Camden Council (Design Group Project) Dropbox

In the very first Design lecture, we explored the logic behind good and bad design
examples, which gave us an initial idea of what design actually is. Designing does not
only mean giving form to physical objects, but also to abstract challenges, such as
designing a process for Camden to engage the local community in a dialogue about
changes in the built environment. It’s a creative, messy and squiggly process towards
a desired outcome. Design thinking, a term shaped by Tim Brown, enables innovation
“by a thorough understanding of what people want and need in their lives”1
.
Throughout the essay, theoretical design concepts are put into context through
examples from the team’s experience gained during the Planning Sprint with Camden
Council.

The Creative Design Process

1

Tim
Brown,
‘Design
Thinking’,
Harvard
Business
Review
86,
no.
6
(June
2008):
84–92.

2

The
4
key
phases
of
the
design
process
can
be
visualized
by
the
double
diamond
shape.
From:
http://dstudio.ubc.ca/toolkit/processes/

The ‘Double Diamond’
Divergent thinking:
Collecting lots of information
and generating lots of ideas
by reviewing many sources
and exploring many possible
solutions.
Convergent thinking:
Reviewing an array of
information and possible
solutions in order to bear
down on a problem and begin
to answer it with increased
specificity and precision.
2

Visualisation of the ‘double diamond’ design process and its four phases
Note: the design of each subsequent page
indicates whether or not the phase involves
divergent (<) or convergent (>) thinking.

3

Lucy
Kimbell,
The

Service
Innovation
Handbook:
Action-‐Oriented
Creative
Thinking
Toolkit
for
Service
Organizations,
1
edition
(Bis
Publishers,
2015).

The problem space needs to be well-defined in order to focus research
efforts. For example, Camden Council specified the problem as a service
problem of missing interaction during the planning of the built environment –
Camden residents find it hard to communicate their opinion regarding new
applications just as the council finds it hard to gather satisfactory application feedback.
Hence the first step is to discover the problem space. What’s the team’s current
understanding of the actors and the ecosystem they are in? How does the service
process look in detail? Furthermore, visualizing drivers of change helps to gather team
knowledge, reveals potential disagreement and lack of knowledge.3
To gain further understanding of the problem, access any related data bases on the
topic, like surveys or industry reports. Next, go out into the field to check if your
previous thoughts hold true in practice. During the Planning Sprint our team, the
“researchers”, interviewed Richard Simpson, a Camden resident and former
planning officer. We tried to mine as much qualitative data as possible about
his experience interacting with the council and the planning process, his
personal story and motivation by simply using pen and paper.
Recording the interview with his permission allowed us to revisit key
. remarks. Our two main outputs included raw data for a persona (who he is, his
Phase 1 – Discover by Researching Experiences

abilities, hobbies, etc.) and a user experience map. Alongside, we were able to
better clarify the problem space, allowing us to focus on what’s driving the issue
at hand. Written on post-its, this is what the persona and user journey map looked like:

Creating personas to better understand how individuals interact with the planning process

Example of one of the created personas developed the discover phase

Another example of one of the created personas developed the discover phase

4

Simon
Roberts,
Guest
Lecture
on
User
Research
(BASE
King’s
Cross,
2016).

Challenges & opportunities for managers
Among the key challenges are the depth of the problem space and objectivity in
research. Regarding the former, service problems consist of many aspects that
determine how good or bad the user experience turns out. Given resource
limitations, managers need to decide on what sensible limit(s) to set in the problem
space and where. From guest lecturer Simon Roberts (Stripe Partners), experienced
design research consultants are constantly challenged by objectively gathering user data.
According to him, practice in foreign cultures, an ethnographic perspective and being
“child-like” facilitates objective, user-centered research.
The main opportunity for managers lies in revealing reasons to the problem previously
unseen or unthought-of. The idea to go out and enter the user's natural environment
enabled Stripe Partners to, for example, understand the subtle needs for batteries
when camping. “When you go camping with a group of people, you can get your
eyes and ears and senses focused on a whole range of things that are involved
in that [the problem].”4


