Since day one of the semester, this class has been frustrating, mind-boggling, maddening, and above all, illuminating. Every week, I found myself grappling with a new obstacle, whether it was overcoming my own biases, finding the creative energy needed to complete the work, or learning to trust the design thinking process. Below are some of […]

Concept testing was a nice change of pace for me. Instead of doing work and discussing it amongst group members, we could simply sit back and let others do the criticism for us (with a little guidance of course). The feedback was refreshing, coming from minds that were unbiased toward our ideas and not bogged […]

Prototyping has definitely been the most fun part of the project so far. My group chose to prototype both a website and an app to fully realize our idea. We ironed out content fairly quickly. We knew which screenshots we needed to include to create a comprehensive visual experience that our focus group could provide […]

The ideation process was very taxing for my group all the way up until the very end, when things seemed to fall into place quite easily. After our first brainstorming session, we were confident that we could tackle the ideation for the second problem statement without issue. In reality, we struggled to create the same […]

The brainstorming and ideation process was very challenging for me as an individual, though my team seemed to excel as a whole. Under the time crunch we had in class, I couldn’t seem to get my mind in gear to start grinding out things to write on the post-its. For every one of my post-its, […]

Diving right back into the project after fall break, my group and I knew we had to use the next phase of the process to find the focus that we lacked in the Discover portion of our work. From the very start of making our personas, we understood how critical it was that we hone […]

As we shifted into interview mode, I started feeling like we were really hitting the meaty part of this project. Until now, I’ve been struggling to glean what I would define as “insights.” Sure, we’ve done a lot of research and conducted observations, both essential to the foundation of the project, but we haven’t really […]

The observation session I conducted produced a number of interesting insights, but only after I took the time to talk over my experience with my teammates. When I was actually sitting in the room, furiously taking notes on my subjects and their interactions with the space, I had no clue the depth of insight I […]

Skepticism colored my initial impression of the design thinking bootcamp. All I could think was “cell phones? Why cell phones? How can I create a new product in a category defined by cutting-edge technology?” I was also wary of having to delve into the psychological motivations of a stranger, an uncomfortable task under any circumstances, […]

I am a senior pursuing a Marketing major with a Finance concentration, and have already completed a minor in Classical Studies. During the school year, I work as a marketing intern at the Muscarelle Museum of Art and as Publicity Director on the board of the WM Symphony Orchestra. My primary interest outside of school […]