Bhoomika Jain.
Sarthi | Design Brief
In the creative field, more often than not, individuals find themselves feeling stuck in the process. This stems from the lack of a framework for ideation. While the users are stuck in this process, they feel guilty for taking breaks, and this creates a vicious cycle that proves to be frustrating for those involved.
In the context of the academic environment at the National institute of Design, Gandhinagar, how may we facilitate an experience of taking a mindful break that actually serves to enhance the user's productivity by giving them a framework to think in?
Duration: 5 Weeks
Team: Bhawna Tak | Bhoomika Jain | Shweta Bouddh | Udhayakumar V
Key Needs Identified
The need to take productive breaks
The need to de-stress
The need for Me-Time
The need to have richer social interactions
Outcome Delivered
'Sarthi' is a service designed to help the users overcome creative blocks, through a walk.
Each stage of the walk provides the user with a structured thought process that allows them to think beyond the constraints of their mind.
3 AGENTS | 4 DAYS | 35 WALKS
Research Process
01
DISCOVER
Context: National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar.
The process commenced with identifying the needs of the students occupying the NID campus.
Sample Size: 92 students, 5 faculty members, 10 staff members
Tools used: Various, mixed method tools were used, such as:
Survey/ Poll
To gain a quantitative understanding from the community at NID, the students and faculty were asked about their needs, wishes and wants through a Graffiti Wall
Card Sorting
Keywords related to emotions were given to the students, and they were asked to choose 3 as adjectives for their experience on campus
Interviews
The faculty, students, and staff were interviewed to understand their experiences on campus, and identify pain points
Lottery Box
A lottery box was circulated amongst the student community and they were asked to put in one need that they would want to be met immediately
Observatory Methods
All studios, labs, and faculty areas were studied to understand the work and play elements for the community
What we found,
admitted to experiencing guilt caused by taking unstructured breaks
expressed the need to catch some me time and take a break
needed to disconnect from their immediate work environment
said that exhaustion from work was their reason to take a break
Needs Identified
De-stressing activities during breaks
Companionship in Interactions
Interactions as Recreation
Personal space and time
02
DEFINE
Latent Need: Need for productive breaks
This shed light on the fact that the need to take a break emerged from the lack of productivity and the vicious cycle of creative blocks.
This enabled us to identify our target audience in the given context.
One’s brain will be happier and healthier when it coexists with idle moments without imperatives, nothing to rush to, fix, or accomplish. After applying the breaks and doing something for nothing more than sheer pleasure, one is ready to go again, which soars resilience, creativity and productivity.
Target Audience
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Students of Design
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Experiencing a creative block in their projects
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Feeling of over burden
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Preference for physical activity
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Like to spend time outdoors
This helped us establish our success criteria.
Get 15-20 students of NID Gandhinagar to pay and avail the service
03
IDEATE
The team spent countless hours conceptualising various ideas. After hours of intense brainstorming, we came up with four potential ideas that could be our service.
After intense discussions on these, we zeroed down on the idea of a 'Brainstorming Walk'
But, why a walk?
Service Core
Our service would provide a platform for the users to break their ongoing chain of thoughts, to create new knowledge and bring fresher perspectives to the same problems
Service Form
Brand Identity
Logo
The logo is representative of our objective; to break the chain of unproductive and cluttered thoughts and bring in a fresh perspective
Tagline
Your companion, from pause to play
During the course of this walk, the users take a pause from their immediate environment, play with new ideas, pause again to reflect on their thoughts, and resume playing with their creative endeavours
Colour Palette
Primary
Colour
Secondary Colours
Tertiary Colours
Promotional Activities
The team took multiple approaches to create a buzz around the service on campus, such as:
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emails and messages with posters
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installations and banners across campus
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footsteps on the floor leading to the starting point of the walk
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Posters and standees with QR codes placed strategically on campus
Here's a glimpse of the activities,
Framework of the 'Thought Walk'
The walk was curated keeping the principles of the brainstorming process in mind, where every user had to pass through three stages.
Define
Ideate
Analyse
Each stage was designed to have multiple tools.
An agent would accompany the user during thought walk.
An outdoor space was chosen near the academic block for our thought walk. It was one of the seldom explored spots on campus for most people and provided a disconnect from their workspace. Since the arena was out in nature, the users were made to experience the sounds of birds and morning mist that enhanced the their delight.
04
SIMULATE
In order to test the efficiency of the tools, and the entire experience as a whole, we tested out the walk by running a LoFi prototype and storyboarded the process.
Interaction Point
Touch Point
05
VALIDATE
The insights from the simulation, helped us identify loopholes and aided us in improving the user experience.
The registrations were opened up 2 days prior to launch of the service. The users could book online from the booking website, the link/ QR of which was a part of all promotions. As the process started, some users preferred to make their bookings on the spot. Thus, we had to introduce the option of in person, on the spot bookings, owing to the customer demand.
PRICE- RS 150 | ESTIMATED TIME- 3O MINS
TIMINGS: 6:30 AM-8:30 AM | 5:30 PM-6:30 PM
Finally the walk looked something like this:
What the users had to say,
The fact that I could say my thoughts out loud was great. Also I could see that the Sarthi was processing it all real time and taking me through it according to the needs of my problem, and that felt good.
-Meher, NMD 20
I still have the pages from the walk. they are a part of my documentation for my DP.
-Shankar, TAD 20
Before availing service i was only able to think in one direction but Sarthi helped me in visualising multiple perspectives. Each tool prompted me to visualise the situation in different ways.
-Anonymous
Tools are designed very consciously as each tool helped me detangle my problem .
-Anonymous
Sarthi delivers exactly what it promises. It very rightly doesn't give you solutions but carefully pushes you towards new directions for the answers you come looking for through the interesting tools during the walk. I came out of the walk with a fresh perspective on a problem I thought had no more potential, all thanks to Sarthi's service!
-Trisha, SDM 20
At the end of 4 days, we managed to earn Rs 5,144, making the thought walk a successful prototype as we managed to recover all our operational costs. Moreover, we served twice the number of customers we were targeting, thus, validating our service prototype.
Reflections
Sarthi as a service prototype met with success because it catered to a pressing need of our target audience at NID Gandhinagar, by addressing mental (creative thought process, break from their immediate environment), physical (physical activities), and social (companionship) factors.
My vision for Sarthi's future:
Corporate Sector
Design thinking is a much needed skill in today's age, thus, Sarthi can be scaled up and modulated to meet the needs of the industry and provide productive breaks to enhance creativity and innovation.
Agent Training
As the main touchpoint of the service proved to be the agent, Agent training and creating an SoP for all agents can prove to enhance the service experience al across.
Environment Dependency
The service was executed outdoors, and thus was highly dependent on the environmental factors such as time, weather, insects, sounds, etc. In the future, looking at recreating a similar experience indoors can be a great possibility for Sarthi.
