Jay's UBC Blog

In my first blog I talked about my problem solving process as a computer science student, and how learning the business thinking process will make me a better software developer in future. In this blog I want to conclude what I have learned in the d.studio course and how I can use them in my career.

If I ask you what the correct answer of 1+1 is, what will you tell me? You will probably say it is 2 and you are correct. Because we have all learned arithmetic since Kindergarten, and 2 is the only correct answer. The ability to produce correct answer to a standard question is called convergent thinking, a skill that does not require creativity, but knowledge and experience.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Convergent_Thinking.jpg#/media/File:Map_of_Convergent_Thinking.jpg

What if I ask you what is the correct answer of ?+? = 2? You may tell me it is 1+1, someone else may tell me it is 2+0, and both are you are correct. Because there are unlimited number of correct answer to this question, the answer 1+1 is just as correct as 3+(-1), or 1.5+0.5. The ability of creating ideas by exploring many possible solutions is called divergent thinking, a skill that requires both creativity, knowledge and experience to achieve a goal from many possible solutions. During our last lecture Professor Beausoleil asked us to come up with new usages of a hammer, and that was a good example of divergent thinking.

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Final_divergent_thinking.jpg#/media/File:Final_divergent_thinking.jpg

A good real life example of divergent thinking would be the development of iPad. Tablet computer was nothing new, there has been many prototypes of wireless tablet devices since the beginning of 20^th century. In fact, in the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, a tablet computer appeared aboard the spaceship Discovery. In the 2000s, Microsoft reportedly spent more than $400 million developing the operating system and hardware for tablet devices, but only met with failure on the market.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2001interview.png#/media/File:2001interview.png

Apple took a different approach. They took a laptop and removed the keyboard, turned some of the components of a normal laptop to the touch screen, and added a number of their IOS functions from iPhone. The launch of iPad was met with great praise from fans and huge financial success. Despite many competitors entered the market in the following years, today iPad still owns about 2/3 of the tablet market share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgxsmJollqA

Source: Apple

Another factor contributed to the success if iPad was the simple design and ease of use of the product, coincidentally, it was one of the strong points of our team project. According to the feedbacks from Scott and Fiona from Ernst & Young, our solution was simple, easy to implement, and can provide quick result. Which is very important for anything from a personal gadget to fixing a serious problem in a multinational organization.

For someone who graduate in December, I feel sad that this course, and my life as a university student has come to an end. However, I am glad that I have taken Comm 388 as my last course. I have learned a lot from Angele and Vivian and my great teammates Albert, Claire and Robert. I will miss you all and I hope you will have as much fun as I had as an UBC student.

Jay

As a computer science student, we spend most of our time solving problems. Whether it is developing an application for a company, or building an algorithm to solve a scientific problem, the ability of problem solving is the key to our success. Interestingly, despite most of us will end up becoming a software developer, our professors rarely teach us the skill of software development. What do they teach us? The methods of logical thinking and reasoning, a technique that is called scientific method.

“The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process” by ArchonMagnus – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons.

Scientific method is the process to systematically acquire new knowledge and to effectively solve new problems. As shown in the picture above, it involves asking questions, forming hypothesis, making predictions, testing and analyzing. It is the cornerstone of modern scientific development, and the most important method of thinking for any science students. However, what we learned so far from design studio seems to be different from what we learned from any science courses.

In the book Value Proposition Design, Osterwalder et al. (2014) suggest that a customer profile is necessary for us to understand the needs of the customer. It includes the customer jobs, customer pains, and customer gain. Once we have the customer profile we will create the value map, which includes products and services, pain relievers, and gain creators. The value map is created to describe how we intend to create value for the customer.

According to Professor Beausoleil during our first lecture, many successful brands such as Apple, Coca-Cola and Starbucks tend to have commercials that create “superior experiences” instead of just selling the attributes of their products. In other words, they create commercials that connect to their customers’ soul instead of their brain. One of the examples is the action camera company GoPro.

Video Source: GoPro

Above is one of the signature commercials of GoPro. It shows different young people playing different extreme sports such as motocross, snowboarding, and skydiving. It is a fascinating video to watch with heavy electronic music in the background. The most interesting thing I notice from this video is that despite being a commercial that sells camera, it doesn’t mention the price or technical features of the camera. All it brings is the thrill seeking experience of the adventures to the audiences. In other words, instead of trying to be the cheapest or the most powerful camera in the market, they try to be the camera that brings the best user experience. That’s why one of the slogans of GoPro is that “Life is either an incredible adventure, or is nothing at all.”

I believe learning the business thinking process will make me a better software developer. Instead of simply writing a piece of code that works, I will be able to think on the side of the customers to design applications that best fit or exceed their needs. I am very excited to see what I will be able to learn from the design studio.

References

Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2014). Canvas. In Value proposition design: How to create products and services customers want (pp. 10-39). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.