Introduction
As an architect passionate about learning and expanding my design skills, I enthusiastically joined the UX Mastery Program at GrowthSchool. I’m excited to share my first project, where I applied the Design Thinking Process.
For the project, we were divided into groups of 10, with each member selecting an area of the house (like a bedroom, living room, kitchen, etc.) to enhance the user experience of the space using Design Thinking principles. I chose the Living Room, the heart of the house where we spend much time. My goal was to identify core user challenges and find solutions to make the living room more useful and adaptable.
Problem
There is no appropriate furniture to study or work with a laptop in the living room.
Solution
Users can turn their coffee table into a study table without adding another table. This would help users who work from their living room while sitting on their sofa.
To achieve the solution, I applied the principles of Design Thinking. This involves understanding user needs, defining problems, generating creative ideas, building prototypes, and iteratively refining solutions. It helps create effective and human-centered solutions.
Empathize
To start the process, I interviewed six of my teammates, considering them as users of the living room. Asking them how they interact in their current scenarios helped in understanding their pain points. By actively listening to their experiences, I gained valuable insights into the challenges they face and the areas needing improvement. At this stage, I aimed to connect with the users, understand, and immerse myself in their perspective, avoiding any bias by not considering myself as a user.
Following are the main questions I asked in the interview.
Tell me about yourself, your age, profession and hobbies.
Where do you live? With whom do you live? What’s your house’s size?
Describe your living room.
On average, per day, how many hours do you spend in your living room? what activities you usually do in your living room?
What kind of furniture do you have in your living room? How do you typically use your living room seating furniture?
What are some of the things you love about your living room?
Can you describe any physical discomforts or challenges you experience while using your living room ?
How important is flexibility in your living room seating, and what types of seating arrangements would be most useful to you?
What is the maximum number of people that you can accommodate in your living room at a time ?
Are there any particular activities or events that require rearranging your living room furniture? How often? what are some of the reasons you might do so ?
Are there any specific pain points or challenges you have experienced with your current living room seating ? and are there any particular features you would like to see in your furniture?
Are there any specific features or products that you wish existed to improve your living room experience ?
Apart from these, I added a few more follow-up questions based on the user’s replies, this helped me to dig deeper and understand their core problems.
Define
Now, I tried to gain a clearer understanding of the problems faced by the users. I analyzed their likes and dislikes and translated them into problem statements. At first, I came up with writing down surface-level problems. later, it took multiple iterations to dig deeper and identify the underlying core issues by questioning why these problems were causing inconvenience to the users.
These are the major problems that users are facing in their living rooms.
It is difficult to move fixed furniture when it requires.
There is no proper ventilation in the living room.
There is no enough privacy in the living room.
Charging points are not easily accessible.
Furniture is not so convenient for users to sleep.
There is no enough distance between TV and sofa.
Accumulation of lot of dust in the living room.
There is no appropriate furniture to work in the living room.
It is difficult to move heavy furniture to clean.
there is no proper partition between puja and living space.
Having too many mosquitoes in the living room.
There is no proper furniture to eat in the living room.
There is no enough storage space in the living room.
Lack of comfortable seating in the living room.
There is a lot of noise from outside.
Living room interiors are not aesthetically pleasing.
User has to move the furniture to acquire more space.
During summer, living room becomes too hot.
Ideate
Here comes my favourite 💙 stage. In this ideation phase, I started thinking of possible solutions to the users’ problems. For this project, I used the 'crazy 8 technique' to generate creative solutions for various problems. The process involved brainstorming eight distinct ideas within a strict time limit of eight minutes for each specific problem. This technique was applied to all documented problems, allowing me to go beyond surface-level ideas. On the other hand, for a few problems, I need to go back and redefine a problem or restructure the problem statement in a better way to generate potential solutions.
Following are the ideas I came up with to solve the issues I identified in the previous stage
Using light weight material.
Making sofa foldable when it is needed to acquire more space.
Having wheels to the furniture to make them move easily
Making bigger windows to gain more natural ventilation.
Bringing more natural light into the living space using mirrors, by applying the principle of periscope.
Having a calling bell to alert someone is coming.
Having an app that notifies when anyone in coming into the house.Dividing the living room into two with a drawing room near the main entrance.
Portable charging points with in the furniture like sofa/couches/ cofee table.
Having charging points at lower height near to furniture, so that users can easily acces.
Making sofa flexible to sit as well as to sleep. ★
Changing the placement of TV.
Adjusting the height and size of the TV according to the furniture and room dimensions.
Making Tv adjustable according to the user’s direction.
Having mesh for the windows to avoid mosquitoes.
