This semester I am going to be spending some time looking at how I can better serve the MAET / GC community through my position as the Student Advisory Council representative for the MAET program. Currently I send out 1-2 surveys per semester to the students enrolled in this program. These surveys ask for feedback on the student experience and provide space for open responses regarding any questions or concerns learners may have in relation to the program. I have found that these surveys lack high quality responses, and oftentimes are only completed by a handful of students. My goal is to work through the design thinking process to empathize with these students, define the true problem and its’ root cause, ideate, prototype, and test a possible solution to this issue. This week I worked through the first stage- empathizing with this population of students. Due to my current role as both a full time student and MAET student representative, I identify with the group that I am looking at here and have been involved in multiple conversations surrounding this topic at a higher department level. This puts me in a unique position where I am able to empathize with both learners and faculty/staff. I put my department-level-brain aside, and stepped into the shoes of my peers. The first way I did this was by completing a Journey Map (Stanford University d.school). This journey map took me through the process of receiving, completing, and submitting one of the surveys. In order to fully immerse myself in the experience of my peers, I sent myself the exact email that was distributed to them, read through the email, and recorded all steps that I took in order to complete the survey. This inadvertently led me to complete a different type of empathy research - putting myself in the position of the user. As I went through the survey I recorded all of my thoughts and feelings. When I reached the end of the survey and the end of my journey mapping I sat with my experience before reflecting on what this empathy research taught me about my potential users. My reflection is as follows: I noticed that this survey is really only focused on asking about my identity and if my identities are represented in the program. There is a space to provide other comments or feedback as well as a feedback form in the initial email, but I felt that I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to comment or leave feedback on. As the creator of this survey, I understand why specific questions were included, but a user may think these questions are random and don’t flow sensically. Also, as someone who feels that they are represented in the program pretty well, it seemed that my response to the survey was kind of pointless, since it only centered around representation. There were no really intriguing questions or questions that align with feedback I would like to give to the program. I would have appreciated a broader range of questions that were not just focused on representation in the program. Progressing into the definition stage of the design thinking process and having placed myself in the position of my peers completing these surveys, these insights will help me define the root cause of my problem. References: Stanford University d.school (n.d.) Design Thinking Bootleg. https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Welcome!Sit back, relax, and enjoy (or don't, up to you)! Archives
August 2023
Categories |