The second step is defining insights about how people experience changes to the
built environment and the Planning process. Here, we start focusing on a specific
target group and generate informed ideas targeting them. Switching to a convergent
thinking process depends on finding patterns across the raw data coming from different
sources and expressing it systematically.
For this purpose, we categorized user groups based on their level of interest and engagement
in the Planning process using a working framework. This visual tool was key for deciding which
user group to prioritize. We recognized the opportunity for delivering a scheme that overcomes
the barriers that keep the small business owners, our team’s target group, who have a high
interest in Planning, from engaging with the process.
After defining the problem space with a focus on our target group comes a creative stage of
idea generation. When researchers have a limited understanding of the stakeholders in a
problem, the ideas are limited to being educated guesses. Co-design was the method we
used for developing a real understanding of the users and confronting ideas with the
real world for the first time. We collaborated with Lucy Kimbell, whose father owned a
corner shop and we had the opportunity to map out a typical day of a small business
owner. It was more than a unilateral learning experience; it was a reflective
interaction that helped us capture a new way of looking at the problem.
Phase 2 – Define for moving from insights to ideas

Working framework for people’s experiences with planning

5
Dorst, K. (2015: 52-53) Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design. United States: MIT Press.
Our conversation gradually developed into a “reframing” activity. Kees Dorst says
that “The most logical way to approach a paradoxical problem situation is to work
backward: starting from the only “known” in the equation, the desired value, and then
adopting or developing a frame that is new to the problem situation.”5
We started off with
our desired value as getting small business owners engaged in Planning, but after finding
out the positive dialogue the shop owner has with his regular customers, we discovered a
new opportunity: getting both groups engaged by using shop owners to bridge the gap between
the council and the local residents. The co-design workshop helped us reframe our problem
situation around this new desired value and turn our immature ideas into tangible concepts after
which we started sketching out concepts as a preparation for the next phase – Develop.
Categorizing raw information is hardly ever a binary process since the information comes in
very fragmented and unstructured forms. It is also challenging for managers to engage in
co-design activities since it is usually very difficult to find users who are willing to take part.
Defining the problem space helps managers to get a clear view on the challenges their
business faces. Managers can also highly benefit from using an approach similar to
co-design, since working with the stakeholders (customers/employees) to generate
ideas results in much more thorough solutions.

6
Hasso Plattner, ‘Experiment Mixtape. Advancing Your Solution via Prototyping’ (StanfordDesign School, February 2012)
7
Shops visited on 3rd February 2016: Ben’s House, Jai news, Sport Nutrition

The development phase is all about prototyping, which is the process of turning the
messy, squiggly conceptual ideas and explorations in phase 2 from the mind into the
physical world. For designers, it is an iterative process centered around building
different low-fidelity versions (MVP) of the idea which would allow users to experience
and react to them.6
After identifying the target personas (small business owners), each member of our seminar
group generated a unique prototype for their concept. We saw the prototypes taking on
various physical forms like drawings, colourful post-it notes and so on. However, the prototype
with Lego humans standing on a colourful hand-drawn A3 paper grabbed everyone’s attention
immediately. From this, we found out that prototypes allowing user manipulation and interaction
are most effective for collecting feedbacks. Therefore, we improved the concept idea and
created a second prototype for the design game by re-drawing the playing field, keeping the
Lego humans and included colourful post-it notes that users could pick up and move. These
interactions would allow designers to gain empathy insights and learn about the further
possibilities at minimal costs.
Our prototype design game served as an extremely efficient tool to engage users’
interest, initiate the conversation and reduce miscommunications. Our team visited 3
shops7
and experienced little inconvenience in engaging the shop owners because
the interviewees were generally willing to engage with our prototype.
Phase 3 – Develop through prototyping

Evidence of engaging with target
personas, for example small
business owners
Interacting with the public and
receiving feedback on our
prototypes

8

Quote
from
Camden
resident
recorded
on
5th
February
2016
at
BASE
KX

Prototypes are intended to be further developed, therefore it should be
generated quickly at a low cost. Thus, a challenge for managers is to not focus too
much on specific features, hence spending excess time or resources on building
prototypes therefore delaying the development process and increasing costs. Another
potential challenge for managers is that users might think that the prototype is the finalized
system, and therefore expects the system to be perfect or become too attached to ideas
which were only included in the prototype for consideration purposes.
Opportunities for managers include allowing them to turn their ideas into interactive ones. As
users tend to not have time or don’t want to think about complex concepts, managers can turn
dull text into interactive prototypes, which lets users understand the concept better, hence
yielding more detailed feedbacks. Prototypes could be a powerful tool for managers, for
instance, after our interviews with the Camden residences, one of the participants said
that “I feel like I have spoken out and expressed my opinion so much more just now than
what I would usually”8
, and this was because the prototype represented an efficient and
comfortable channel for communication and feedback.


