Design Thinking and Identifying a Problem Have you ever played a video game and wished the controls worked differently Or tried to send someone a message and had it not turn out the way you expected with mistakes in the text or with the emojis If you’ve ever looked at something especially using technology and thought This could work even better you’ve found a good design problem A design problem happens anytime something doesn’t work as well as it should Almost every design problem can be solved and all it takes is someone like you to see what’s wrong and decide to fix it One of the best ways to figure out how to solve design problems is to use a process called design thinking A company called IDEO put design thinking on the map Design thinking is a way of looking at problems and figuring out solutions that work for a bunch of different people It can be used to solve all kinds of problems In this book you’ll learn how to use design thinking to build a better app step by step To start you’ll want to break down how an app works Each app has a bunch of different parts to consider Ask yourself How do you pick what you want to do Do you use buttons swipe an area of the screen or choose from one of those horizontal hamburger menus 4 CHAPTER ONE
Design thinking can help you improve the things you use every day like your backpack or the school bus 5
Thinking about the ways you use your own apps can help you identify a problem to investigate Do the apps you like use the phone’s camera or sensors such as the one that detects whether the phone is vertical or horizontal Do they let you type things in or are you always selecting or swiping instead Once you’ve selected something or typed something in does the app do the action right away Or do you have to confirm what you wanted Apps have two parts One is the functionality which is what the app can do for you The other is the UI short for user interface which is how the app shows you things on-screen and lets you pick what you want to happen You’ll want to think about both parts when you design your app 6
Try This Pull up your favorite app on a mobile phone and look at it closely What do you use it for What does it need from you button pushes information lines you draw with your fingertip What do you get out of it This is the functionality of the app Now look at how the screen itself is laid out Where are the graphics buttons boxes text or other pieces placed on the screen Do you type or swipe or tap How do things look when you use them Are they easy to use This is the user interface or UI Consider your favorite app What do you like about its functionality What do you need it to do and does it do that function well How about the UI Do the app’s screens make it easy to figure out what to do Are the buttons big enough to tap Is the text big enough to read in sunlight Is the next step you need to take bright and clear on the screen Now repeat this with an app that doesn’t feel useful to you Make a list of things you like and things that could be better These are the possible design problems and you’ll use this list in Chapter 2 7
