S1 E7 Human-Centered Design
Episode Audio
Kris Olsen is an Instructional Design who’s sharing what she’s been learning about Human-Centered Design.
Connect with Kris on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome. I'm Amy Petricek, a learning enthusiast and your host to share what you learned podcast is for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today, I'm talking to Chris Olson, about her recent learning journey with human centered design. Chris, it's so great to have you on the show. Welcome. Well, thank you, Amy. It's fabulous to be here. Chris is someone dear and near to me that I have met in my professional journey. We're both here in the Seattle area. And we dream of going paddleboarding together someday. That will be great. Huh? Would you be willing to share a little bit about yourself?
Kris Olsen
Sure, absolutely. So I am a local seattleites native born. I've been in the learning and development field for quite a long time, actually, many years, and most of my career has been focused on two different aspects, both the instructional design and the facilitation. And so creating the courses, the activities, etc. And then also, you know, facilitating like in the classroom, online at conferences, the works. And now recently, I become much more interested in Human Centered Design or design thinking, and also learning experience design. And so I'm very much morphing, how I do my work from kind of more traditional approaches to Hi this newer to me reproach.
Amy Petricek
So Chris is like many of us learning professionals who's always learning, evolving, growing in the field. And when she told me, she'd been taking us human centered design course, and was learning all about it, I was so eager to learn from her and alongside of her. So could you start maybe at square one, Chris, and kind of share with us? What is Human Centered Design?
Kris Olsen
Sure, absolutely. So Human Centered Design is an innovation strategy. You'll also hear it called design thinking. And my understanding is, is that people use the label design thinking more in industry, when they're creating new products for end users. And they use Human Centered Design labeled more in the social sector, when they're designing services, things like that. And basically, the bottom line is, is it's all about designing around your end user. And so in our case, and learning and development, it would be about designing around our learners, and you get there to learn about their experiences, their needs, or preferences or constraints, and you end up designing something that you're much more likely to meet their needs, in a way that's much more accessible and appealing, attractive, attractive to them as well.
Amy Petricek
So articulate Intel, you've been like, you've been really studying this, that is a beautiful, eloquent answer. So thank you. How about Did you get drawn into human centered design? I think, you know, maybe it's just me, but there's like 12 million things, always pulling my attention that I want to learn. And picking that one thing. Usually, there's something that kind of stood out in the process that drew me to want to learn about that. So what drew you towards Human Centered Design?
Kris Olsen
Sure. Well, absolutely. Well, actually quite a few things. One is that Human Centered Design is very creative. And I love the creative process. So I love innovation. I love brainstorming, I love visioning, designing the whole works. That to me is my jam. And it's super fun. So that was the first thing that that pulled me in. Second thing was that it's all about putting the user at the heart of the process. And so you do a lot of you know, interviews, you do observations, things like that. And in the process of learning about your learner, it really humanizes them, which to me makes the design process more meaningful. But then also you end up creating, you know, learning programs that they want, and they need, and so they're much more effective. And so you're designing based on them instead of designing based on what you think they want, or what you think they should want. So that's another reason. And then also, it's a I think of it as a risk reduction process. So probably many of your users or your listeners in l&d have had the experience where you spend hours and hours and hours creating a beautiful program, and you launch this stunning video or whatever it is that you're creating, and then hardly anyone comes. And for the designer, it's really you know, it can be heartbreaking, or you put your heart into it. And for the learner, it can be disappointing because you have a product that's not really useful or helpful. And with human centered design, you actually minimize that risk because you are designing and getting feedback and refining the entire way through so you end up with something that does truly meet their needs. That
Amy Petricek
feel so useful. I think there are lots of times We're very quick in the design process. I think a lot of times from our stakeholders, just in general, we hear I need this, and I need it now. And I think what it sounds like, to me at least is that Human Centered Design is really pushing the process towards in a really helpful and mindful way slowing it down. So that what we're building is intentionally built for the learner at hand. Yeah,
Kris Olsen
yeah, it's interesting. I think I could be wrong. I believe Einstein says something like, you know, identifying the question is 95% of the process or something like that. So I, you can double check that if you want. But, but yet, it's interesting, because on one hand, you're right, we're not rushing to a solution. And so it does take a little bit more time upfront, because you're learning you're interviewing things like that. But at the same time, you're saving a bucketload of time, because instead of spending hours and hours and hours creating something that nobody is going to use, and so then you're going to have to redo it or the issue, the challenge still exists. I you're spending time creating something that people will very much use,
Amy Petricek
very practical, very, like necessary. Yes, to all the things. I also want to circle back to at the very beginning of that you were saying how you're a very creative person. And I'm just gonna like on the record here, a test that Chris Olson is incredibly creative. And I'm always so excited to work alongside of her. And that was one of the reasons I was so excited to do a podcast with her was just to kind of hear her brainstorming her processing the thing she was thinking about this topic, because I knew it was going to be good, because I know you're a highly creative person.
