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“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein

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Part 2 of our online exhibition about the Personas. 

Do you know someone like Kim or can you even identify yourself with her characteristics? 

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The beginning of our short Online Exhibition about PERSONAS: 

In the next weeks, we will introduce typical students from different backgrounds, who study/ learn/ work in the CUBE Design Labs in cooperation with their university! Our first Student is Emmy Gronlund from Oslo!

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Intervention progress

In the last few weeks, our team has worked on the survey to collect data for our client. We had many meetings to develop the questionnaire. In addition to that, we had a great 360 degree feedback meeting with our mentor! Although our team is distributed all over the world, our communication has improved. Andrea is in Peru, Anna is in Maatricht, Chantal is also in the Netherlands and Karo is in Frankfurt in Germany. Fortunately, technical devices make our virtual meetings possible! Two days ago, we had our team dynamics meeting. Thus, we frequently stay in touch to each other. This is soo important in these diffucult days! We hope, that everybody is doing well!! Keep safe and healthy!! Your, FourCubes!

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This is the team "Four CUBES". If you want to know more about us, please feel free to ask! Or just leave a comment: Which animal would you be in another world?

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Enjoy our midterm presentation! If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know. What do you think about our ideas? We appreciate your comments and opinions and are happy about every like!

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Our Intervention Plan

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Identifying the problems & objectives

During our creative brainstorm, we have identified some of the problems of CUBE Design Labs in order to define objectives for our project.

Points for improvement:

expanding the network of Design Labs 

explore new markets and potential partnerships

different structure of a website and social media presence 

using web channels more effectively

Objectives:

expand the role of CUBE Design Labs as the connector in the region 

improve cooperation with educational institutions 

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If you want to know more about design thinking and how it works, check out this video about... DOORS!

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In order to get in the mood of creative thinking, one of our project members designed a creative workshop session consisting of several nice creative exercises to think differently about the project. This actually aligns very well with the method of design thinking CUBE uses in their CUBE calls. We are looking forward to pitch our outcomes next week!

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What is design thinking?

It is an innovative approach that “imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos” (Brown, 2008, p. 1). At the heart of design thinking is human-centered design. Human-centered (also called user-centered) design is a process that allows design thinkers of today to come up with solutions to complex real-world problems.

Brown (2008) mentions that thinkers innovate by thoroughly observing and understanding people’s needs and wants, as well as their likes and dislikes concerning products and services. To do that, businesses apply a step-by-step design thinking process consisting of three main stages: inspiration, ideation, and implementation (Brown, 2008, p. 4). 

Other sources (Dam & Teo, n.d.) identify five stages in the process:

Empathize: consulting experts, understanding users, immersing yourself in the environment to understand the issues to be resolved and the needs of the users. A basic principle of human-centered design.  

Define: put together the information gathered during research, synthesize information and define core problems. The definition should be user-oriented. 

Ideate: generate ideas.

Prototype: produce prototypes of the product based on user experience. 

Test: test the product, adjust to the needs of the users.

Sources: 

Brown, T. (2008). Design Thinking. Harvard Business Review.: https://fusesocial.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/06/Design-Thinking.pdf

Dam, R. F., & Teo, Y. S. (n.d.). 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process

Image source: 

Soulis, S., Nicolettou, A., & Seitzinger, J. (2017).  Using Learner Experience Design (LX) for Program Enhancement. Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Melbourne, February 2017. 

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Design thinking is learning by creating, by doing experiments and reflecting on the results

Guido Stompff, coach in CUBE Design Labs

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Check out this video on the recent collaboration of CUBE with the Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. 

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What are the strengths of CUBE Design Labs?

Cube provides...

tools, methods, experience, and inspiration

professional coaching and workshops in design thinking

help to discover talents and put them into practice

physical space with equipment and materials for design and prototyping

autonomy and creativity 

opportunity to be featured in the museum 

development of products that are co-created with the end-user (visitors)

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An unique working environment with lots of variety in contacts and activities. Learn to design during close cooperation in a fun team.

Tessa Brunner (intern at CUBE Design Labs in 2015)

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To know our client better, we decided to use Business Model Canvas. Here are some results of our brainstorm. Still working on finalizing our findings, but it’s already taking shape. Stay tuned.

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What is CUBE? 

We have done some research about our client, CUBE Design Museum and its  Labs to understand their needs and goals for the project. In the design labs, CUBE offers project-based internships where students learn the basics of human-centered design and create exciting projects. Those are called “CUBE Calls,” and students can spend several months working with museum visitors in the design labs creating something that will benefit the community. Find out more at: https://www.cubedesignmuseum.nl/en/node/379/open-cube-call