Hello, she is Marta!
Marta is a “persona”*… a fictional character. She was designed to guide you, step by step, in applying the methodology proposed in this guide!
We have endowed her with three essential traits that this guide promotes through Marta “persona”. Thus, she…
- develops a “third place” with passion and dedication. Imagine that Marta is the manager of the café that you yourself frequent every day!
- is a very committed climate activist. Marta is committed to informing, sensitizing and mobilizing her customers, especially those who regularly frequent her café.
- is a true “master” in the application of appreciative design. In the following pages, Marta designs climatic learning experiences tailored to the café and its customers using this innovative method.
Now, are you ready to follow her?
*What is “persona”? In marketing, it is a detailed description of a fictitious but representative user/ buyer who represents a segment of your market.
How did “Appreciative Design” come about?
In order to provide Marta with a methodology best suited to designing effective climate actions in the “third place” she manages, we have crossed an established design methodology, namely “Design Thinking”, with an emerging methodology, called “Appreciative Inquiry”.
From the “graft” of these two methodologies Appreciative Design was born!
Why an approach using “Design”?
“Design is a funny word. Some people think design is about how things look. But when you dig deeper, it’s actually about how things work.” Steve Jobs
So, by design, Marta will help you understand step by step how climate education and activism can actually work in a third place like her café!
- “Design Thinking” in brief
It is a “Human-Centered”method, i.e. the personality and perceptions, needs and motivations of the users determine the designer’s decisions in the design process.
Empathy is a core competence! The designer uses it to reach a fine and complex understanding of the user. The user is approached not only as a customer, consumer, citizen, but fully, as a ‘human’.
Rather than products and services, the designer designs user experiences. Products and services are means, designed to make these experiences possible.
It is “Collaborative Design”, which harnesses collective intelligence and creativity. It requires the different stakeholders to ‘team up’, participating and communicating throughout the process.
Short history.
The method was formalized at Stanford University in the 90s. After that, the IDEO agency played a key role in popularizing it. Since then, Design Thinking has undergone numerous versions and developments for various domains. We aim to exploit its potential in the education and climate activism areas!
- “Appreciative Inquiry” in brief
Our minds have been used to focusing on “problem solving”. We have been brought up to identify what goes wrong in our sphere of action, then look for “solutions”. The projects we undertake are always conceived as answers to shortcomings, needs, weaknesses, obstacles… What if we saw things differently?
Most of our organizations operate by a default rule: “Let’s fix what’s going wrong and let what’s going well evolve on its own”. But what if we could consciously and systematically identify and capitalize on our strengths, our assets?
Any human collective, if it works, has certain assets (positive experiences, useful resources) that give it momentum, energy, “life”. Appreciative Inquiry* is an approach to organizational change that advocates systematically for identifying and harnessing this “positive core”.
What do we learn from Appreciative Inquiry? That an organization does not always have to be “fixed”! When an organization’s strengths are identified and leveraged, it can undergo a fundamental positive transformation. Through that transformation, the organization evolves to a higher stage of development where the “fixes” originally envisioned are no longer relevant. In this way, we do not solve problems by addressing them directly, but by ‘overcoming’ them…
Short history.
Originally proposed by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva in 1987 (’Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life’), Appreciative Inquiry is a methodology for organizational and social change that has given rise over the past few decades to a global network of researchers, trainers and consultants.
What have we taken from Design Thinking?
- the Human-Centered approach;
- the methodical use of Empathy, considered as the “basis” of the approach;
- designing Experiences rather than products, services…
What have we taken from Appreciative Inquiry?
- the focus on existing ‘Strengths’ (assets, motivations);
- building Opportunities that capitalize on your strengths;
- developing a positive Vision for the future that inspires the people involved.
So Appreciative Design is a “graft” of these two approaches!
The “Double Diamond” design process
“Double Diamond” is the name of a Design Thinking model popularized by the British Design Council since 2005.
Marta’s role in this guide is to give you a “demonstration” of how these two “diamonds”* can be skillfully handled.
With the first diamond, Marta gains a positive knowledge of the existing. She first discovers existing users’ motivations, then analyzes the key assets held by her café. So these motivations and assets already exist but are latent. With the first diamond, Marta identifies them, analyzes them, and arrives to see them as manifest opportunities.
The second diamond allows Marta to capitalize on the opportunities identified by designing innovative learning and climate activism experiences tailored to her café! This way, Marta will get to “see” the activist café she wants!
Thanks to her appreciative approach, Marta manages to spread a positive, invigorating mood among customers and café staff (as opposed to focusing on “problems”).
To go through the 4 phases of the Appreciative Design process, click on the image and the arrows:
Principles and Mindset
No 1: Form a team, involving regular users of the third place!
Marta does not believe in the myth of the “solitary genius”! So she didn’t set out by herself to turn her own café into an activist third place. Therefore, Marta’s first concern is to form a team!
Marta aims to bring together a diverse group of “designers”, made up of customers who regularly frequent her café, as well as other professionals from different fields (NGOs, activists, artists, scientists, advertisers) attracted by this climate activist initiative. Together with them she will realize the “climate café” she wants.
The diversity of the team is not in itself a sufficient condition for a successful Appreciative Design process! In order to meet the challenges, Marta knows how to foster the emergence of a “collaborative and contributory culture” among the clients who regularly frequent her café, based on mutual exchange, appreciation, empathy and conviviality.
