Design Challenges (Design Thinking)
Design Challenges (Design Thinking) from Theerapat Yangyuenthanasan
Design Challenges (Design Thinking)

The Design Challenges are design projects for the Design Thinking course at UC Berkeley. The challenges are (1) to improve the car mobility experience for the Mercedes Benz users in the suburban America, and (2) to design a product (currently in confidential) for Larson-Juhl framing company.

These projects include the full implementation of the four design thinking phases in the design thinking framework. I started the projects by interviewing and observing a number of potential customers to understand their needs and usage of the existing or similar product. Then I worked in team to organize and frame the data to find out the customers’ intrinsic or emotional need. The data then was used to generate big number of crazy ideas. And finally we narrow down the ideas into one final concept.

While the product idea for the Larson-Juhl is confidential, the design thinking process was successfully been implemented and reward as noted in the publication on the Link to this project.

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Gaining Empathy. In each challenge, I went out as a team to interview potential customers. Shown in the picture, I interviewed a suburban American mother who drives every day for the Mercedes Benz mobility project while my teammate jot down the interview details. For each interview, we spent at least 30 minutes having a conversational interview and observe the environment where the product/service is located. This exercises give us insight into the customer intrinsic needs and behaviors on the product/service.
This is another scenario of interviewing Mercedes user on site.
The interview and observation need to be at where the product is being used. We went on a field trip around the Mercedes Benz Oakland area to perform our design empathy activity.
This is an example of the design concept for Mercedes Benz mobility experience challenge. This is to enhance the experience of those who the driver cares most about. The backseat passengers are able to turn the car into a cinema by watching a media or movie on a widescreen rooftop television. The illustration for this picture is done by one of our team member, Yangxin Chen.
Design iteration requires quick turnaround time; fail fast and learn fast. An example of low fidelity prototype for the rooftop screen concept is to have the backseat passengers have an ability to look at screen (or in this case a tablet) during an hour trip. We observed the users interaction on the product and interview them afterward for the feedback on the prototype.
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Design Challenges (Design Thinking)

The Design Challenges are design projects for the Design Thinking course at UC Berkeley. The challenges are (1) to improve the car mobility experience for the Mercedes Benz users in the suburban America, and (2) to design a product (currently in confidential) for Larson-Juhl framing company.

These projects include the full implementation of the four design thinking phases in the design thinking framework. I started the projects by interviewing and observing a number of potential customers to understand their needs and usage of the existing or similar product. Then I worked in team to organize and frame the data to find out the customers’ intrinsic or emotional need. The data then was used to generate big number of crazy ideas. And finally we narrow down the ideas into one final concept.

While the product idea for the Larson-Juhl is confidential, the design thinking process was successfully been implemented and reward as noted in the publication on the Link to this project.

View Website
Theerapat Yangyuenthanasan
Mechanical Design Engineer at U. S. Bionics Berkeley, CA