Achievement: Completing +Acumen & IDEO’s Course
Today, after nine weeks, my teammate and I completed the online course, Introduction to Human-Centered Design. Check out my certificate! I have been looking into taking this course for a few months and am so glad I finally did this September, shortly after finishing my last few undergrad classes at Simon Fraser University. I had prior knowledge of the process before the course, but I wanted to challenge myself further in completing another project. Also, the course was organized by IDEO, a global and renowned design company. The work that they do with the goal of creating positive impact is highly inspirational to me. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to practice Human-Centered Design through IDEO. Our project is on my portfolio page if you’d like to see!
Throughout the eight weeks, the course took us through a hands-on learning experience that involved speaking to people and testing ideas. Strategies for user research and opportunity identification as well as rapid prototyping techniques were also practiced. The modules were broken into Inspiration, Ideation (Synthesis), Ideation (Prototyping), and Implementation.
Throughout each lesson, there were readings, discussions, and assignments. I was glad to meet other like-minded and passionate people taking the course. Each assignment towards our design challenge was intensive. With a shared goal between my teammate and I in protecting the environment, we wanted to further explore the practice of recycling. Our challenge was framed into, “How might we support young people in Vancouver to recycle more effectively?” We did multiple interviews and also immersed ourselves in context. It was very fun and enlightening! After each activity, we came back together to put down our insights, reframe our challenge, and brainstorm ideas.
By the end of it, after prototyping and testing, we settled on our final design. I am so glad to have gone through the course. I was so inspired by the case studies in each of the readings and how IDEO has helped developing countries through design. The course even had materials on how to launch the solution in a wider scale. In the future, I hope to also enroll in their other prototyping and social entrepreneurship courses. I am passionate about helping solve problems with human-centered solutions!
