Jason Obrien

If you ever connect with a UX designer, tell them what work you do for a living. This isn’t necessary since UX design is fascinating. However, I’m biased. It’s because, unlike other occupations, UX designers nearly always have an idiosyncratic and evolving description of the position they have. The reason for this isn’t because UX designers are naturally able to have divergent views about what UX design is about, but because UX design can be applied to do a myriad of things.

If you inquire with a UX designer to describe their work, you’ll likely hear a lot of buzzwords (user research testing, usability, A/B testing prototyping, iteration, and accessibility). However, a unifying theme is at the foundation of every successful UX designer’s work. Also, this isn’t always included in the brief description of their job that helps in solving complex issues with the user in mind. Now, let’s cherish the in-depth knowledge of design thinking ideas in the easiest way.

How can Design Thinking assist you?

At this moment, you might be thinking, “But, wait, I don’t do design!” Don’t worry! The process of design thinking is applicable to an extensive range of scenarios. Even if your core field is not designing, design thinking will still help you in numerous aspects.

Let’s take a look at a marketing scenario as an example. Imagine you’re trying to sell a brand new product. You have an understanding of the target market but don’t know which way to get them. The best method to reach the person you want to achieve is to penetrate their head. You should be able to relate to them, find out who they are as well as what they do and what they’d like, and, consequently, you’ll know how to connect with them. This is the beginning of design thinking.

After identifying your target market, you must begin investigating as many avenues to reach them as you can. After you have identified the most effective concepts, you must test your ideas. The tests you take may produce great results. However, you’ll be able to take the lessons learned from each test and apply them to your subsequent tests.

Once you discover a method to reach your intended public, you will be able to apply design thinking. Another benefit is that you’ll be able to adjust to the changing needs of your audience as well as the media and technology you use for reaching them. Design thinking promotes learning through failing, constant iteration, and ad-hoc adaptation.

The Process of Design Thinking

We’ve now covered the concept of design thinking and how it can be beneficial for you. Let’s chat about how you can apply the elements of the design thinking process. Also, this training through a design thinking online course can be done in the best manner.

Part 1: Understand

The only accurate method to know what users feel while using your product is to penetrate their minds. No, it is not necessary to be psychic to do this. The most crucial point to consider in this regard is that you don’t quite know exactly what your issue is prior to talking to your audience. It is possible that you recognize something wrong and the results of the problem. The only way to fully comprehend the issue you’re trying to resolve is to talk with the people experiencing the issue.

Step 1: Empathize

To gain access to your customer’s mind, you must do thorough research. It is essential to know the things they think, feel, and say. The only way to achieve this is to talk about them, observe them, and let go of any beliefs you might have regarding them.

There are numerous different methods you can use when narrating your research. User interviews, observation, task analysis, and empathy mapping are only the most common.

Step 2: Define

After completing your research, gather data and findings for analysis. The best technique is to put all your results openly. Use whiteboards, sticky notes, or any other tool you can find to review all your findings in one go. When you do this, you’ll be able to identify patterns and similarities. 

Part 2: Explore

Once you’ve defined the problem or issues, you can further move to the exploration portion in the process of design thinking. At this point, you’re looking at possible solutions.

Step 3: Ideate

Now is the time to be creative. In the initial phase of brainstorming, you must find as many possible solutions to your issue as you can. Explore the possibilities outside of your box! Crazy ideas might bring great results, and the more creative, the better you will be able to perform.

It is crucial to remain open-minded when you think about it. There is nothing that is a good idea at this phase. The aim is to think of numerous feasible solutions and think about the issue in as many ways as possible. You never know what might result in a successful resolution.

An excellent method to try as many ideas as feasible is to play Crazy Eights. With Crazy Eights, the goal is to find as many solutions as possible within the shortest amount of time. Any idea is not a bad idea, so whatever you think of, just go for it. For this, you divide a piece of paper into 8 parts and then spend 8 minutes (one minute for each square) sketching out and explaining an idea for a solution. After the time’s up, you are ready to move on to the next concept.

Step 4: Prototype

After considering as many options as possible, it’s time to work on your most effective solution and build an initial prototype. The goal of prototyping is to develop a prototype of your proposed solution, which you can later test.

Never worry about how complete the design of your prototyping is. If you’re doing it right, you’ll end up working on your initial version in the end!

Part 3: Materialize

After you’ve constructed your first prototype, you’re able to begin to assess whether it’s a feasible option. This involves testing and repeating the procedure.

Step 5: Test

It is the next stage of testing your prototype. Keep in mind that mistakes are equally crucial to your victories. The purpose of designing and testing your prototype is to fail frequently and to fail quickly. Also, it’s essential to learn the lessons from your mistakes and apply them to your next project. You must test small and big, both adjustments.

The Conclusion

The process of design thinking isn’t only useful for UX designers; it can be helpful to anyone. Making a website, a product, a business, or something else requires time and effort when it’s done correctly. This 5 step process will help you solve your most complex marketing challenges. However, we always suggest following the entire process step by step without skipping any element.

