Getting Started With Design Thinking Toolkit

Getting Started with
Design Thinking
A toolkit designed to facilitate greater understanding of design thinking and the design process.
AuthorS
BENCHMARKS
CURRICULUM
TEACHING LEVEL
Design Minds
Australian Curriculum
English, Arts, SOSE, Graphics, Industrial Technology and Design
710, 1112
Expected Duration
1-70 x 7
MINS
Exercises
This toolkit has been structured as seven activities to support a full term
of work, but can be extended or shortened as required.
1. Ideation Icebreakers
5. Now + Future
2. Whats Not Working?
6. Mini Design Challenge
3. Good/Bad Idea Challenge
7. Marshmallow Challenge
4. Rapid Prototyping
Resources for completion
Sketch book or visual diary

Pencils, pens, markers, staplers, glue, pins and scissors
Coloured Post-it notes
Butchers paper, sheets of coloured card and recycled materials (e.g. boxes, paper plates,
straws, paddle pop sticks)
Resources for documentation
Document student reflections in a folio or other method preferred by the teacher

Digital camera or scanner to document brainstorming, sketches and prototypes
Digital video camera to record final presentations (optional)
Upload photos or video to class wiki (try www.wikispaces.com)
Design and Capabilities
Capabilities for creating successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and
informed citizens.
Inquire
implement
ideate
Visit Design Minds for more info on design phases.
Version 1-30 April 2014

2014 State of Queensland (State Library of Queensland)
Literacy
10
Numeracy
10
ICT capability
10
Critical and creative thinking
10
Personal and social capability
10
Ethical behaviour
10
Intercultural understanding
10
Visit the Australian Curriculum website for more info on general capabilities.

Design Thinking
Cont.
OVERVIEW
Design Thinking has become a globally recognised term to define the design process traditionally
used by designers of various disciplines.
Whilst this creative problem-solving process has traditionally been used by designers to create
product outcomes, it is now being applied more broadly across society. The value of this design
process to students is therefore not in only how well they develop the problem solving skills to
create products, but also how they can begin to develop higher-order thinking skills to solve some
of societys greatest systemic challenges.
At its core, the design process focuses on exploring a problem or a challenge that affects a
particular user or user group. It is based on cycles of courageous action, reflection, insight and
incremental improvement. Therefore, although design can tend to focus on a tangible product
outcome, the design process is never really complete; there are always opportunities to refine and
incrementally improve.
In establishing the simple Design Minds design process of Inquire, Ideate and Implement, we
evaluated some of the most recognised global design thinking methodologies including the Cooper
Hewitts Ready, Set, Design (Smithsonian, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum 2011), Stanford D Schools
Stanford Design Program (Plattner 2010) and IDEOs Design Thinking for Educators (IDEO 2011).
Methodology
Design Stages
Cooper Hewitt
Identify
Investigate
Frame/
Reframe
Generate
Develop
iDesign Thinking
Intending
Defining
Exploring
Suggesting
Innovating
Goal-getting
D School
Empathise
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
IDEO
Discovery
Interpretation
Ideation
Design Minds
Inquire
Reflect
Experimentation
Ideate
Evaluate
Reevaluate
Knowing
Evolution
Reflect
Implement
Reflect
Figure 1. How the Design Minds phases were developed as a synthesis of leading design methodologies.
We sought to synthesise from these global examples a design process, that as Einstein would say, is
as simple as possible but no simpler.
What emerged were the three design phases Inquire, Ideate and Implement, punctuated at each
stage by moments of structured Reflection:
Inquire: exercises related to research, identifying/defining a problem/opportunity, developing
background understanding, setting objectives and developing a brief.
Ideate: exercises related to brainstorming, generating ideas and solutions to a problem/
opportunity, experimentation, risk-taking and play.
Implement: exercises related to testing developed ideas, prototyping and communicating an
end result.
During each of these phases there are also moments of structured Reflection to gather insights and
allow changes and improvements to be made before proceeding to the next phase. This structured
reflection is the most integral component to classroom learning as John Dewey has argued: We do
not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.


