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Intrface is kicking off a three-part workshop series on human-centred design thinking, in partnership with Stephanie Yong, design thinking specialist and principle at Stephanie Yong Consultancy.

Space is limited to 25 spots, so reserve your seat now! We are excited to offer the innaugural workshop to Intrface members free of charge.

Part 1 will coincide with Co.labs' April Co.mmunity Night. After the workshop, we will join Co'labs' Community Night for networking. Please invite your UIUX and product colleagues to the networking event.

Why should your boss let you attend?

Gain valuable skills in the latest approach to designing products and experiences that actually solve your customer's problems. Get an introduction to the concept of human-centred design thinking in Part 1, and learn the fundamentals in Part 2 and 3.

What is Design Thinking?

Human-centred design thinking is an innovative problem solving process that focuses on human insights, behaviour and decision making patterns in order to pinpoint real-life, existing problems. Human-centred design thinkers are action-based problem solvers and engage in an ethnographic methodology to ensure the right problem is being addressed. Solutions are developed by looking at what’s out there, keeping focused on the people we are designing for, asking the right questions and working as a team.

Traditionally, quantitative data has been used to gather information about our end users such as surveys, focus groups and we measure by key performance indicators outlined at the outset. This has been effective, however, there are certain things we can miss in traditional quantitative data. That is where the concept of ‘thick’ data comes in - with ‘thick’ meaning large in-depth and content.

Human-centred design thinking gives us thick data - it helps us extract insights from day to day life that is powerful in the type of content and observations it reveals. Thick data is data brought to light using digital age ethnographic research methods that uncover emotions, stories, and meaning — to improve strategy, policy, products, and services.

Workshop Series

Part 1: Introduction to Human-Centred Design Thinking & Challenge Frame.

Learn the basic principles of human-centred design thinking and work through a challenge framework to understand how to set up a design thinking project

Part 2: Understanding human behaviour & extracting human insights.

Engaging in an interactive design-thinking project, participants will be able to go through the cycle of human-centred design thinking and start to understand why human insights & behaviour patterns are key to developing any new product or integrating any new processes or solutions.

Part 3: Taking a deeper dive into how to understand, observe, engage and immerse yourself with your end user. 

This session will focus on exercises and methodology to really take a deeper look at who your users are, what they are prioritizing and how to design the ultimate solution for that user.

About the Facilitator

Stephanie Yong is a design thinking specialist. She is the principal at Stephanie Yong Consulting, a consultancy that focuses on utilizing the tools of human-centered design thinking to help generate ideas, solve strategic problems and apply to community and social impact projects.

As a leader in her community, Stephanie’s previous work has been focused primarily on the startup sector. Stephanie served as the Director of the W. Brett Wilson Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence for 6 years,
creating programs and resources, managing day-to-day operations, fund development and ensuring programming was valuable and impactful. Stephanie is also a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business with a strong focus on entrepreneurship and innovation and teaching design thinking principles.

Stephanie’s work has allowed her to work with a variety of organizations such as the Smart Cities Challenge, the City of Saskatoon Mayor’s Office and the Downtown Bid, Lyft, Kreos Aviation and Sask Interactive. Stephanie has aided these organizations in understanding and creating new initiatives by reviewing and ensuring the problems and issues brought forward were focused and accurate and focused and by applying design thinking principles to create solutions.

Stephanie has a BA in Political Studies and an MBA from the University of Saskatchewan. She has recently completed her ICD training and is a certified Corporate Director. Stephanie comes from a family of hard workers and has made it her life motto the harder you work, the harder you can play.