03
Contextual Research and Design Strategy
SCAD START KIT
Neelesh Ranjan
06
Starlandia Workshop
Creative thinking workshop to improve the customer experience of the organization
OVERVIEW
This project was a part of a client project. The purpose of this project was to solve the problems raised by the client using creative thinking within the organization composed of a wide variety of professionals, most of whom are not familiar with design thinking
BACKGROUND
Starlandia, located in the Starland District of Savannah, not only matches the distinct feel of the neighborhood but also works to help Savannah locals embrace and create art. Starlandia sells new and reclaimed art
supplies. Edminster, the owner said the business’s mission is to increase engagement with the arts in Savannah.
PROJECT TIMELINE
2 weeks
ROLE
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Workshop Planning
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Facilitating the workshop(partly)
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Role Play of Customer
TEAM
Namrata, Neelesh and Akshaya
CREATIVE STORYTELLING
Design Thinking Workshop
CHALLENGES
Edminster said the business’s mission is to increase engagement with the arts in Savannah. Starlandia’s trade-in business model allows Edminster to lower supply prices up to 80% from what they typically sell.. After a discussion with the owner these challenges were identified-
1. Improving the customer experience
How might we improve the customer experience in Starlandia?
2. Attracting new "non-SCAD" customers
How might we attract more “non-scad” customers to Starlandia?
3. Attracting local/professional artists
How might we attract professional artists in Savannah?
4. Improving the layout of the store
How might we improve the store layout of Starlandia?
PROBLEM
We decided to work our activities and exercises for the workshop around improving the customer experience in Starlandia. After meeting with the owner and sta multiple times, we felt Starlandia had a good number of customers, but we wanted them to be returning customers. We decided to have the owner, staFF members, and customers for facilitating the workshop
OBJECTIVE
The objective of the workshop was for Starlandia to understand the customers’ pains and gains when they are shopping in their store.
WORKSHOPS
Planning the Workshop
1)Ice breaker Activity
Activity Intent
The purpose of this warm-up activity to help the group get to know each other better and expand their creativity by getting them to thinking a different way
Activity Description
Each participant was given a sheet of paper and asked to write three statements about themselves. Two of these must be facts or truths and one must be a believable lie. The other members then try to guess which statement is the lie.
Reflection
After a long day at work for the participants, 2 truths and 1 lie served as a fun way to start the session. The group learned new things about one another and this, in turn, lead to discussions led with laughter
2)Empathy Map
Activity Intent
To align with the problem statement of improving the customer experience we used an empathy map to help the participants brainstorm, explore and uncover reasons about their behavior and attitudes from staff and a customer's point of view.
Activity Description
Participants were split into two groups. One group of three with the members of Starlandia and another group of two with the customers. Each group were given a large sheet of paper divided into sections
Each section is labeled with a category that explores what the user is doing, seeing, hearing, thinking, and feeling. Each group works together to fill in the information with sticky notes from the perspective of a customer or a staff of Starlandia.
Reflection
The participants collaborated well and were encouraged to write whatever comes to mind and not worry much about categorizing it according to the sections. This guided the participants in getting a deeper understanding and better knowledge about the what and why's of customer actions and also about managing the store
3)Assumption & Reverse Assumption
Activity Intent
The purpose of this activity was to look at challenges in a completely different way and tap into participants thinking power for the development of creative ideas.
Activity Description
From the empathy maps, teams were asked to pick 5 sticky notes. Taking those notes to be the assumptions we then asked the participants to reverse them.
Reflection
Though participants were a bit skeptical about the idea of reversing statements and coming up with wild ideas, they got the hang of it once they started generating potential solutions.
The 2 Solution
After the main activity, teams discussed and chose two ideas from their reverse assumptions-
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Attract customers and improve sales through marketing-
Utilizing Window displays visual merchandising
Videos for social media – Brand merchandise
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Letting customers know about the creative staff members of Starlandia
Showcasing employee art
Capture customer stories – a way of giving back
Six Thinkinng Hats
Activity Intent
The purpose of this activity was to enhance the ability of a group to see an issue and analyze it from a number of different perspectives
Activity Description
From the reverse assumptions teams picked out 2 of their favorite deas. 6 Thinking hats was played to analyze those ideas further. The Participants were asked to pick out a colored card (hat) and we then gave a brief description of what each color means and what role they would be playing in that session.
Each role had different thinking styles, for example the one with black colored card would talk about the potential problems, diifficulties and why something won't work and so on. Each participant takes a turn to discuss the issue from the perspective of that colored card..
Reflection
The participants listened to each other and engaged well by voicing out their opinions based on the role and came up with valuable insights. The activity allowed them to build upon each others ideas and highlighted the importance of team relationships.
Client Feedback
The participants enjoyed the whole experience and appreciated the facilitators for engaging them with a productive session filled with fun activities. They particularly enjoyed the brainstorming session involving the empathy maps and liked the other activities which involved creative thinking and thought the ideas and solutions which came from them would be implemented