Having a device which emits sound echos to get rid of mosquitoes
Having an electronic device which can be operable va app that cleans the floor.
A small table can be taken out from under the sofa.
Coffee table can be converted into a working table. ★
A table can be taken out from the sofa’s side-arm.
A small table can be drawn out of sofa to eat.
A hidden table within the floor, which can be brought out when it is needed.
Having additional seating within the coffee table.
Having partition between puja space and living room.
Hiding puja cabnit inside a wall.
Making five in one seating to get more seating when it is required.
A coffee table that provides extra seating and a table to eat food. ★
Having window mesh to avoid dust.
having storage with in the sofa / tv standDesigning a shelf
Designiong a sofa with good cushioning and angle adjustable.
Furniture can be folder into to the wall when it is not needed
The above list contains both superficial and practical ideas. Out of all the ideas, these are the top 3 ideas that I finalized to go forward with.
1. Making a flexible sofa that can be converted into a bed.
why? — — The sofa can be extended to form a bed and can be folded back when it is not needed. This can function like a sofa as well as a bed. This provides proper sleeping space for the users when there is a need, without having any additional furniture to sleep on.
2. A coffee table that provides extra seating and a table to eat food.
why? — — Users can easily convert their coffee table into a proper eating table along with a few additional seating. This makes users eat comfortably and creates extra seating for the users when they have guests over.
3. A coffee table can be converted into a table to do work. ★
why? — — Users can turn their coffee table into a study table without any addition of another table. This would help users who work from their living room while sitting on their sofa.
Prototype
This is the stage where I actually made a representational model of the solution I came up with. Initially, I made a few sketches to get an idea. Later I sculpted the 3d model in Sketchup software.
Coffee table with dimensions 90 x 55 x 50 cm
The Work-Desk can be drawn out by little tapping from the bottom
It will be lifted up with the help of ‘lift-up hinges’, and there is a storage space to keep laptops and stuff.
The length of the Work-Desk is 70cm, which is comfortable enough to place a laptop and a mouse.
‘Drawer slide hinges’ are used to facilitate the linear movement of the coffee table’s right part.
Details
As the two plates are connected with small hinges, one plate can be flipped to another side to create more surface
(40cm width and 55cm depth).
While now functioning as a work desk, the coffee table still retains its primary purpose as a coffee table.
Testing
I have created a coffee table that can be transformed into a work desk. Now, I want to test this prototype with users to see if it actually helps them work comfortably in the living room. I feel testing is crucial because simply solving the problem is not sufficient; it is equally important to ensure that the solution actually works effectively.
For this, I conducted a group call with all my users to present my work. At first, I clearly explained what I did and my reasons for doing it, later I asked others to give feedback on my idea and asked them to share their reason for the feedback.
The following is the feedback given by the users.
“It would be helpful if users can adjust the height and inclination of the study desk.”
“The edges are too sharp and pose a potential safety hazard.”
“It would be convenient to have a built-in charging point on the desk.”
“Including a portable battery with the desk would be beneficial for charging laptops.”
“Adding wheels to the coffee table would make it easier to move around.”
“The rod near the foot of the furniture is uncomfortable and should be addressed.”
Upon receiving more solution-based feedback from users, I took the time to carefully analyze the core issues and evaluate how important they were. This helped me decide which issues needed to be tackled first, based on their significance and how much they could improve the overall user experience.
The following are the three changes I made to the previous prototype.
1. Adjustable height and inclination of the study desk:
why? — — It would be beneficial to incorporate features that allow users to customize the height and inclination of the study desk to accommodate their preferred working positions.
2. Rounded edges to prevent injury:
why? — — It would be beneficial to incorporate features that allow users to customize the height and inclination of the study desk to accommodate their preferred working positions.
3. Eliminating discomfort caused by the foot rod:
why? — — The rod near the foot is removed so that it doesn’t cause any inconvenience to the users.
The final product after user testing.
Learnings
I understood that design is an congoing process with limitless possibilities for improvement.
I realised the importance of understanding the "why" behind a problem, along with the “what” and “how.”
Iterations can be made at any stage of product development.
Accept that you are not responsible for solving all problems and recognize the need to establish constraints.
Accepting that making mistakes is normal, and biases are inherent in everyone.
The importance of time management and meeting deadlines.
No product can address 100% of user problems, but there is always room for improvement.
The importance of understanding the root problems behind feedback, rather than just the suggested solutions.
Encourage generating different solutions for the root problem instead of acting solely on suggestions.
Considering the timeline, prioritizing tasks, and addressing the major issues.
Overall, this project demonstrated the application of design thinking principles and the value of user-centric design in enhancing the living room experience. I look forward to more exciting projects in the future. #studentforlife.
