As the STEAM Learning Pod project ustilises the Double Diamond framework and when exploring and defining the project itself, several instances used visualisations to create stories. The Define Phase of the Double Diamond Method provides opportunities to establish a foundation for the project. In this case, a persona was created that allowed for a deeper understanding of who the design was for and why it was relevant to design for them. The persona created, Tammy, allowed the group to explore a snapshot of her life in context with the project brief; her age, her likes and dislikes, what was happening in her life that made these designs relevant, and what her pain points and core needs would be in this scenario.
This essentially set up a foundation for how any design development for this persona, and others in the same demographic or with similar pain points and core needs, would hold up when going through rationales and further iterations of design solutions.
Generated Persona: Tammy.
Alongside the persona, other visualisations used to support the design development included a Journey Map that explored a snapshot of Tammy's day, in a Maths classroom. Journey Maps themselves can vary in depth, with this one being quite simple in presenting the Actions, Emotions and any relevant Thoughts in the classroom setting. The simplicity of this visual provided better support when looking at the more detailed persona defined above.
Journey Map generated using the Persona of Tammy.
By using multiple forms of visualisations to consolidate prior research, we were able to understand who it was we were designing for and setup checkpoints to define what would drive the design. Between the two, though the persona yielded more detail, both the persona and the journey map provided high-impact points during the Develop stage of the project. For any future iterations of this Define stage to include a persona or Journey Map would be best to include more relevancy and detail to the context of the brief; what other factors would impact Tammy's life in this setting? What else would come into play during the snapshot of Tammy's class journey?