9

‘Co-‐design
and
prototyping’
presentation,
UCL
Guest
Lecture:
Jocelyn
Bailey
(Uscreates),
02/02/16

As we move from the development to delivery phase we return to convergent
thinking. Once feedback from prototyping ideas has been gathered and acted upon
we are able to focus on how best to present our proposed solution. The delivery
phase is about clearly and concisely explaining a concept. You must show that the
design brief has been met whilst demonstrating that you have carefully considered
all factors regarding the environment and actors within the ecosystem.
Phase 4 – Concept synthesis and delivery
9

Elaboration of
what the
‘delivery’ phase
of the ‘double
diamond’ design
process entails

10

Madsbjerg,
C.
and
Rasmussen,
M.B.
(2014)
The
moment
of
clarity:
Using
the
human
sciences
to
solve
your
toughest
business
problems.
Boston,
MA:

Harvard
Business
Review
Press:
63

z
Christian Madsbjerg, of Red Associates, recalls how managers tend to view creative
design: “…[they] don’t care about small incremental ideas… [they] want ideas that are
crazy, weird, and never ever seen before. Ideas have to be really, really new.”10
And
that’s something that delivery must consider. Not just taking these messy, squiggly ideas
and presenting them, but displaying these originally squiggly ideas, as developed, widely
considered, plausible and coherent concepts.
In our case, delivery took place in the form of verbal presentations using visual aids– these
ranged from PowerPoint presentations to hand drawn diagrams and adapted prototypes. Each
team of approximately six presented at least twice to members of the Camden Council and a
range of other people committed to understanding how to better encourage engagement with
the planning process:
Image taken from the Camden Council website

11

Tim
Brown,
‘Design
Thinking’,
Harvard
Business
Review
June
2008:
4

After the presentation, the floor was opened to a short Q&A session where the council and
others interested or involved with planning were able to ask questions and offer feedback. I
found this very useful. It really allowed us to interact with the council, explain how our
concepts had come into fruition and emphasize how our ideas could increase engagement
with planning. Receiving feedback was also key as it allowed us to reconsider our idea
from different angles. Despite this being the delivery phase, design still remains an
iterative process. As Tim Brown of IDEO, an award-winning design innovation
consultancy firm, says: “Projects will loop back through these [key phases of the
design process]... more than once as ideas are refined and new directions taken.”11
Example of us
delivering our
proposed
solutions to
Camden Council

a
Challenge & Opportunities for Managers
Sometimes a challenge for managers can simply be saying no. It is common for
management teams to invest substantially in enlisting creative design aid. For this
reason, managers can come under pressure to back an idea in order to justify their
investment. It is important to consider that the delivered concepts are intended to inspire
and change the board’s perspective, not necessarily to be implemented exactly as they are.
A key benefit of delivery is that it allows managers to not just consider proposed concepts, but
also the ways in which these ideas can be further improved and/or combined with one another.
Management teams have the opportunity to amalgamate intelligent, smaller ideas into extensive
solutions with wider scopes.


Bibliography
1.) Tim Brown, ‘Design Thinking’, Harvard Business Review 86, no. 6 (June 2008): 84–92.
2.) ‘Design Processes, The University of British Columbia’, accessed 6 March 2016,
http://dstudio.ubc.ca/toolkit/processes/.
3.) Lucy Kimbell, The Service Innovation Handbook: Action-Oriented Creative Thinking Toolkit
for Service Organizations, 1 edition (Bis Publishers, 2015).
4.) Simon Roberts, Guest Lecture on User Research (BASE King’s Cross, 2016).
5.) Kees Dorst, Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2015): 52-53.
6.) Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen, Moment of Clarity (Boston, Massachusetts:
Harvard Business Review Press, 2014).
7.) Hasso Plattner, ‘Experiment Mixtape. Advancing Your Solution via Prototyping’ (Stanford
Design School, February 2012),
http://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/experiment-mixtape-v8.pdf.
Quotations/photos from members of public (with permission):
- Quote from Camden resident recorded on 5th February 2016 at BASE KX
- Shops visited on 3rd February 2016: Ben’s House, Jai news, Sport Nutrition

Word count (excluding titles
and captions): 1978 words

Camden Council (Design Group Project) Dropbox

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