See It, Think It, Build It: Discover Design Thinking (DT)

You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken, this is why it’s crucial to truly see a problem through the eyes of those who experience it. When redesigning the San Francisco school lunch experience, IDEO discovered that long lines and rushed mealtimes discouraged students from eating. This insight shifted the focus from just food quality to improving the lunchtime environment.

In this session, you’ll learn how to observe and listen deeply like IDEO did—looking beyond what people say to understand what they actually do and feel. We’ll introduce you to data collection techniques (e.g. observation and interviews) and tools like the Empathy Map Canvas, User Personas, and Journey Mapping to help you organise insights and spot patterns.

By the end of this workshop, you’ll be able to define a clear problem statement grounded in real human needs—helping you focus on what truly matters.

Once a problem is clear, the next step is to unleash creativity. Taking IDEO’s cafeteria redesign as an example, their team ideated a range of possible solutions from flexible seating to new food service methods, all aimed at making lunchtime more inviting and efficient for students.

This session guides you through brainstorming techniques that encourage wild ideas and practical thinking alike. You’ll learn to separate idea generation from evaluation, so you can explore many possibilities before focusing on the most promising ones. Models like divergent and convergent thinking will help you balance creative freedom with focused decision-making.

You’ll leave with skills to develop bold, well-rounded ideas and choose solutions that are feasible and impactful.

Ideas become real through action. With IDEO’s student cafeteria project, prototypes of new seating arrangement and service systems were built, inviting students to try them out and share feedback before changes were finalised.

In this session, you’ll learn how to create minimum viable products (MVPs) — simple, low-cost prototypes of your idea that you can test with potential users, gather feedback on, and refine. This iterative process helps you discover what works, what needs tweaking, or what should be discarded, saving time, cost, and effort.

You’ll practice building prototypes and learn how to run user tests that guide continuous improvement, turning ideas into effective solutions.

This workshop is open to all UU and UCU students. PhD candidates are welcome too! No prior knowledge or preparation is required. The workshop is free, but once you register, we do expect you to show up and actively participate. Please refer to our no-show policy below for more details.

Note: The workshop will be conducted in English. 

This workshop is led by Bianca Meyer, Playground’s Community Manager, and/or Wiepke Koekenberg, Playground’s Student Coach. Bianca’s publication, co-authored with Assistant Professor Anne van Ewijk, applied DT principles and directly inspired the creation of Playground. Wiepke also worked with Anne to develop a science entrepreneurship course for master’s and PhD students at UU, blending DT, Lean Startup methods, and entrepreneurial skills. Both Bianca and Wiepke also volunteered at the Ljubljana MBA Business Design course (2025/2026), led by Stanford Assistant Professor Anja Svetina Nabergoj, gaining hands-on experience in DT, innovation, intrapreneurship, and human-centered design that they now bring into their workshops.

We're excited to offer this workshop for free, but free doesn’t mean free of responsibility. Our workshops thrive on participant interaction, and we love providing snacks and drinks to enhance your experience. Late cancellations and no-shows make it harder for us to continue offering these perks. We need your help to make this possible, and here's how we work:

• Once you sign up for a workshop, we expect you to attend.

• If you need to cancel, please do so as early as possible—at least 24 hours before the workshop.

• Failing to show up without notice will result in a temporary 8-week suspension from all Playground activities.

• Two consecutive no-shows will result in a suspension from all Playground activities for the remainder of the academic year.

We appreciate your cooperation in making our workshops a great experience for everyone and look forward to seeing you at Playground.