Instructions for Human-Centered Design Group Project

Objective:
The goal of the Human-Centered Design (HCD) Group Project is for you to gain hands-on
practical experience using the HCD methodology to guide the innovation process.

Timeline:
Your project will be broken into three phases (not including Phase 0), with two
deliverables, paralleling the Human-centered design methodology:

Phase 0: Project Set-up

Description: Create work groups and select an innovation topic

Deliverable: Send via email the members of your work groups and your innovation
topic, subject to approval by the professor.

Due date: TBD – antes de medianoche

Phase 1: Empathize and Define

Description: Following the methodology outlined in the document “Design Thinking
Process Guide” on Blackboard, initiate your project. You must complete the process
described from pages 2-5 (Empathize and Define). For further variations on this
process, you may also pull ideas from or follow the more structured methodology
outlined in the document “EMPATHIZE-UNDERSTAND-mixtape-v8.” You must select at
least one and at most three empathy methodologies outlined in the document(s) and
use them to interact with your end users. Once completing this stage, you should
conclude by defining the “point of view” and the specific meaningful challenge you will
take on in the later phases of the methodology.

Deliverable: Summarize your empathize and define outputs. Include summaries of (a)
description of your process, (b) your empathy findings, and (c) your challenge
definition. However, I want you to feel free to explore different ways to do this. You
could turn in a poster. You could present a photo collage. You could do a video. It
depends. What I want to see is that you implemented an empathize methodology and
were able to define the point-of-view and a meaningful challenge to further explore.

Phase 2: Ideate and Prototype

Description: Following the methodology outlined in the document “Design Thinking
Process Guide” on Blackboard, continue your project. You must complete the process
described from pages 6-9 (Ideate and Prototype). For further variations on this process,
you may also pull ideas from or follow the more structured methodology outlined in the
document “IDEATE-mixtape-v8.” You must select at least one and at most three ideate
methodologies outlined in the document(s) and use them to spur your creativity. Once
completing this stage, you should conclude by identifying how you narrowed down,
synthesized, and selected ideas to turn into a prototype and then actually build
something to test. As you will see in the documents, there are many ways of creating
prototypes or artifacts to test.

1
Deliverable: Summarize your ideate and protoype outputs. Include summaries of (a)
description of your process, (b) your ideate findings, and (c) your built protoypes.
However, I want you to feel free to explore different ways to do this.

Phase 3: Test Prototypes

Description: Following the methodology outlined in the document “Design Thinking
Process Guide” on Blackboard, test your prototype. You must complete the process
described from pages 10-11 (Test). For further variations on this process, you may pull
ideas from or follow the more structured methodology outlined in the document
“PROTOTYPE-TESTING-mixtape-v8.” You must select at least one and at most three
methodologies outlined in the document(s) and use them to spur your creativity. During
the process, you will want to following the methodologies for capturing feedback.

Deliverable: Summarize your ideate and protoype outputs. Include summaries of (a)
description of your process, (b) your ideate and prototype findings, (c) your built
protoypes, and (d) your prototype findings. However, I want you to feel free to explore
different ways to do this.

Due date #1: TBD – antes de medianoche

Due date #2 (iteración): TBD – antes de medianoche

References on Blackboard:
“d.School Design Process Thinking Guide”
“Guía del proceso creative” (Spanish version of “d.School Design Process Thinking Guide)
“EMPATHIZE-UNDERSTAND-mixtape-v8.” (Supplemental for Phase 1)
“IDEATE-mixtape-v8.” (Supplemental for Phase 2)
“PROTOTYPE-TESTING-mixtape-v8.” (Supplemental for Phase 3)
“METHODCARDS2010v6” (Additional methodologies for Phases 1-3)
“Guía de campo – Empatía V2”