CQUniversity MGMT20140: Design Thinking for Social Work Issues Report

This report explores the application of design thinking to address the social problem of isolation. It details the design thinking process, including tools such as empathy, defining the problem, ideation, prototyping, and testing. The report outlines activities like interviews, space saturation, brainstorming, and workshops, and their outcomes. The author reflects on their role in defining the problem statement and explains how the chosen activities helped identify the problem and its potential solutions. The report highlights the use of tools like journey mapping, secondary research, and co-creation to understand and solve social isolation. It also discusses the viability testing of the proposed solution. The report references several academic sources and provides a comprehensive analysis of the design thinking process in the context of social work.

DESIGN THINKING SKILLS
IN SOCIAL WORK ISSUES

DESIGN MAKING TOOLS AND
SOCIAL PROBLEM
 The social problem identified is that of social isolation.
 In spite of being more connected , people have become more lonely than ever
and they abstain themselves from the social gatherings and the social
support.
 Design thinking is a process that helps to solve the problems, focusing on the
human-centered solution (Gasparini, 2015)
 Design thinking process involves few tools that help in the solving of the
problems. These tools include to Empathize, to Define, Ideate, Prototype and
Test.
Source: Denning, 2013

EMPATHY
 Activities involve conducting one
on one interviews with the
individuals who remain socially
isolated.
 They can be asked the questions of
What, Why and How . The What ,
Why and How questions help to
move from assumptions to
concrete observations.
 The outcomes suggest that
social isolation arises when
people do not connect to anyone
in the society to share their grief
or problems. It can also be
attributed to introverted nature.
Source: Koppen & Meinel, 2015

DEFINE
 Activities involve the unpacking of the stories of the individuals who are
socially isolated.
 The space saturation and the group is another activity of the design
making process, that helps to define the problem statement.
 The outcome suggests that the main problem to address is the
phenomenon in which people tend to isolate themselves from
interacting with the society and suffer from loneliness as a result,
which also gives way to depression and other mental health issues.

IDEATE
 The activities of BrainStorm , Brainwalk, MindMAp,
The Sketch, Analogies and the Challenge
Assumptions can be useful for solving the problem
of social isolation.
 The designers might be asked to sit in a room with
adequate space and design their ideas.
 The outcome of this activity was that the best
approach to solve the problem would be to base
the activities in a customer centric approach.

PROTOTYPE
 The two activities of prototype are low-fi and high-fi.
 The activities also involve the arrangements of
workshops.
 There should be less time sped on workshops which
include the implementation of the plan.
 The outcome of the activity suggested that the
set of activities to undertake the problem
solving would be a 7 step process.

TEST
 The Testing activities might involve receiving the feedback
from the designers.
 They can be made to gather in a room and might be asked
to fill in feedback forms.
 They , with the help of a fun activity can either write down
or sketch the probable responses of the solutions.
 With the help of responses collected from the
respondents, the outcome reveals that the approach is
a suitable one.

Reasoning and reflection
 Generation of values and
identification of them with logic.
 An online personality test would
be conducted.
 Let the participants express
what values they gained from
the activities
 Outcome suggests that most of
the respondents have a
common value, which is
integrity.

Problem identification
and solving
 Involves identification of a problem
and its root causes.
 Ask the participants regarding what
they feel is the root cause to the
problems that they face.

Brainstorming
 The process of storming through a range of alternatives
to get to decide which one suits a situation the best.
 The members pitch in all of the ideas and evaluate each
of them, and list down the most viable solutions to the
main problem.
 The outcome of this activity involves coming up with a
journey map to identify which are the problems faced by
the participants at each stage of the problem.

Journey Mapping
 The journey mapping reveals that disbelief in the
society, decrease in social interaction, lack of
self dependency, and depression are the
sequential problems faced in the journey of
social isolation.
 Social isolation would be understood as a step
by step process, and each stage would be
stressed upon and why they arise would be a
matter of discussion.

Research
 Helps in the gathering and
synthesis of knowledge.
 Thorough secondary research is
conducted on social isolation, in
which, ideas as to why they arise
and solutions to those problems
can be identified and put to use.
 Outcomes suggest that social
isolation is directly related to
introverted nature and
depression.