Kris Olsen
Well, thank you. Well, I would totally love to have innovation jam sessions with you anytime.
Amy Petricek
deal done. Friday Night jam sessions, I like it. Um, could you tell us a little bit about the human centered design process? Meaning some of the steps of the process?
Kris Olsen
Oh, sure, absolutely. So there's kind of a standard or like a basic process. If you go online, you'll see that there are various versions of your various models. And they all kind of have similar components are just variations on the theme. What happens first is you start with a challenge. And so that's the problem that you're solving for. So it might be for example, you know, how might we help employees build a sense of ownership over their careers? Or how might we create opportunities for new managers to learn from experienced managers? Or how might we foster a welcoming, inclusive environment for new employees. So those are just be examples of challenges that we might be solving for. And then after that, least the program that I learned through was acumen Academy, so you can find it, your listeners can find it at acumen academy.org. And they created the course together with IDEO. And they identified three phases. So I can tell you those three. The first phases are inspiration, ideation and implementation. So the phase with inspiration, what that is, is that's basically, it's a lot of learning, learning about your learners, and understanding their situations, their needs, their concerns, their barriers, experiences, all of that, how they feel about your topic. And there are four different ways you can learn about your learners. One is by interviewing them, so going straight to them. You can also interview experts, so people who have some type of expertise relevant to your challenge. You can also interview people who are in what they call analogous situations or similar situations. And then you can learn by observing. So for example, like if i, you and me and your listeners, if we're all designing opportunities for new managers to learn from experienced managers, we would end up interviewing the new managers, then for the experts, we might interview the new managers, managers, right, so we could interview directors or vice presidents, we might interview people who've studied manager development, or business coaches, folks like that. For an analogous situation, we could go to someplace like a university, and talk with somebody there who created a program to help new students to help freshmen meet experienced students, like juniors and seniors. And then also we would observe the managers so we would, you know, like maybe shadow them, observe them working with their teams and their meetings, things like that. So that's the first phase I see inspiration phase. The second phase is ideation. And what happens in ideation is you it's, I guess, I was gonna say it's a fun part, but it's one of the three fun parts. So in in ideation, what you do is you take all your learning and then you Start by synthesizing it. So what are some of the themes, maybe your some assumptions that your learners have, or some common challenges that they have voiced or unvoiced. And after you identify all those themes, then you create some specific questions about the challenge you're solving for. Like, for example, with the new managers, we might come up with questions like if they're hesitant to ask questions, we might ask ourselves, well, you know, how might we help new managers share their questions with experienced managers? Or how might we help experienced managers foster a sense of psychological safety with their new managers? No. So we could come up with questions like that. And then after you have your questions, you do some ideation, some brainstorming potential solutions, you pick your top solutions, and then you prototype those. And in our learning and development world, you know, sometimes when we hear the word prototype, we think, oh, that means something big and dramatic and challenging. And actually, no, you can just know an outline is a prototype. Or you could take a bunch of post it notes and put them in a row. And that can be your prototype. And then you go, and you share that with your learners or you share it with your stakeholders, you get feedback, you refine your idea, share it, again, you feedback, refine, etc. And as you repeat the test feedback, refined process, your prototype gradually gets more evolved. So instead of being a row of post it notes, you might be your prototype might be a wireframe. Or it might be a video, or audio script, or something like that. So that's the ideation phase. And then the final phase is implementation. And so that's where you piloted you get your stakeholder buy in, you launch it, all of that. So inspiration, ideation and implementation.
Amy Petricek
I think what I I just the word that keeps circulating in my head, as you're talking was, it's so thorough, like it's, it's really getting at the heart of the issue. And it's not putting a bandaid on something. Yeah. Yeah. I also like what you said, the second phase was ideation. Is that right? And you're, you all couldn't see it, because it's on video. I'm already getting video, you all just get the audio, but her face lit up. I told you she's all about that creativity is great. Yeah, I absolutely love it. It is so much fun. I think one of my, this is totally just an aside. But one of the first conversations I had with Chris, She challenged me to make a vision board. And that will just forever be ingrained in my heart in my head, like, open up that creativity girl, and I was so meaningful. So always remember that. So do you have some concrete examples, Chris, about how you've implemented some of this Human Centered Design you talked about earlier in the podcast about how it is changing some of the work you're doing? How?
