The IBM Design Challenge
This is the design challenge given to hopeful IBM design interns. I was allotted exactly 3 days on short notice to prepare my solution to the problem. It was through this challenge that I was able to demonstrate how my experiences as a teacher/tutor inform my design-making decisions and make me a unique candidate for any designer position.
The Problem
My Task: Imagine that your team lead has asked you to spend no more than 4 hours to respond to a problem statement. At the end of the task, you’re expected to share your work with teammates and stakeholders. Your lead will look for how you demonstrate your primary design discipline skills alongside your ability to solve problems through your methods and processes.
Problem Statement: Design a better way for a mid-career professional who occasionally travels for work to find just the right vehicle when using the Hertz mobile app
Research Insights:
This particular user type values having lots of information and control over the kind of car they ultimately choose to reserve
There is frequent and pervasive evidence of sentiment from all user types around the theme of, “I just want to browse and understand my options.”
The Solution
After going through my Pedagogical Design Process, I arrived at the solution to create a new user-flow route to accommodate users who want to see all their possibilities first before making a reservation. Instead of making the user preemptively commit to a pickup date/time and return date/time, offer the alternative user route that starts with cars that the user can browse through first.
My Process: The Teacher Design Process
Below is a breakdown of the 4 steps I take to design teacher-style :)
You can get a tour of how exactly I apply my experiences as a teacher to my design thinking.
As a teacher I…
1. Identify the student goal: SWBAT
SWBAT stands for Students Will Be Able To (my 7th-grade world geography teacher wrote one on the whiteboard every morning :). It states what the objective or learning goal is for a particular lesson. As a tutor, I come up with a SWBAT to guide my class activities every lesson.
2. Understand who my students are
As a long-time teacher, I am armed with a comprehensive understanding of how living in different cultures and experiencing different life stressors can impact how a student processes the information around them. My experiences building personalized curricula catered towards each student’s needs has honed my ability to focus on what makes people tick. A good teacher employs student-centered methods.
3. Figure out what each student needs
As a tutor for a diversity of students, it is critical that I understand what their strengths and weaknesses are so that I can play to their strengths and help them overcome their weaknesses.
4. Create a lesson plan
Now that I have a lesson goal and a thorough understanding of my users, I can devise a lesson plan perfectly catered to what my student needs to achieve their academic goals.
As a designer I…
1. Identify the user goal: UWBAT
I use the UWBAT (Users Will Be Able To) to guide my process for approaching the design problem. What do I want my users to be able to do? What is the main goal of the application I am designing? How can I use the interface as a language to “teach” my users how to use it?
2. Understand who my users are (personas)
As a designer, it’s crucial that I have an understanding of what my user demographic is composed of. What are their habits and expectations? And how do I design an interface that capitalizes on these habits and expectations to make a truly intuitive and self-guided experience? A good designer prioritizes user-centered experiences.
3. Figure out user pain points
At this step, I think about what users are currently lacking that prevents them from fulfilling their goals. Only after a thorough analysis of who my users are can I focus on resolving the pain points that they experience while interacting with my app.
4. Prototype and iterate, iterate, iterate!
After all that planning, it’s time for the execution. I must redesign the app so that my users can fulfill the goal of the app.
I apply my four steps to the Hertz problem at hand:
Step 1: Identify the user goal
Users Will Be Able To:
Rent the perfect car they need.
Step 2: Understand my personas
I identified 3 crucial personas:
Mid-Career Professional (as featured in problem statement)
Not entry-level —> may want to show a certain level of professionalism and will likely look for a “classier” looking car to travel to work with.
Not nearing retirement —> money is probably still a concern of theirs. They’ll want a nice car that’s also not going to break their wallet.
Info-hungry —> care about the details of the car they’re getting and all the possibilities surrounding it.
Everbody (as featured in research insights)
“I just want to browse and understand my options”
Sure Shirley (my own creation)
Knows EXACTLY what they want. They have a strict pre-established itinerary.
Step 3: Find pain points
I identified the pain points specific to the Mid-Career Professional:
Takes too long to actually see cars (you have to click a minimum of 11 times before you see your first car). This makes the app counterintuitive. If I’m using a car rental app I expect to see cars relatively soon.
App makes users commit to decisions they may not be ready to make. Before they can see what cars are available, the user has to decide on a location to pick up the car, a pick-up date, a return date, a time at which to pick up the car, and a time at which to return the car, and finally, they arrive at a summary page for which they must confirm all these forced decisions.
App is designed under the assumption that the user already has a thought-out plan in mind. In other words, it’s optimized for the Sure Shirleys!
Step 4: Craft my solution
What if we reversed the user-flow route and started with cars first?
My solution to the problem is to create an additional user-flow route to accommodate the users who want to see all their possibilities first before making a reservation.