In the end of November, I wondered if there was any chance to hold a design workshop in National Tsing Hua University(NTHU), famous for its prestigious science and engineering achievements.
Inspired by several events like Designathon and Hackathon I have participated in, I found that they were amazing experience. Gathering people from different areas, collaboratively work in an extreme manner over a short period of time. I love the whole process: generate ideas, examine the framework, build up a prototype and give a pitch presentation.
Walking my memories at NTHU, I have never had any events like those. It was a pity because events like Designathon and Hackathon are fantastic and amazing. I felt awesome when the prototype was developed and made new friends!
Therefore, I started to draft an agenda and contacted with my professor at NTHU.
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| 2015 NTHU design workshop draft |
Before starting to write a draft, I thought about what I want the students to take away. Assuming it would be their first time experience, the workshop should be easy to catch and fun. It should not be serious academic lecture. Instead, it was more like an appetizer, trying to relax their minds and arouse their interests.
For that reason, I should relate to their experience. First, I though about giving them the topic: redesign NTHU web registration. However, due to its complexity and workshop duration, I changed the problem statement: College students have a hard time booking online movie tickets (thanks to Jeff providing such a great idea). By leading them go through a brief process of UX, I try to let them think in a different way.
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| email with professor at NTHU IEEM |
Dr. Chu, he is my teacher in Product Development and Design course. He has devoted his time to encourage design thinking at NTHU. That's why I decided to contact with him and sent out the draft. He liked and supported this idea. Also, he''s in charge of a design seminar for college students this semester and that was a great opportunity to hold the workshop.
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| I asked my good friends to support me during the workshop |
However, I could not do it alone. Then, I first ask one of my best friend, Jack Yang, if he's willing to give me a hand. He is a talented engineer, designer, filmmaker, dancer and leader. It took me "a little" while to convince him because he's studying TOEFL at the same time haha. After graduating from Industrial Engineering at NTHU, he is an IP associate at Chung Cheng Certified Public Accountant, studying Taiwanese patent law and trademark registration.
About Cheng Hua Yang, he is an amazing multipotentialite too. After graduating from chemical engineering at NTHU, he found his passion in design. Now, he keeps learning web design and graphic design.
Jack Yang LinkedIn: https://tw.linkedin.com/in/jackyang924/en
Cheng Hua Yang Personal Website: http://chenghuayang.com/
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| Final Agenda for 2015 NTHU Design Workshop |
It's a 3 hour seminar so I refine my agenda to make it short and sweet and fun. Rather than jumping into solutions, I would like them to focus on customer first, empathy their behaviors and needs. Through creating a customer journey map, they could be more comprehensive to the process of booking movie tickets. Then, I will let them use sticky notes to brainstorm, make a rapid prototype and go on stage to give a three-minute pitch to illustrate their ideas.
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| my dad helped me to cut the A0 papers into A1 |
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| sticky notes, markers and tapes |
After confirming with the assistant, there would be 34 participants.
I separated them into 6 teams (6,6,7,7,7,7).
Each team needed:
1. Post-it Notes * 2~3 packs
2. Markers * 2~3
3. A1 Papers * 5 (one for customer journey, one for brainstorming and three for prototype)
4. A4 Papers * 25 (for sketch)
Total
Post-it Notes * 14 packs
Markers * 15
A1 papers * 30
A4 papers * 150 (sponsored by lab)
Tape * 1
Total cost
= 14*35 + 15*14 + 15*10 + 1*35
= 490 + 210 + 150 + 35
= 885 (NTD)
= 27.66 (USD)
Originally, I would like to control the numbers of participants. However, I thought it would be a good chance to let more people to know the event. In addition to flyer posted in the engineering building , I posted to my timeline on FB and got about 320 likes and 26 comments. I assumed there was a market, right? haha
We went to classroom 1 hr earlier to arrange the classroom seating, set up the laptop and hand out the materials to each table.
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| final arrangement |
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| Classroom |
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| Signup table |
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| Ready to start |
Since contacting professor, it had been three weeks. It dawned on me that holding a workshop, I have to consider every perspectives. Not only considering the content, but also I have to take the reality into account(people, materials and setting). Luckily, I had several experiences for holding /organizing events, those are really helpful.
Finally, they were all set. Before workshop starting, let's take a closer look at the content creation in next article.
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