As you know, universities such as Stanford provide the best training to master design thinking, so it’s worth enrolling in the Stanford design thinking course. There will be failures and failures, but that’s a great thing to learn. Test the method, learn through your failures, improve upon them, and develop as an individual and a business.

Jason Obrien

Jason is the Marketing Manager at a local advertising company in Australia. He moved to Australia 10 years back for his passion for advertising. Jason recently joined BFA as a volunteer writer and contributes by sharing his valuable experience and knowledge.

Becoming an educational leader is one of the most challenging tasks. You have to be mentally prepared to deal with different situations as the need of all educational institutions and students are different. To adjust yourself in various educational environments, you have to develop that flexibility and skillset. It is also essential to have the proper awareness once you decide to enter the education field. You should know what type of degree you should opt for to have the right start as a leader in the education sector.

Educational institutions require leaders who can help them create the right policies to improve their reputations. Educational leadership is the cornerstone on which institutions work and grow. As an educational leader, you have a considerable responsibility to strengthen the structure of any institution that you want to serve. You have to play your part to make school or college an efficient learning incubator. Your leadership will decide the growth of students and prepare them to overcome the challenges of the real world. Let’s explore why educational leadership is the new black.

Role in Building Learning Communities

Good educational leadership builds the learning communities in schools or colleges that play a crucial role in students’ personal and professional growth. It helps create a good learning culture and transparency to ensure that staff, students, community members, and parents remain on the same page. To lead such communities, you need to have good qualifications. It will provide you with in-depth learning of different necessary concepts.

You may opt for a relevant and high-level degree in educational leadership to fulfill your duties efficiently as a leader. These learning communities also provide students an opportunity to share their concerns regarding academic or nonacademic activities. It provides them with the confidence to express themselves without hesitation, filling the gaps between students and higher authorities of schools or colleges. So, the role of the educational leader becomes highly significant to nurture and lead learning communities.

Empowering Teachers

Being an educational leader is not about running a one-person show. You cannot do everything alone, so you have to guide and empower teachers to take leadership roles. It will simplify things for you and help teachers enhance their skills. When people are given opportunities to excel and flourish in their careers, they become more motivated and engaged. So, the same thing educational leaders do by pushing teachers to come out of their comfort zones. It gives teachers an understanding that they can help students more effectively and seek better career opportunities.

By encouraging and offering teachers more development opportunities, you can create a healthy environment. Also, it positively impacts students’ learning as teachers can set good examples by leading from the front. Good educational institutions aim to improve the quality level of teachers. As a result, they hire educational leaders who can effectively carry out their tasks. Leaders make a significant contribution to the advancement of institutions by giving enough support to teachers.

Working with a Vision

One of the biggest leadership qualities is having a clear vision and plan. Educational leaders work to achieve specific goals that help unite people around them. It also allows them to articulate their institution’s goals and vision. It would be best to understand that only passion can drive you to set a vision. So, educational leaders generate excitement and motivation that fuels the fire of success among teachers and students.

A vision provides educational leaders momentum and a clear direction to follow. How can you guide teachers and colleagues if you do not know which path to follow? Or how can you set priorities that what things are essential and what you all should do together to accomplish the organization’s goals? So, leaders bring clarity to help staff focus on the long-term objectives for the organization’s betterment and personal growth.

Encouraging to Take Risks

Educational leaders never shy away from taking risks because they know that failure is always a lesson. So, they encourage teachers and other staff members to implement new policies that can improve students’ progress. It helps them create a supportive environment that recognizes successful ideas and appreciates the efforts regardless of the outcome.

It is essential to understand that failure is the first step toward success. Unless you are not going to attempt anything, you will not get any result. So, educational leaders try to teach the same concept to their peers. Good leaders create a culture to support risk-taking by using controlled experiments. It allows them to give margin for small failures and take the proper measures for its correction. Eventually, it builds a platform of collective efforts and intelligence, helping employees to learn from the mistakes of each other.

Leading from the Front

 A brave leader always leads from the front by setting examples himself. If you are not doing a particular thing yourself, how can you expect your team to follow you? Educational leaders show the path of success to their colleagues and display how to achieve any goal. That is why the significance of educational leaders in the educational sector is vast. Once you start leading from the front, you will receive the respect and admiration of teachers and other staff members. You will be their role model. They will follow in your footsteps to uplift the overall progress of students and institutions. As you may already know, actions sound louder than words.

Conclusion

The role of leadership in the education sector holds special significance. From creating educational policies to empowering teachers, they have a huge role in different areas. It is why educational leadership is the new black and has a massive demand in the schools and colleges. If you have a similar passion for serving the education sector in a leadership role, then opt for the relevant qualifications, stay determined, and success will follow you.

Jason Obrien

Jason is the Marketing Manager at a local advertising company in Australia. He moved to Australia 10 years back for his passion for advertising. Jason recently joined BFA as a volunteer writer and contributes by sharing his valuable experience and knowledge.

No matter when you came to know the work of Stephen King, it’s inevitable that his prolific horror novels have made an impact. There are plenty of avenues to search for the best Stephen King books but we have researched them all and picked the very best to save you your valuable time.

Dive into these books and we promise you’ll be left with that unique mix of fascination, delight, and of course, a healthy dose of horror.