Design Thinking
Cont.
OVERVIEW
Inquire
implement
ideate
Figure 2. The Design Minds phases
Its obvious that the types of behaviours and actions that take place in each of the phases are quite
different. As a 21st century educator, your role is changing from being a sage on the stage to a
guide on the side. In facilitating the design process with your students, your role is to define and
encourage the certain types of behaviours that are useful in each stage. For example, you really
want to encourage play, experimentation, risk-taking and lateral thinking in the Ideate phase,
however a more rational and investigative approach is more appropriate in the Inquire phase.
In this toolkit, you will be presented with a range of introductory activities that quickly take students
through one or more of the three design phases. The exercises are intended to be short, sharp and
fun and can be used at any point during your teaching program, either as warm-up exercises at the
start of a class, or injected as a tool for problem-solving at certain stages during a particular class
project.
By regularly introducing your students to these exercises, you will be building their problem-solving
capacity and developing their ability to consciously move in and out of particular design phases, as
well as through the entire design process.
Figure 3. Rapid prototyping in action, during the Implement phase. Image by Becky Strong.

Ideation Icebreakers
1-10 minutes each
method
Small groups or pairs
MATERIALS
Paper and pencil
Washable marker
A4 paper with 30 circles printed on it
Brick (or a projected or printed image of a brick)
activity
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
This activity focuses on a range of Design Strategies that can be used during the Ideate phase of
the design process. In reality, time should be dedicated to exploring and identifying the problem
clearly in the Inquire phase as well as testing and prototyping developed ideas in the Implement
phase. Refer also to some of the other GraphicsDesign Process activities to follow that guide
through the entire design process from Inquire-Ideate-Implement.
Quick Draw Portrait Exercise
Each student is given a pencil and a blank piece of paper. They are then given 30 seconds to draw a
portrait of the person sitting next to them.
What is learnt in this exercise?
This task accentuates the tendency to fear the judgement of peers and to be embarrassed of ideas.
This fear can lead individuals to be conservative in their thinking. It is important at the beginning of
any creative activity to acknowledge the potentially stifling power of this fear and let go of it.
E on the Forehead
Using a washable marker, ask students to draw the letter E on their forehead using their dominant hand.
This task is a method social scientists have used to measure perspective takingthe ability to step
outside ones own experience and see the world from someone elses viewpoint. People who write
the E so that its backward to themselves but legible to others tend to take the others perspective.
Those who draw the E so that its readable to themselves but backward to others tend not to have
considered the other persons point of view.
30 Circles Drawing Challenge (developed by Bob McKim)
Each student is given a piece of paper with 30 circles printed on it (you can download a
pdf template for this from skills21.org/2013/01/jumpstart-creativity-with-the-30-circleschallenge/30circles/). They are then given 60 seconds to adapt as many of those circles as they can
into objects of some form (e.g. soccer ball, sun etc). The focus on this exercise is quantity and to
have as many options as possible in the timeframe.
Another thing that can stifle the production of creative ideas is the tendency to edit things
individuals tend to self-edit as theyre having ideas. In some cases, our desire to be original is
actually a form of editing. The ability to just go for it and explore lots of things, even if they dont
seem that different from each other is a creative form of play and idea generation.
50 Different Uses for a Brick
Present the class with a brick, either real, printed or on a projector screen. Students are then asked
to write down as many different uses for a brick as they possibly can within 10 minutes.
This is a creative thinking warm-up exercise that fosters divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a
thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.

Ideation Icebreakers
Cont.
reflection
Prompts for reflection:

How could these ideation techniques apply to a problem or project youre working on?
documentation
Scan or photograph students sketches and responses and include in a folio or an online wiki for the
project.
IMAGES
Images 1 and 2 by Becky Strong. Image 3 courtesy of Center for 21st Century Skills. Image 4 courtesy
of Boral.

1.
2.
3.
4.
Whats Not Working?

