Michele Ronsen

The design industry has gone through significant changes of roles and responsibilities over the past ten years. If you’ve been in the industry as an educator; it’s obvious. As a student it may not be yet. The world is smaller than it was before, and technology and globalization have played a key role in bringing experiences to our hands. We as designers today have become more cross-functional in our scope, and expectations are high for the products and experiences we deliver. Design thinking… Show more

The design industry has gone through significant changes of roles and responsibilities over the past ten years. If you’ve been in the industry as an educator; it’s obvious. As a student it may not be yet. The world is smaller than it was before, and technology and globalization have played a key role in bringing experiences to our hands. We as designers today have become more cross-functional in our scope, and expectations are high for the products and experiences we deliver. Design thinking has become a necessary piece of our process if we are to drive sustainable and positive change socially, economically, and behaviorally.

This blog series covers the five steps of Autodesk’s User Centered Design and Design Thinking process for educators and practitioners — Understand, Explore, Prototype, Refine, and Solve — and includes several homework assignments for hands-on practice. In our last post, we covered Understanding and learned how to implement practices of empathy in order to uncover and grasp people’s wants and needs. This foundational step sets the tone for our design process and ensures that we’re designing for impact. Show less

Welcome to part three in this series about the five steps of Autodesk’s User Centered Design and Design thinking process — Understand, Explore, Prototype, Refine, and Solve. It includes several homework assignments for students of various levels and encourages hands-on practice. We’ve been articulating these steps because of the drastic changes in the design industry over the past few decades that have profound impact on how we as designers define our processes, and how we as educators are… Show more

Welcome to part three in this series about the five steps of Autodesk’s User Centered Design and Design thinking process — Understand, Explore, Prototype, Refine, and Solve. It includes several homework assignments for students of various levels and encourages hands-on practice. We’ve been articulating these steps because of the drastic changes in the design industry over the past few decades that have profound impact on how we as designers define our processes, and how we as educators are helping to shape both these processes and the students who apply them.

I was a student too. My formal education was twenty years ago, a time when design could be summed up by the aesthetics of type, form, and material. For years, I studied, critiqued, created and questioned the design of various “things.” It was physical. “Experience” wasn’t yet part of the lexicon, but I sought just that: experience. Allow me to share a personal one. Show less

Building a Design Thinking skillset is a practiced process. By the time you’ve completed the first three steps in Autodesk’s Design Thinking process — Understand, Explore, Prototype, Refine, and Solve — you may also have unknowingly traveled down a path, or multiple paths, that deviated from established criteria in one way or another. While the premise of user-centered design is to include the user every step of the way, it’s plausible that new findings, stakeholders, budget, technology or… Show more

Building a Design Thinking skillset is a practiced process. By the time you’ve completed the first three steps in Autodesk’s Design Thinking process — Understand, Explore, Prototype, Refine, and Solve — you may also have unknowingly traveled down a path, or multiple paths, that deviated from established criteria in one way or another. While the premise of user-centered design is to include the user every step of the way, it’s plausible that new findings, stakeholders, budget, technology or something within your control has inadvertently modified the direction. This is where Refine comes in: the second to last step in Autodesk’s Design Thinking process.

We’ve already covered Understanding: the step in which we learn how to uncover and grasp wants and needs through practices of empathy. In Exploring, we took strides to define for whom we are designing, what success looks like and then generating ranges of solutions to meet needs. In Prototyping, we reviewed testing, learning, and iterating to validate those proposed solutions.

In the next phase, Refine, we revisit the original design challenge and its success criteria to ensure our solutions are meeting set goals. Here, we take a fresh look at our highest fidelity prototype, review it, and take stock of how it meets the original and possibly revised goals. Remember, these goals may have morphed through the process, or it’s possible that you may have departed from the destination accidently. Show less

In this series, Michele Ronsen of Ronsen Consulting explores Design Thinking through blogs and activities. Before reading the article below, check out the first four blogs in the series, which cover the Understand, Explore, Prototype, and Refine phases of Design Thinking.

Welcome to the fifth and final blog article about Autodesk’s five step Design Thinking Process: Solution. This is where you present your final work. Doing this well is just as valuable as producing outstanding work, if… Show more

In this series, Michele Ronsen of Ronsen Consulting explores Design Thinking through blogs and activities. Before reading the article below, check out the first four blogs in the series, which cover the Understand, Explore, Prototype, and Refine phases of Design Thinking.

Welcome to the fifth and final blog article about Autodesk’s five step Design Thinking Process: Solution. This is where you present your final work. Doing this well is just as valuable as producing outstanding work, if not even more so. It’s paramount that you do not underestimate the importance of this final deliverable. In fact, work that’s presented thoroughly and expertly will often outshine work that that isn’t as well done. Why? Several reasons:

A successful presentation will bring people together and encourage rich dialog and deep connection.
Shared experience is greater than any individual experience and possesses the power to align disparate views and gives the opportunity to progress those views with a unified vision.
Presenting your recommendation is sometimes your last opportunity to influence your audience’s beliefs and behaviors.
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In this series, Michele Ronsen of Ronsen Consulting explores Design Thinking through blogs and activities. Design Thinking is a methodology for creative problem solving. Though designers and organizations define Design Thinking differently, the central process remains the same.

• start with a problem statement
• gather information about that problem with empathy and human-centered approaches
• create as many solutions as possible
• test prototyped options with… Show more

In this series, Michele Ronsen of Ronsen Consulting explores Design Thinking through blogs and activities. Design Thinking is a methodology for creative problem solving. Though designers and organizations define Design Thinking differently, the central process remains the same.

• start with a problem statement
• gather information about that problem with empathy and human-centered approaches
• create as many solutions as possible
• test prototyped options with potential users
• eventually, choose a refined or unified direction for the design Show less