Tag: Education
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Communicating with Critical Stakeholders
During Fall 2022, the Fairhaven Public School Department needed funds to repair the 1906 Fairhaven High School. The building required more than $2 million worth of repairs. The only way to receive these funds was to present a case to the voters of the Town of Fairhaven. Our Strategy The voters of Fairhaven often have…
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Understanding Users with Journey Maps
Journey maps help understand the actions, emotions, and behaviors of users as they interact with a service or product.
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3 Idea Generating Methods Better than Brainstorming
While a common approach to generating ideas, brainstorming can only generate so many ideas. Other methods might lead to deeper investigation, and create higher quality solutions Provocation Creative Technique The creative provocation method fires up my creative problem-solving. In this method, you’re not simply brainstorming. Instead, you’re challenging the problem in a completely new manner.…
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3 Ways to Research Empathy
Without empathy, design thinkers fail to meet the needs of their users. To design solutions for problems, first, one must practice empathy. A core tenet of design thinking, empathy, forces design researchers to understand a user’s issues fully. The first step to designing a solution includes studying the user. Exploring and researching the complex needs…
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Design Thinking and Reducing Graduate Burnout
Quinnipiac University’s Interactive Media Master’s program offers many opportunities for students, but leaves room for more. I’m in my final semester at Quinnipiac University’s Master of Interactive Media program, and to develop design thinking skills, we examined possible problems students encounter in the program. I recently had a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Stephanie, a…
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Amazing Things
Bristol Community College offers students incredible opportunities and transforms residents of the Southcoast into someone amazing.
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Improving School Websites with Usability Research Methods
Many school districts develop poorly designed websites that frustrate and confuse users. A solution? Understand the user needs for the website.
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Why are so many school district websites terribly designed?
I’m a full time high school teacher, and work in a school that’s over a hundred years old. While our school has lots of unique strengths, our district website We’ve all attended a Professional Development session before and had speakers tell educators that developing a class website can improve communication with parents and stakeholders. Feeling…
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The Five Whys Analysis
While many methods exist to research problems and solutions, one more simple and effective technique includes the five whys analysis. This technique focuses on cause and effects relationships and quickly digs deep into the root cause of an issue. The technique breaks down processes into a sequence of events and identifies relationships within the problem.…
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Planning with Backcasting
Suppose you’ve ever watched the evening news. In that case, you might have noticed that one of the most popular local television segments includes the weather forecast, a prediction of what weather will look like at a given time. Instead of forecasting and predicting the future, I’d like to introduce you to the concept of…