1. IT

We begin with the best novel by Stephen King, IT. You can spare time to read this book. It has 1200 pages with several chapters. This book is just stunning. This novel provides you with more than what we call entertainment.

It’s a little town that you can relate to. The haunting is only real in Derry… When the tragedy happened first, they were seven teens. But, they are now grown-up men and women who are living their prosperous lives: social, financial, and domestic.

They can hardly resist the call to return to Derry to confront the nightmare with no end in sight and the horror without a name.

This book gives you hope and courage in life. Of course, the “horror” sequences are revolting and horrifying, and they have the tremendous potential to cause nightmares.

The primary topic of the book, however, is about the specific talents and capabilities that children have that adults do not, and how you need to repair or seal the split that divides the kid (whom every one of us once was) from the adult (that we have become).

To defeat “It,” the grownups must recollect their childhoods to “glue the present to the past” and rediscover who they once were. It is about memory and transformation. Still, it’s horrifying. If you doubt me, read “IT.”

2. The Shining

Jack Torrance’s new employment at the Overlook Hotel provides the ideal opportunity for a fresh start. He’ll have plenty of time to bond with his family and focus on his writing as the off-season caretaker at the fascinating old hotel. However, when the severe winter weather comes in, the picturesque setting appears increasingly remote and menacing. Danny Torrance, a remarkably bright five-year-old, is the only one who notices the odd and awful forces gathering around the Overlook.

No matter whether you’ve watched the movie, however, reading the book, you’ll be taken aback and find yourself enjoying the book more than the film.

This book’s characters are intense. Each of them feels genuine. You tend to sympathize with Jack, a man who just can’t seem to get a break. But, sooner, you’ll be terrified of him and what he may do to his family. Wendy is also far more complicated. You’ll feel both intrigued by her and terrified for her safety.

There are so many subtle elements in this novel that add to the suspense and fear as it develops. You have to put it down for a day or two several times because you’ll be terrified enough not to touch it. Ah, curiosity! That will drag you to read the next.

As the story progresses, the images and descriptions of the Overlook and its occupants become more dramatic and fascinating. You’ll find the scenes involving insects, hedge creatures, and the use of the mallet most creepy.

3. Misery

Sheldon Paul, the protagonist, is the best-selling author who has finally met his most ardent admirer. Annie Wilkes is more than a voracious reader; she is Paul’s nurse, taking care of his damaged body following an automobile accident. But she is also his kidnapper, holding him captive in her remote home.

If you’re reading Stephen King’s novels for the first time, begin with this. The book is a masterpiece by him to let you fall in love with his writings and read more from him.

Compared to the film, you’ll be surprised to discover that the plot is much more detailed, brutal, and disturbing than the film. The film’s fun was crucial for audience engagement.

The text is more realistic and thorough regarding human emotions and experiences. King has an incredible ability to transport you into the minds and emotions of his characters. It’s not a lighthearted read. Prepare to be both horrifying and entertained!

4. The Stand 

When a man escapes from a biological research lab, he starts a lethal chain reaction that spreads a mutant form of the flu that will kill off 99 percent of the human race in a matter of weeks. The survivors who have survived are terrified, confused, and desperate. They need a leader.

Mother Abagail: 108-year-old woman wants them to form a restful society in Boulder, Colorado, and Randall Flagg.

The “Dark Man” who has festivity in chaos, emerges as another main character. As the evil man and the old lady gain control, the survivors will have to choose between them—and eventually decide the fate of the human race.

Be ready to read The Stand several times.

The progression of the illness, the people, and the battle are all fascinating. You can relate to COVID-19 horror and sympathize with the folks.

Reading this book will be a long journey, but it’s definitely worth it. With over 1,200 pages, this book may be very overwhelming. Stephen King depicts a plague-infested Earth and the events that unfold after the survivors are gone.

It introduces you to a few characters, their lives, their passions, how they survived Captain Trips, and their development and growth over the novel. Looking back 500 pages, you genuinely get to know the individuals in this book, and you appreciate that.

5. The Dead Zone

Johnny Smith, a small-town schoolteacher who has been a victim of a car accident in stormy weather, woke up after five years with a cursed power—the ability to see the future. This is thought to be a blessing but turns into a curse in no time — he sees the destruction that awaits the human race in The Dead Zone.

The book is outstanding by Stephen King. If you ask any of his fans which books you should read by Stephen King, he can count on this book.

After reading this book, you’ll hate that if you’ve watched the movie. The descriptions are so vivid that it creates their own reality in the reader’s mind.

Caring this novel as horror can be less justified: it’s paranormal and science fiction with a lot of suspense. Yet, it’s ABSOLUTELY CLASSIC!

Final Thoughts

The books by Stephen King are more than an addiction. You can start your journey as a Stephen King fan with these top picks and keep on exploring the world of horror. GOOD LUCK WITH CREEPY MOMENTS!

Jason Obrien

Jason is the Marketing Manager at a local advertising company in Australia. He moved to Australia 10 years back for his passion for advertising. Jason recently joined BFA as a volunteer writer and contributes by sharing his valuable experience and knowledge.