英米　１年
My feeling after the lecture was over was like, “Wow, I’m such a happy woman that I can take such lectures of various kinds!” All the topics of the lectures in the past were already diverse, but I think today’s class was a little bit different because the topic was related to the mind. Since most of them did not feature this topic, it was very interesting. Everything she explained was great and I liked the five-step process of design thinking the most. So far, I do not have any schedule to start making useful products, but these steps must be able to be incorporated in my life in university, especially the steps of Empathize, Define and Ideate. What I have to do is simple. First, think and examine deeply about what I or people think. Second, go over the results I got in the first process and construct some sentences. Third, come up with helpful ideas or thoughts. As I move on to the next grade, I will have more assignments to find problems and then provide solutions. Making use of design thinking, I want to think up innovative answers in the future.

英米　２年
Today’s lesson was more useful for me, although the classes so far were exciting. Design thinking is the most important, and you must do design thinking when you work on a big project. Design thinking consists of 5 steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. I think the “empathize” step is essential. As the proverb says, “The first step is always the hardest”, the beginning of things is the most important. You must think deeply about what you would like to improve. What else I have learned today is that working together is effective for your project. Even if you can’t come up with some ideas, your fellows will help you. Work will soon finish once people who have different skills work together. Also, seeing things from all different angles through teamwork is a key to success. Thinking design can apply to our daily life, such as job hunting. I have to think deeply what I would like to do or improve in my future. It was a good opportunity to think about design thinking.

英米　２年
I am reconsidering design thinking regarding two aspects. First of all, I found the importance of trial and error. People including me tend to be afraid of making mistakes. However, you cannot make progress without errors. I learned that it is okay to have difficulties as long as you are planning well and update an idea constantly. Secondly, I noticed that design thinking gets started with empathy. It is necessary to notice and consider problems you or people around you are faced with to make the place where you are better. I currently have difficulties managing my life under the pandemic, and so do other people. To be honest, I want to complain about the restrictions that are imposed on me because of the virus. While many people are trying to invent new stuff such as Zoom, comfortable face masks, and so on, they are managing to live. I admire these people who never stop thinking!

英米　２年
Design thinking sounds like the best way for creating useful items because it is based on the users’ opinions. If their desires influence the process of making goods, they will tend to purchase the improved items more often and the business of the company will be developed. Above all, makers will be able to come up with new goods easily. However, like the video, the workers were reconsidering many times for their customers and finally decided the direction of new items. The scene they achieved at the end was impressive. Regarding the answer to my question about what a careful point when people interview someone is, I understand we should be very polite toward the respondents. That is very natural, but the most important tip to work successfully. I will never forget that for my future career. And this phrase, “How might we ~?”, too.

英米　２年
Thank you for your presentation. Today, I learned to come up with innate solutions by ‘Design Thinking.’ Last semester I studied Information Technology as a part of the liberal arts curriculum. I learned that simple work will be replaced by computers soon, and we have to gain thinking abilities. However, I thought that it is difficult and I did not know how to improve my thinking. After today’s class, I found that Design thinking is very helpful for thinking ability. For example, if I have a problem in the club, I can make questions such as ‘How might we change the date of the activity to be convenient for everyone?’ and think or ask good and bad points of various dates. After that, we can change it or think again about the issue. In conclusion, I think this way of thinking will enhance our thinking ability and it can be used not only after becoming a member of society but also during our school life.

英米　２年
Deborah Broadby, thank you for a very interesting presentation today. I found design thinking to be very useful in business and I thought it gives me the ability to analyze things objectively. I want to study abroad in the future to learn about business and marketing, and I was very excited to see how they (in the video you showed) were able to strategize and create one product. It was also very interesting to see all the different opinions about online learning. I think we are all under a lot of stress in this exceptional situation right now, but there are a lot of advantages to this form of learning. We are going to have to build up online learning better to defeat this pandemic.

