt to do research online during the walk

Screen Shot 2021-07-26 at 2.03.51 PM.png

because testing showed:

the most magical moments of the Meet-Ups were not so much about re-framing systemic problems but about sharing stories of loss with strangers as the pandemic wanes

I added:

debrief in pairs — a moment for each participant to share something from their walk, with just one new person from the group, so that even shy people will leave the experience having shared thoughts with one other person