35 minutes (1 period)
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
method
Class participation
MATERIALS
activity
At the core of every design is the exploration of a problem or a challenge. This activity will help
students identify and define a problem or challenge and reframe it into an opportunity which can
then be used as the basis for a design project.
Butchers paper and markers (optional)
Students are asked to explore a current problem in their school environment.

Begin with a brainstorming session by asking the question: Whats currently not working? You may
wish to facilitate a classroom discussion to reach a consensus on the biggest problem or challenge
in their school environment or even conduct some quick market research with fellow students
or teachers. Write this problem down in a place that is highly visible (like the whiteboard or on
butchers paper stuck to the wall).
Now, as a class attempt to turn this problem into an opportunity by creating a How Might We..?
(HMW) question (see blogs.hbr.org/2012/09/the-secret-phrase-top-innovato/ for more information
on creating a HMW question.) Write this HMW question down in a place that is highly visible. An
example HMW question might be:
How might we create a safe and welcoming environment for new students?
With the problem and opportunity identified, students can now use a range of Ideation Design
Strategies to come up with potential solutions to the challenge.
Have you considered?
This problem/opportunity definition process can be used as part of any design challenge
you might be exploring. Look at other opportunities for how you can use this activity with
some of the other Ideate and Implement exercises in this toolkit.
reflection

How did reframing the problem as a HMW question change the way you looked at the
problem?
How could HMW questions apply to problems in other subject areas or other scenarios?
documentation
Scan or photograph students research, HMW question and responses and include in a folio or an online
wiki for the project.
IMAGES
Images by Becky Strong.

Good/Bad Idea Challenge

Inquire
Ideate
Implement
method
Small groups
MATERIALS
activity
This activity introduces students to design strategies used for idea generation and provides a
useful tool for selecting ideas. Building on the previous activity, students generate ideas to develop
solutions for a pre-determined problem or challenge and then use Moonshot theory to select an
idea to act upon.
Different coloured Post-it notes
Ask students to form small groups of 4-5 people and give each group a set of Post-It notes.
Returning to the How Might We? (HMW) question created in the Whats Not Working? activity,
challenge each group to come up with 30 bad ideas on individual Post-it notes within 3 minutes, in
response to the challenge. When finished, go around the room and encourage each group to share
and reflect on the bad ideas they developedthis should be fun and humorous!
Using a new set of Post-It notes and the same HMW question, challenge each group to now come
up with 30 good ideas on individual Post-it notes within 3 minutes, in response to the challenge.
When finished, go around the room and encourage each group to share and reflect on the good
ideas they developed.
Groups now stick up all of the Post-it notes on the wall. Its important that all of the ideas are mixed
together, both good and bad. Invite each group to select one idea from all of the ideas presented.
Encourage students to select the idea that excites them the most and not the most realistic
or achievable one. This approach of selecting an impossible idea or goal is referred to as a
Moonshot (see the Reflection section below for more information).
At this point in the design process, students would take the selected idea and commence an
implementation exercise such as rapid prototyping (see next activityRapid Prototyping) to
begin to test how successful this idea is as a solution to the set problem.
reflection
A moonshot is an audacious attempt to solve a problem with a radically different way of thinking.
This way of thinking values creativity over intelligence and encourages the setting of unrealistic
or impossible goals. Unrealistic goals are far more exciting than realistic ones and therefore we
are inherently more motivated to pursue the unrealistic ones than the safe ones. The sheer
magnitude of unrealistic and impossible goals also means they cant be achieved by one person,
instead needing a broad network of supporters to realise them. For more information see solveforx.
com/ and watch this clip youtube.com/watch?v=0uaquGZKx_0.

documentation

How did the process of coming up with bad ideas change the way you thought about the
problem? Could some of your bad ideas be transformed into good ideas?
How could selecting a moonshot idea change your perspective on a possible solution for the
problem/challenge?
project.
Good/Bad Idea Challenge

