Teaching design thinking and UX 101 to MotherCoders

No one asks "why?" more than a four-year-old. I’ve used this as a set-up to one of my favorite design thinking exercises: The 5 Whys. I share this exercise as part of the UX 101 workshop I have been providing for Tech Moms and previously, MotherCoders, both nonprofit organization that helps people transition into technology careers and find more successful employment.

This exercise is exactly what is sounds like: You ask "why?" five times in a row to really understand the heart of a problem. This is hard to do because we tend to want to start diving into "how" and "what" questions. Sticking to the "why" questions keeps you actively listening and planted firmly in the area known as the problem space, instead of jumping to "solutioning" with only a partial understanding.

As part of the workshop, I also like to present both objective and subjective parts of the UX profession. I give a brief overview of the history of the field and its academic lineage, explaining how it builds on parts of other domains like human-computer interaction, computer science, cognitive science, design, and psychology. I then share the Laws of UX website, which not only has a beautiful design but well-explained information about UX. I ask each person to skim through them, pick one that stands out, and find a real-world example of the law in action, either being used well or being broken. This helps students both understand UX frameworks but also shows how much, just as humans and users of digital products, they know about good UX without realizing it.