Kris Olsen
Sure, absolutely. Well, a couple examples. One is I worked with on a career development initiative. And what we did you know, employees wanted at I work at Big Fish games, and employees at Big Fish wanted more opportunities to develop their careers. And we also wanted to help them you'll experience a sense of ownership over driving their own careers. And so what I did was I interviewed some employees got their input, and then I prototyped and tested an idea. And that was a lot of fun. I it was fun. The whole user testing for me was fun, you know, so it was a mapping out of a potential, like, choose your own adventure, or like follow your own career path type of platform. And so prototype that tested it, you know, refined it. And then I put together a team, and we designed around that. And then I we prototyped and tested some wireframes. And it was fascinating because I worked with a user experience designer on the wireframes. And to watch her do the user testing and the finesse that she brought to the whole process was fabulous. And we got some really good input. And so that was a really fun process. That process was put on pause because we had a reorg at big fish. And what's going to happen though, is we're going to morph it into a new opportunity. And so we get to pick up the baton pretty soon. So I'm excited about that. Very cool. Yeah. And then I'm also creating a manager development program. fence. So doing the same thing there. You know, I want a program that's very accessible to managers. And it's flexible, because managers are, you know, they really want to learn, it's fun, they're very interested in learning, and they're also feeling really crunched for time. And so I came up with this idea where it's a learning experience plan, where I'll create little mini experiences for them. They can access them on their own, and then so they learn a little bit And then they go and apply it, no, apply it with their direct reports or their colleagues or whomever. And so managers can do it on their own. But I'm going to encourage them to do it with a learning partner. And I'm also going to set it up. So if it needs, if they want to have it facilitated, then I could come in and facilitate it, or their team lead code or something like that. And so, I and that was like, we had different ideas that we tried, and then we landed on this one. And so then I put together like a group of managers, all volunteers, and I, you know, prototype the test the idea, tested it with them, the high level idea, and then I also prototyped, and tested with them a specific example of a learning module. And so we're moving forward with it. And so now the next thing I'm going to do is take that one learning module, and tested with a team and get feedback that way. So we'll end up with a whole library of learning experiences for managers.
Amy Petricek
I'm geeking out just listening to this. This sounds so cool, Chris. I know I'm super excited. So it's it's a lot of fun. Yeah, I think. I mean, it does sound fun in the fact that it's, it's not about getting it right out of the gate. It's about like the continuation of like trying to strive for the need or trying to strive to get it right. For the learner, which is just a really, that's, that's one of my beliefs about the learning process is it's like an evolution. It's something that takes time you stumble, you fall, but you get back up and you find your way. And it kind of sounds like the Human Centered Design Process encompasses that.
Kris Olsen
Absolutely. Yeah. It's for your listeners, it would be one of my recommendations, which would be doing exactly what you're talking about. And that is giving yourself permission to do something in perfectly. Because I know in l&d a lot of people I know, it was a challenge for me, and I've heard that it's a you know, a challenge for other folks as well. Is it wow, you know, you really want to create this beautiful, this perfect product, you know, and then you show it to your stakeholders and you go teta and, and I totally understand, I completely understand wanting that and wanting to have the polished solution before you share it. So it's really easy to worry about it. But it's exactly what you said, No inviting ourselves to think about it, you know, we'll create a better product will save ourselves time, will save the company a lot of time, if we share prototypes, and then get feedback and modify along the way. And what I found was, you know, when I share the prototypes with people, there's no judgement? No, like, like, if I knew I was worried, you know, like recovering perfectionist, right? You know, people would be so disappointed if it's not perfect. It's like, no, they love the opportunity to be involved to provide feedback, including if you're just showing them like a sketch on a napkin, or a row, a post it notes or something
Amy Petricek
like that. I think that's a great point. People love when it's their work, their their line of business, they have invested value in it. And so they want to see it be successful. And they also want to give the input to it. So that's a great point to note. Yeah. Do you have any recommended steps for my listeners?