Cont.
IMAGES

Rapid Prototyping
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
method
Small groups
MATERIALS
Cardboard, paper, markers, glue and sticky tape
Recycled materials such as toilet paper rolls, straws, string, paddle pop sticks
activity
This activity introduces students to prototyping as a tool for testing and refining ideas. Building on
the previous two activities, students rapid prototype a solution for a pre-determined problem or
challenge based on ideas they have generated.
In the same groups as the previous two activities, students are now asked to rapid prototype a 3D
visual representation of their selected idea, e.g.:
Poster
3D scale model/mock-up
Performance piece
Its important to allow a limited timeframe for this rapid prototyping exercise and to create a sense
of pressure to propel the students to action rather than thinking: 10-15 minutes should be adequate.
You may wish to use a countdown timer or rhythmic beat (such as this example youtube.com/
watch?v=Rx29OO0Anz0) to create a sense of playful urgency.
Students are asked to give their idea a name and then give a quick two-minute presentation
explaining and selling their developed idea to the rest of the class.
Extend this activity by rotating groups once they have finished their prototype. Each group
must then interpret the new prototype with no information from the previous group and
add to or refine the prototype based on their understanding. Allow the same timeframe for
the interpretation and refinements (10-15 mins) and then ask each group to explain how
they interpreted the prototype they moved to and how they have added to or refined it.
reflection

What did the rapid prototyping process tell you about your idea? Is it feasible? If not, how
could you refine it to make it feasible?
Do you need to spend more time exploring the problem (Inquire) or more time generating
ideas (Ideate)?
documentation
Scan or photograph students sketches and prototypes and include in a folio or an online wiki for the project.
IMAGES

Now + Future
20 minutes
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
method
Individual exercise
MATERIALS
activity
Design is in essence a bridge between a current situation and an imagined future situation.
This activity encourages students to connect a design problem or challenge to a future solution,
allowing them to generate a range of creative ideas for problem solving.
A3 paper and coloured markers/pencils
Students are given a piece of paper and asked to divide it in half. In the first half, students draw
how they see a particular problem right now (such as the one they have identified in the previous
Whats not working? activity). Students are encouraged to use only symbols or pictorial images
and no text.
On the second half of the page, students are asked to draw what this problem would look like if it
was turned into a positive opportunity and realised in 35 years from now. Again, allow only symbols
and images and encourage idealistic and utopian imagery.
Once students have completed the second drawing exercise, invite them to compare the two
images and reflect using text, on what simple actions would need to take place to bridge between
the current problem situation and the ideal future situation.
In identifying actions to bridge between a problem and a solution, the students are
actually going through an Ideation process. Consider opportunities in the design process
where you can mix up the order of InquireIdeateImplement.
reflection

How did the process of drawing the present problem and imagined future help you identify the
steps that need to be taken to bridge the two scenarios?
documentation
project.
IMAGES

Mini Design Challenge

70 minutes (2 periods)
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
method
MATERIALS
Cardboard, paper, markers, glue and sticky tape
Recycled materials such as toilet paper rolls, straws, string, paddle pop sticks
activity
In this activity students will become familiar with the three design phasesInquire, Ideate and
Implementby completing a mini design challenge.
Students are asked to investigate how the school orientates new students and design a new or
improved solution that makes students feel safe and welcome.
Students begin by investigating current systems and programs used to orientate new students
within their school and within other schools. They may also collect data from recent students,
including both new year levels (grade seven and eight students) and other students that have
started in other year levels. During this exercise students can begin to reframe the original design
challenge using a How might we? question, for example, How might we orientate new students
with a disability?
Using this data, students now place themselves in the shoes of a new student and brainstorm ways
of making new students feel welcome. Ideas should range from simple and easy to implement to
crazy and impossible to implement. Each group then selects their favourite and least favourite idea
and shares it with the class.
Based on feedback from the class, students then choose one idea and begin to refine it, creating
sketches. They then undertake a rapid prototyping exercise using materials such as coloured
paper, paddle pop sticks, straws, string, sticky tape and glue to build a prototype that clearly
communicates their idea.
Once students have completed their prototype they are to present it as their final idea to the class.
Students should share any challenges they had during the process and reflect on what they have
learned and what they would do differently.
The Design Minds toolkit Rethinking the Problem provides more detailed exercises for
understanding a problem from a particular students perspective. Download it from
designminds.org.au/toolkit-rethinking-the-problem/.
reflection