Co-Creation
 Creating or coming up with a solution by involving
both or all of the parties in concern with the problem
that is being faced.
 To list out the findings from the secondary research, ,
and be able to make sure that each of those solutions.
 Outcome suggests that a group rehabilitation process
where every participant can interact with each other
is the best viable solution.

Viability testing
 The process of making sure that the alternative
that has been chosen is assessed and
evaluated in terms of its viability and feasibility.
 The solution co created by the recipients and
the members would be implemented on a small
scale basis.
 Cost, time, and outcome factors would be
evaluated to understand the viability of the
activity.
 The activity reveals that the solution is
moderately viable.

MY POSITION IN THIS
ACTIVITY
 In this activity session, I am in the position
of defining the problem statement.
 I am at present with the activity of space
saturation and the group where the
problem statement is identified ,
saturating the white board with the notes
from the post interview session.
 The activity also involves formation of the
collages and the images from the user
research observations.

WHY HAVE I CARRIED OUT
TEHSE ACTIVITIES
 I have carried out these activities
through the different stages of the
Design Thinking Process because I
want to find a solution to the
increasing problem of social
isolation.
 The activities have helped me to
identify the problem statement and it
solution.

WHAT WERE THE OUTCOMES OF
EACH ACTIVITY
 The activities for empathy have
helped to move from the
assumptions to a concrete
observation.
 The activity of the space saturation
and the group helped me to
identify the problem statement by
taking into consideration the
observations from the post
interview sessions.

WHAT WERE THE OUTCOMES OF
EACH ACTIVITY
 The problem of social isolation could be solved
with the help of Brainstorm, the Brainwalk, the
Mindmap, the Sketch, Analogies, the Challenge
Assumptions as well as the Bodystorm .
 Brainstorming feedbacks received helped to
generate a lot of possible and suitable ideas for
the solution of the problem of social isolation.
 The arrangements of the workshops helped to
find the best and the most practical solution
 The activities o the testing helped to find the
appropriate solution that could have helped to
eradicate the social issue of isolation.

WHAT OUTCOMES DID YOU
CHOOSE TO BRING INTO THE
NEXT ACTIVITY AD WHY
 Defining activities were expected find out the problem
statement.
 The next activity of the Ideate was to find the solution
that could have been suitable for the problem.
 The next activity of the prototype and the testing included
the desire to solution to the problem of social isolation.
 The solution was the outcome that was expected because
the problem has been increasing day by day and it needs
a proper design thinking map, to eradicate the problem
from its roots.

REFERENCE
 Bradner, E., Iorio, F., & Davis, M. (2014, April). Parameters tell
the design story: ideation and abstraction in design
optimization. In Proceedings of the symposium on simulation
for architecture & urban design (p. 26). Society for Computer
Simulation International.
 Brenner, W., Uebernickel, F., & Abrell, T. (2016). Design thinking
as mindset, process, and toolbox. In Design thinking for
innovation (pp. 3-21). Springer, Cham.
 Denning, P. J. (2013). Design thinking. Communications of the
ACM, 56(12), 29-31.
 Gasparini, A. (2015, February). Perspective and use of empathy
in design thinking. In ACHI, the eight international
conference on advances in computer-human interactions (pp.
49-54).
 Ingle, B. R. (2013). Introduction to Design Thinking. In Design
Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses (pp. 1-15).
Apress, Berkeley, CA.

REFERENCE
 Köppen, E., & Meinel, C. (2015). Empathy via design thinking:
creation of sense and knowledge. In Design thinking
research (pp. 15-28). Springer, Cham.
 Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with
innovation outcomes through cognitive bias
reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6),
925-938.
 Serrat, O. (2017). Design thinking. In Knowledge Solutions (pp.
129-134). Springer, Singapore.
 Shapira, H., Ketchie, A., & Nehe, M. (2017). The integration of
design thinking and strategic sustainable
development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 277-287.
 Wrigley, C., & Straker, K. (2017). Design thinking pedagogy:
The educational design ladder. Innovations in Education and
Teaching International, 54(4), 374-385.

THANKYOU