Author: Huan Wu

I am Huan Wu, a leadership-oriented undergraduate student studying Accountancy, Supply Chain Management and Information Systems/Information Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I chose to major in those areas because I am a person who likes to learn new knowledge continuously and take on challenges. The challenges bring me excitement, as I enjoy the feeling of using my expertise to tackle hard issues, find insights and initiate change. I believe having an understanding of different fields allows me to have a broader perspective when I look at issues in business. I aim at improving myself and learning skills to initiate change and make real impacts in the world in the future. My LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huan-wu-0507/
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Week 3 Reflection – Challenge to Make an Impact

A slide from Milestone Studios' presentation.
A slide from Milestone Studios’ presentation.

During week 3, we had an online session with Milestone Studios and our mentors to explore how to make a social impact. I was a little bit disappointed that we didn’t have the class physically, because we could have more interactions with the studio as well as our mentors if it were a face-to-face meeting. Still, I gained many insights from the class and now have a clearer view of what to do next.

We started the class by discussing unmet social needs. After seeing some examples of how people overcame those challenges, we were asked to brainstorm the problems that we had encounter in our life and how we overcame them. I was shocked by this activity. I have always considered myself to be a person who has creativity, yet during this exercise, I was unable to think of anything that fitted the criteria. I have had the cases where I identified the problems, yet the solutions that I found were usually too complicated, or I myself didn’t have the technical skill to realize them. Seeing the simple solutions in the examples, I reflected on my way of thinking. In the future, I should try harder to pinpoint the core of the problem so that I can come up with more affordable and more accessible solutions.

Another activity that led to many thoughts was writing the opportunity statement. This is related to the defining stage in the design thinking process. Two new words that I learned was analysis and synthesis. The analysis is breaking down complex problems into smaller, easier to understand pieces. The synthesis is combining small insights into whole ideas. We applied those two concepts when we created the opportunity statement. Filling in the statement, we sparked ideas that we didn’t consider before. Previously when we prepared the presentation slides, we had more plans for Ron and only a vague direction for Ryan. As we brainstormed the opportunity we could have with Ryan, we realized “improving the ability to multitask for people with limited mobility” would be an area with great potential. This idea could benefit not only people with limited mobility when they do tasks such as filming and drawing, but also the general public who may need to accomplish tasks with fewer limbs. In the class, we didn’t have the opportunity to talk with our mentor. Later, I plan to interview him in more depth. One technique that I think would be helpful is the conversation starter which we studied in the reading. I believe this would be an excellent way for us to see how our mentor reacts and we can identify more possibilities.

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Week 2 Reflection –Inspiration at DRES

In week two, we met our mentors at DRES (Disability Resources and Educational Services). As I visited DRES and heard mentors’ stories, I was touched by many points.
The first thing that stood out to me was the mindset of this course. We called those people who were going to participate in our projects mentors instead of users. This seemed to be a small wording difference, but it implied different meanings: through the projects that we are going to work on for the semester, we are not working towards helping people who have needs or need our help; instead, we are learning from the experts who have more experiences than us. This is something that I have not thought about. Previous to this class, I have taken some marketing classes and a design thinking course, whenever we talked about the targets, we were using words such as users or customers. Although we talked about the importance of customization and strived for tailoring the ideas, products or services to the targets, we were using the mindset that those people need us to fulfill their unmet needs and wants. This made me ignore the fact that those people had more experiences than me in their lives. As I saw the athletes training, I realized that they were stronger and more perseverant than me, and what I am aiming to do should be learning from their experiences and coming up with something that can radically impact someone rather than some minor modifications that don’t matter much to people.

Another thing that moved me was the evolvement of the sports chair. In the room that athletes conducted training, I saw previous versions of sports chair hanging on the ceiling. I was surprised to see how the sports chair changed from very similar to the everyday chair to distinct from the everyday chair. Living in modern life, it seemed natural to me that what people used should be useful and excellent. Seeing all the sports chair reminded me that Rome was not built in one day; what we experienced today resulted from many people’s time and efforts. Just like the “iterate, iterate, and iterate” mindset in human-centered design, I should continually think of ways to improve the work to enhance people’s life. The sports chair also reminded me of the significance of “empathy,” another mindset of human-centered design. Adam, one mentor of our course, shared with us the story of how sports chair evolved throughout the years. In the beginning, the sports chair was designed by companies that didn’t consider the needs of the athletes. Thus, the sports chair had many issues that were not user-friendly. It was athletes who were using the chair pushed the design to be more friendly and useful. When I design in the future, I should always remember stepping in others’ shoes and empathizing with other people’s perspectives.