Concerns, pain points, solutions

Gather all your lines of data - from surveys, interviews, observations and any other modality.

List them in a big ol’ spreadsheet. We recommend retaining the audience's voice and use verbatim comments in your spreadsheet - they can be presented to stakeholders as evidence later on.

You may also find it useful to group any 'wishlist' items. Sometimes, people will tell you exactly what will solve their problem. Wishlist items are useful, but don't hinge your whole design on them. Human-centered design isn't just asking people what they want and then doing it!

Themes express the core ‘threads’ of your solution. You should end up with around six to ten themes that you can focus on during your ideation.

For example, "I don't have time to attend my induction" is a concern and a pain point.

‍"Lack of time" is a clear theme. If this is prevalent throughout, you know that your solution needs to either be short and sweet or that you need to design something that saves your users time.

It's useful to list any immediate inspiration here as well. What have you seen in the real world that already solves this problem? You often won't need to reinvent the wheel.

Ideas will land on a spectrum between two things.

Experiences: Things that change my mind, and make me care.

Resources: Things that support practical application and environmental changes such as processes, systems, and culture.

For example, a guest speaker talking about a round-the-world trip is an experience that can have multiple emotive touchpoints. A website that helps me raise IT tickets is a practical resource that helps me in the moment.

It's easy to get lost in the design of fun and exciting things. Remember to factor in how you'll measure what you're suggesting at each step.

For example, if you know your audience are time poor, what time-saving metric can you use to measure project success? How much time are they spending now vs. how much time will your solutions take?

List your considerations here as well. A consideration is something that can prevent your idea from becoming a reality. For example, restaurant staff will rarely sit in front of a laptop in their daily work, so a microsite with resources on it is unlikely to fit nicely into their workflow.

Once all your concerns and pain points have solutions, group them together in a coherent way.

This is usually a version of a ‘user-journey’ - an overview showing the different touch-points and interventions from the perspective of your target audience. Bring it into your design workshop preparations.