For someone who isn’t a morning person, 8 am is not the time I would expect to see trays of crafting materials on a table next to me. I thought, “Hm… maybe these were placed here from a group using the room last night.” Wrong. During class 2A, we were provided with a packet titled, “An Introduction to Design Thinking”. This required us to partner up with a random student in the class and design something useful and meaningful to our partners that will aid in transporting items to school. The assignment seemed completely uninteresting and boring to me at first because don’t people just use backpacks? What more can there be beyond that?

My partner was Tanner. While interviewing Tanner, I had to gain insight on what he would want in his transporting method to class. I asked him questions such as what he liked or didn’t like in his backpack, what his schedule was like, and what he preferred. These surface questions were not nearly substantial enough for me to develop a new product for Tanner’s needs. Professor Bromhall prompted us to go under a more creative approach by asking what were the other person’s interests and daily life. By going out of the standard and “challenging the process”, I was able to learn about his traits, allowing me to create something that fit his needs perfectly.

Using the art supplies on the table I saw next to me, we were to build a 3D version of our product. This is where I failed. Instead of going out of my comfort to create something cool, I tried too hard to be perfect and basically just formed a piece of paper with strings, which was nothing like I had anticipated to make. On the other hand, Tanner’s backpack for me was unique and aesthetically pleasing, something I would actually wear right away if it was made bigger. He had no trouble with experimenting and challenging his abilities, where I didn’t even bother doing so in fear of failing the task and consequently doing so.

Doing this assignment again, I would have focused more on the process rather than the outcome. By thinking of something completely weird and out of the ordinary, I could have used all the supplies differently to make something other than a piece of paper with strings that I called a backpack. This relates a lot to my issue of challenging the process because I try to hard to have a perfect result, rather than experimenting and looking for something out of my ordinary process, though by failing, I am learning from the experience.