Kris Olsen
Absolutely. So in addition to giving yourself permission to do something, and perfectly what I would also say, the number one thing I'd say is to go to acumen academy.org. And take the free class, it's, like I said, is put together Aquaman, and IDEO, and I recommend it actually for a few different reasons. One is you get to learn about human centered design to it, you also get to experience a group learning process. So I loved the way the course was set up, it was very inspiring for me and has very definitely influenced how the kind of learning experiences I'm going to create in the future. And then also, you get to try a learning experience platform, because it's based on novo Ed, and ovivo ed, and that's different from our traditional LMS. So that, for me, also was a very interesting experience. So I'd recommend that as document academy.org. And then I'd also recommend trying out some Human Centered Design steps. For example, you can start by interviewing some of your target learners, you know, asking questions, you know, like you have your, your project that you need to do or your challenge that you need to solve and interviewing them about it. You know, their needs or constraints, their experiences, their thoughts. There isn't a right way to interview. I mean, the goal is just to to listen as much as you can. So yeah, you want to ask open ended questions and listen, listen, listen. So they say the 8020 rule, I believe, so you listen to 80% of the time, I believe and what I've been told by user experience designers is that typically, you'll be able to identify core themes. If you interview eight people, so you don't have to interview 8 million, just eight, eight of your learners for your target audience and, and you'll probably be able to have themes emerge. So that'd be one thing I'd recommend. Another thing I would recommend is to try prototyping and getting feedback. So you know, just like, create an outline, um, even just a high level outline, do that and get feedback on that and then flesh it out a little bit and get feedback on that. And you can also use online collaboration tools like lucid Spark, or mural that's em, u r, a L, or Miro, that's m i r o. And then you can go create a learning journey with post it notes, you can share it with your learners and, and invite them to share feedback. And you'll find that they're much more willing to share feedback. If you have a rough sketch, like don't do a prototype a pretty prototype on PowerPoint, because then they'll they'll, they'll withhold feedback, because they believe you've invested a lot of time, and they don't want to upset the applecart. But if you have post it notes, they're much more likely to say, Oh, yeah, switch these two here and add that one there and do this better. And so you'll get much more helpful feedback, if you're actually if your prototype is, is intentionally reflecting.
Amy Petricek
I have never, I've had that thought in my brain, but never had such eloquent words to communicate that. So thank you. That was so eloquent. You're welcome. Well, let's transition into the rapid round questions. Chris, I'm going to start out with learning is and you get to fill in the rest.
Kris Olsen
I'd say learning is fun. For me, it's one of my favorite all time things I am constantly learning and high. It's just, it's just so it's just so fun and enriching. Agreed
Amy Petricek
when you're mustering up the courage to learn something new, what song does Chris put on? You know, it's
Kris Olsen
funny, I don't have a specific song. But what I do do is I listen to Spotify. And so I would listen to something really calming. So for example, there's Spotify has a playlist called jazz for study. And so I'd probably listen to something like that. Yeah. Or maybe Norah Jones?
Amy Petricek
Yeah. Oh, yes. That sounds Yes. Nora could definitely get me in the zone. Yes. you're asked to do a brand new task with a skill set you do not yet have where do you turn?
Kris Olsen
Well, my first answer is Google. I would go to Google. But as you're doing these, share what you learned podcasts, maybe I'll turn to you. And I'll say, hey, Amy.
Amy Petricek
And I'll say, here's an episode for that. I'd say I am learning a ton from this. So maybe that will be someone's answer someday as a podcast. I haven't had that one yet. But maybe. Last one, Chris, without learning.
Kris Olsen
So without learning, I don't know what I would do. Basically, because to me, I imagine sweni feels really meaningful, but I will be learning until the day I die.
Amy Petricek
Yeah, well, Chris, what would be the best way for my listeners to get in contact with you after the show? Maybe they just have enjoyed your company as much as I have and want to chat. Maybe they want to learn more about human centered design, what would be the best way to get in touch?
Kris Olsen
Well, I quite frankly, would say would be super fun. If anybody wants to reach out, I'm happy to chat. We can have an innovation jam or do some thought partnering or something like that. I'd love that. And the best way is on LinkedIn. And so they can my LinkedIn or will you put it in the show notes?
Amy Petricek
I sure will. Yeah, the trick is she's Chris with a K. Yes. Thank you, Chris for the K Olsen with an E. Thank you so much, Chris, for sharing all about human centered design with us today. I also want to give a shout out to you, my listeners for learning with us. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kind.