The Customer
According to the World Health Organization (2021, p.1), approximately 1.3 billion people live with some form of visual impairment, of whom 36 million have blindness. The leading causes of visual impairment are uncorrected refractive errors and clouding of the lens. Eye disease can occur at any age, regardless of profession or wealth. There are visually impaired people in almost every family, and sooner or later, everyone can encounter it. The target audience of our product is people with visual impairments of varying severity. By helping them, we can cover a large part of the U.S. population.
The Customer’s Problem
There are several hundred known diseases that affect the organs of vision. The most common are myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism, inflammatory diseases, eye injuries, and tumors, as well as cataracts and glaucoma. Timely detection and correction of these diseases can prevent blindness in eight out of ten cases (Centers for disease control and prevention, n.d., p.1). The possibilities of modern ophthalmology allow to slow down the disease development at the early stages. One of the methods of treatment and correction used is wearing medical glasses. People who encounter them experience several inconveniences. The first one is that ordinary glasses cannot help track the dynamics of vision deterioration; one has to go to a doctor. The second problem is the need to change the lenses in the glasses in case of changes in vision abilities. During this procedure, the patient usually uses replacement glasses with old lenses that no longer fit him, and he experiences discomfort. Another inconvenience is the need to wear sunglasses in the summer. They have no diopters, and the person must choose between quality vision or protection from the sun. All these problems we took as a goal to solve in the design of our product.
Empathize
The entire process of developing the final product will be based on design thinking methodology. It divides the development into several stages to provide the most customer-oriented product possible (Pressman, 2018, p. 79). The first step in this process is empathy. In our weekly workshop on this section, we discussed the critical differentiators of empathy. A thorough and unbiased study of the customer’s target audience and their main concerns are among them. The main conclusion I drew from this section was that it is necessary to take a non-judgmental approach to audience research. In addition, it is essential not to superimpose one’s personal opinion on an issue, even if the developer himself falls within the target audience. At the empathy stage, the objective experience should trump the subjective one. To develop our product, we will conduct audience research in online surveys and personal interviews. People will freely share their problems and what solution they see as optimal.
Define
Then the process of design thinking flows into problem definition. In the workshop on this topic, the main task was to design the persona our product will be intended for. The persona should have all the standard qualities of the target audience. The persona’s needs must then be met by providing a product that solves the persona’s problem (Chambers et al., 2018., p. 74). All tactics in the problem definition phase of the design process will work for our product. We will use the persona technique in the design process. We will systematize the data obtained from the interviewed subjects and highlight the most frequent problems and requests for her portrait. We will draw a picture of the challenges we need to solve with our product. This way, with a clear definition of the task, we can move on to the ideation stage.
Ideate
In the weekly workshop on ideation, we concluded that this is an essential step in product development. Thinking design methodology describes that ideation involves generating ideas for a future product. It is essential to hear and celebrate each idea because the final product can combine several of them (Mashhood, 2018, p. 45). A mind map or the six-hat technique can be used for an effective ideation process. In the case of our product development, we used the latter technique and divided responsibilities into the group responsible for idea generation. This way, we could reach a consensus on the future product reasonably quickly. The ideation process is basically about choosing the best and most optimal from several ideas. Our team compiled several ideas to optimize the product to be presented to the public.
Prototype
Regarding prototyping, at our weekly workshop, we discussed several techniques for prototyping. We know from the theory of design thinking that a prototype should be tested in several dimensions (den Dekker, 2020, p. 27). For example, it is worth creating a model of an object and making a storyboard to determine the product’s difficulties. Our product is smart glasses, with several functions that solve the target audience’s problems. First, they will read the condition of the eye lenses and send the information to an app on the client’s smartphone. In this way, it will be possible to monitor the dynamics of vision quality and reduce the number of visits to the doctor. Secondly, these glasses will adjust diopters to the state of vision. In this way, the patient will always wear the relevant lenses and not experience the discomfort associated with changing them. Another essential feature of the glasses will be the darkening when exposed to ultraviolet light. This way, people will not have to choose between the quality of their vision and protect their eyes from the sun. To test the prototype, we will create a paper model of the glasses and play out a scenario of their use. In addition, we will create a separate list of problems that we will encounter during prototyping for further design adjustments.
Test
The testing stage is the final stage according to the design thinking model. In our weekly sessions, we concluded that testing is a critical step in identifying problematic aspects of the product. The testing phase implies better final product modeling than the prototyping phase according to the methodology. This stage also involves role-playing to simulate a full-fledged customer experience. At the testing stage of our product, we will work closely with the company to produce the final product. They will provide us with an initial prototype, which the target group will test. If the testing is successful, we can negotiate for production.
Reference List
Centers for disease control and prevention (n.d.) Common eye disorders and diseases. Web.
Chambers, F.C., Jones, A., Murphy, O., and Sandford, R. (2018) Design thinking for digital well-being: theory and practice for educators. London: Routledge. Web.
den Dekker, T. (2020) Design thinking. London: Routledge. Web.
Mashhood, A. (2018) Transform ideas into business with design thinking: the structured approach from Silicon Valley for entrepreneurs and leaders. New York: Productivity Press. Web.
Pressman, A. (2018) Design thinking: a guide to creative problem solving for everyone. London: Routledge. Web.
World Health Organization (2021) Blindness and vision impairment. Web.