documentation

How could you learn more about your users in the Inquiry phase?
How did placing yourself in the shoes of one of your users affect the way you thought about the
problem?
How did building a prototype assist the design process? Was the prototype feasible? If not,
how would you refine the prototype to make it feasible?
Scan or photograph students research, sketches and prototypes and include in a folio or an online wiki
for the project.
Mini Design Challenge

Cont.
IMAGES

Images courtesy of Pimpama State Secondary College.
Marshmallow Challenge
method
MATERIALS
Spaghetti
Marshmallows
Masking tape and string
activity
Inquire
Ideate
Implement
In this activity students will work through all three design phasesInquire, Ideate, Implement while
undertaking a fun design challenge developed by Tom Skillman and delivered by Tom Wujec (see
marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html).
Ask students to form small groups and provide each group with 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1m of string,
1m of masking tape and one marshmallow.
Using as much or as little of the materials provided, each group must try to construct the tallest
freestanding structure (no tethering to furniture or suspending from lights or doorways) with the
entire marshmallow at the top. Each group has 18 minutes to complete the challenge and can break
or cut the materials any way they like but cannot receive new materials once the challenge has
started.
At the end of the 18 minutes, measure the structures that remain standing to see who has built
the tallest structure. As a class reflect on some of the different groups learnings, in particular
examining the process undertaken by the winning group.
Running the Marshmallow Challenge a second time during the semester is a great
reflection tool. You may wish to record the results from this challenge so you can track
progress across the semester, this allows students to see how refining prototypes can
improve the final solution.
reflection
This is a team building challenge that aims to address the power of assumptions, the assumption
in this case being that marshmallows are light. The lesson in the marshmallow challenge is that we
need to identify the assumptions in our project user needs, the cost of the product, the duration
of the service and test them early and often.

documentation

What did you learn about the design process from this exercise?
How would you approach the challenge differently next time?
Watch and discuss the TED talk marshmallowchallenge.com/TED_Talk.html
Scan or photograph students sketches and responses and include in a folio or online wiki for the project.
Marshmallow Challenge
Cont.
IMAGES

Images courtesy of marshmallowchallenge.com.
Feedback
We truly appreciate your contribution to furthering Design Thinking in education through the use of this toolkit. To thank you we would like to send
you a FREE book courtesy of State Library of Queensland. Just include your full contact details below and well handpick something special for you!
ABOUT YOU:
Teacher name: School:

Postal Address:
Email:
Age of students involved:
Phone:
No of students involved:
Would you like to receive occassional updates from APDL? (please tick)
ABOUT THE TOOLKIT:
How well did the toolkit align with and support your existing learning benchmarks?
How easy was the toolkit to use?
How easily understandable did you find the the language and concepts presented?
How well did students enjoy the activity? (Please provide any examples of student feedback or anecdotal evidence)
Anything else to share? (Your experiences, learnings or suggestions)
helping out:
Whats Next?
Im interested in being contacted further for:

(please tick)
Providing ongoing feedback S
S
Authoring future toolkits
Becoming a
Design Minds ambassador S
Return your completed feedback form to the Design Minds team:

E: asiapacificdesignlibrary@slq.qld.gov.au
M:

Asia Pacific Design Library
State Library of Queensland

PO Box 3488

South Brisbane QLD 4101
And well get to work selecting a special book, just for your school!

Getting Started With Design Thinking Toolkit

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Getting Started with

2. Whats Not Working?

6. Mini Design Challenge

3. Good/Bad Idea Challenge

Sketch book or visual diary

Resources for documentation

Document student reflections in a folio or other method preferred by the teacher

Design and Capabilities

Visit Design Minds for more info on design phases.

Version 1-30 April 2014

Critical and creative thinking

Personal and social capability