Define: Themes and insights

Now that you've finished conducting the interview, it's time to identify some themes and general insights. This step is an important to help focus the How Might We question that will drive the rest of the project's direction.

Materials

• Pen or pencil
• Journal

Instructions

1. Re-read your interview questions and answers.
2. In your journal, write "themes" at the top of the page. Write down your answers as single words or very short statements to the following questions:
   1. What patterns did you notice? For example, "routinely late for work."
   2. Did anything surprise you?
   3. Was there anything amusing or disheartening?
   4. What else was significant or meaningful?
3. On the following page in your journal, write "core insights" at the top. You may need to use more than one page to write all three insights. Each insight contains three sentences. Using your themes from the previous journal page, write three insights by using the following pattern for each insight:
   • Positive state or event: "Going camping forces Mike to be active and getting away from technology makes him feel great."
   • Specific dilemma: "But he works a lot and forgets to plan trips. Getting ready for trips takes so much effort, that he doesn't have time or energy to plan and pack at the last minute, and doesn't go very often."
   • Desired End State: "I wish there was a way to help Mike plan and prepare trips."
4. Document your themes and insights with a photograph or scan.

Post work

Use the file format indicated in each step. You must obtain prior approval to deviate from these upload requirements. Please check that your work has uploaded properly.

1. Check that you identified a variety of themes.
2. Check that you wrote three (3) full core insights using the provided pattern in the instructions. A single insight includes three sentences, so you will have nine (9) total sentences if you've followed the instructions precisely.
3. Upload the photograph or scan of your themes and insights in .jpg or .png format.

Adapted from http://www.designkit.org/methods/62 and http://www.designkit.org/methods/5