The Build a Better Book project emphasizes a human-centered design thinking approach, in which participants first need to better understand the specific needs of their end users. The Design Thinking process includes these key steps:
- Empathize: Learn about the end user and their specific needs, abilities and challenges.
- Define: Pinpoint the specific problem being addressed.
- Ideate: Generate diverse ideas to address the problem.
- Prototype: Build a rough model to generate discussion and feedback in order to futher refine a design.
- Test: Solicit feedback from end users.
Repeat. This is meant to be a continual, cyclical process of improvement rather than a unidirectional set of steps.
Extraordinaires:
Build a Better Book uses this design game to explore concepts around building empathy, understanding the end user, defining needs, and creative thinking. Challenges can be worked on in teams or individualy.
- Follow this Introduction to Extraordinaires (pdf)
- Learn more about different game formats: Extraordinaires Design Studio
Additional Design Thinking Resources:
Video: Meet the Normals: Adventures in Universal Design
Video: Why We Need Universal Design - Michael Nesmith - TEDx Boulder
Video: What is Design Thinking? - Stanford University model