英米　３年
This presentation resembled a tv show I once watched on BBC called “The Apprentice”. In the episode I watched, the participants were given a list of local products from Cambridge and Oxford and the goals were to figure out what the products were and get them for the best deal as a team within a day. This was probably the first time I was introduced to the concept of design thinking, but it was not until today that I got to know by facts how this way of thinking works. After this presentation, it became clear to me that this show called “the Apprentice” was introducing people in Britain how to do design thinking using actual examples carried out by the participants on the show, who were experienced businessmen and women. I believe that this aspect of the show gave this method more effectiveness and credibility. Even though the show was not scripted, the participants made sure to use the design thinking concepts introduced in today’s presentation. My only wonder is why Japan, despite the fact it is one of the largest economies in the world, does not have this kind of incentive to get the people in its country to think out of the traditional box? Lastly, I would like to thank the presenter today for this informative presentation, which made me realize how much I had already been familiar with the concept of design thinking without noticing it myself.

ドイツ　１年
I’m glad I attended today’s class and listened to the presentation. I studied many things related to design thinking and understood this as a useful thing for future activities in school and society. The most memorable thing was about the cycle of design thinking. I was able to look back on myself because contents of the presentation were also useful in familiar situations for me. The process was to cycle through Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test and start over again. It involves understanding, exploring, and remembering. I think these are very useful not only in the workplace but also in school life. For example, if we must do research, I need to focus on raising problems and finding solutions to produce more intriguing and meaningful results. We can’t get good results without questions because we need to understand what to look for. Therefore, I think that “Empathize” is the most important category. However, we can’t forget steps “Prototype” and “Test”. If we forget the spirit of challenge and the importance of confirmation, we can’t grow more. Knowing these things make me want to keep this cycle in mind to grow as a person. In addition, I always look back on my goals and processes to stay motivated. I encouraged by today’s class! Thank you very much for the presentation.

看護　１年
I belong to the faculty of nursing. So, I thought how I can apply Design Thinking to the medical field through Debbie’s speech. After the class, I researched about Design Thinking in medical departments. Then, I found many examples about that. According to the newspaper, some medical workers try to improve patient experiences by making effective use of Design Thinking. For instance, the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Mayo Clinic used Design Thinking to reimagine prenatal care. They wanted to better meet the expectations and needs of expectant mothers who desired a greater emphasis on the emotional experience of pregnancy, rather than the clinical side of it. Through interviews with and observations of local expectant mothers, the design thinking team learned that it was extremely important for these women to have a sense of community. So, the department created online care communities which were facilitated by nurses and other pregnancy advisers. The result was an overall improvement in how prepared and encouraged these expectant mothers felt. It is every medical workers’ mission to improve patient experiences. I think Design Thinking is a useful process to do so, as it requires decision makers to empathize with patients. So, I will try to provide better medical care for all patients in my future job.

留学生
In today’s class we had Deborah Broadby as a guest speaker. She is an English teacher that gave us a talk about ‘Design Thinking’. This is a topic I already knew since I used to study Industrial Design, so I liked it a lot. Design thinking is made of five steps: Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Testing. They can be applied to everything. To be able to come up with a solution to a problem, we need to start by empathizing with the customer. We need to ask them what they think and believe about a situation. After hearing what they have to say, we then define ‘what is the issue?’, ‘is there something that can be done?’. We present all the information that we collected, and once the problem is defined, we ideate something to solve that problem. In this stage, we brainstorm as a team. Doing it alone can only get us so far, but as a group, we can get better ideas and instant feedback from our peers. When we finish giving our ideas, we make a prototype about that solution. This prototype can be something physical, or it can be even an application for the phone. Once the prototype is done, we test it with the market, and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, then we have to listen to the feedback with an open-mind and start again! After we talked about what Design Thinking is, we then started to empathize with our friends about what do we think, feel, and say about online classes. One of the most common comments were that many students have problems with teacher and student feedback. As an Idea to solve this, Deborah Sensei designed an example of an application that would help students communicate with the teacher more easily. I really liked this example since it is something many of us need. Design thinking is a cycle that is never perfect. We are always trying to make things better, but nothing is perfect. I’ve been using Design Thinking a long time now, and it has helped me a lot. One of the phrases Deborah Sensei used that I like a lot, and also believe, is “Think outside the box."