if even a cat likes to wear a pair of boots, it should mean that shoes are very important.
Last Friday at MACE we had a lecture of DesignThinking, and we had to prototype a new shoe with team- works.
Fist step: why a shoe?
I never took shoes in great consideration, I always thought they were just like the other clothes. If I had the possibilities to buy more clothes just for vanity, probably I would buy earings or bracelets.
Otherwise we stay on our feet for the longer time of our day. That is why every person we (me and my team) interviewed about their shoes described theirs as “comfortable”. It makes sense.
Second step: create a “Persona”.
If you have to prototype, you should need to do it. We based on the details of the persons we interviewed, and then we tried to focus on their particularities and needs.
Franco, half British and half Italian, Londoner, 24, last year student of Architecture/ worker part-time, smart, polite,usually goes to the pub with his friends on Fridays/ Saturdays.
Third step: which shoe fits the Persona?
Franco lives in London: he needs a shoe he could use for the whole year, with every kind of season, temperature, weather.
Franco is very busy, and often he does not have time to go home from University or from his job to clean himself and change his clothes before going out: he would like a shoe he could wear during the day and the evening.
Franco is an Architect: he likes aesthethics and tidiness. He would like a minimal shoe.
Forth step: what could drive him to buy a new shoe?
Franco is smart and polite. He reads the newspapers, he knows about the troubles of our world. He could be interested in a brand which tries to help the world by giving some money to the developing countries, or to the technology innovation, to the social integration, to the water and environment preservation, or to the public health.
Anyway we can not know if those reasons were enough: this is the challenge of the Design Thinking. You never know. But you can always try.
out of the inkwell 