No 2: Alternate divergent and convergent thinking!
The design process, symbolized by the “double diamond”, is generally an alternation of a divergent thinking phase, in which the most varied options are explored, and a convergent thinking phase, in which the most appropriate decisions are made.
Some clients involved in the design process will be inclined to divergent thinking, others to convergent. Some are creative and always want to feed the group with innovative ideas. Others are analytical and immediately identify the weaknesses and potential risks of these ideas. These two ways of thinking are called “Yes, and…” and “Yes, but…”.
Step by step, Marta carefully tracks the mindset in which the team work needs to be. She selects working methods to make the most of each one. She helps participants to “change their wavelength” when it is necessary to switch from one way of thinking to another.
No 3: 2. Design learning experiences that are desirable, feasible, and viable.
Being “empathic”, Marta knows how to design desirable learning experiences that stem from the very motivations and aspirations of the café’s customers. The design of these experiences must also be technically feasible and economically viable. The intersection of the three criteria is crucial for the designed experiences to generate learning and climate activism.
Mindset
Marta discusses with her team the basic principles of the method used, as well as some tips on how to build a right mindset!
- Trust your creativity!
- Focus on the human!
- Be empathetic!
- Target innovation!
- Form a heterogeneous team!
- Use your collective intelligence!
- Build tangible things!
- Be visual!
- Test and improve!
- Explore many options, then make choices!
- Learn from your failures!
- Adopt the beginner’s mindset!
- Develop your vision!
What advice would you add?
9 ideas on “Empathize” (first phase)
1. Empathy is the main skill of the activist designer
Since Marta’s goal is to design activist experiences that are as grounded as possible in the motivations of her café’s customers, she systematically trains her ability to know and understand them fully, as “humans”. This essential skill, ’empathy’, is the foundation of ‘human-centered’ design.
2. Three techniques to empathize: observation, immersion, interaction
To empathize with her café regulars, Marta uses three techniques:
- Observation – She listens to their dialogues and watches their behaviors, in various situations, without intervening;
- Immersion – She gets involved with her customers in various activities (in the café, but also in other contexts) in order to experience what they experience;
- Interaction – She discusses with her customers, in casual exchanges, but also in (seemingly) informal interviews, for which she carefully prepares her questions.
3. Characterizing the “target audience” a posteriori
More often than not, activist groups design their actions by establishing a priori some generic characteristics for their target audiences (age, gender, family situation, income level, ethnic origin, etc.), but Marta characterizes her clients a posteriori. She empathizes with the café’s regulars and analyzes them carefully to get to know them “finely”.
4. (De)constructing individual and shared meanings
Marta’s approach is “constructivist”. Her premise is that each customer creates his or her own unique experience in her café. At the same time, through shared exchanges and practices, her customers give birth to a “miniature culture” that characterizes the entire café. This is made up of a set of references and meanings that are widely shared by the locals. In order to understand them, Marta systematically “deconstructs” these meanings, both at individual and collective levels.
5. Identifying intrinsic (versus extrinsic) motivations
Adopting an “appreciative” approach, Marta seeks to identify her clients’ motivations rather than their “problems”. In particular, she is searching for intrinsic motivations, i.e. those driven by the genuine desire that the client finds in accomplishing things. They need to be carefully distinguished from extrinsic motivations – i.e. those linked to external rewards and/or sanctions. Marta knows that only intrinsic motivations can make her clients truly appreciate the activism experiences they will design together.
6. Empathy, both cognitive and emotional
“Empathy” is perhaps the most complex skill needed in the design process. In order to put herself in her clients’ shoes, Marta seeks to understand their perceptions and representations, as well as the feelings and emotions that animate them! Thus, Marta’s empathy is both a cognitive and emotional endeavor.
7. Empathy must be distinguished from ‘sympathy’
Empathy is easily distinguishable from two other attitudes, with which it shares the same etymology: ‘apathy’ (i.e. indifference to the experience of the other) and ‘antipathy’ (repulsion towards the experience of the other). But it is harder to distinguish it from “sympathy” (when we emotionally feel what the other feels).
8. Maintaining emotional and cognitive ‘independence’
Marta carefully distinguishes empathy from sympathy! For understanding the emotional states of the café’s customers, she avoids being impacted herself by emotions . Customers’ affects must be understood, not experienced as such. Marta knows she must remain emotionally independent from her customers. She has to enter into the cognitive and emotional universe of these people, not to share emotions, but to get to know them. Sometimes situations arise that generate a strong compassion in Marta’s soul, but she controls it because it would interfere with the understanding she seeks to gain.
9. Climate skeptics? Don’t despise them, understand them…
What’s more, Marta aims to empathize even with her “opponents”! In particular, she tries to have a good understanding of the café’s climate-skeptic customers. She puts herself “in their shoes” in order to understand their ways of thinking and emotional states. By succeeding in this difficult exercise, Marta achieves the highest level of empathy… When dealing with climate-skeptics, Marta follows Spinoza’s principle: “do not scorn, do not complain, do not mock … but understand”.
9 ideas on “Define” (second phase)
1. Turning latent resources into manifest assets
Through “Define”, Marta comes to capture and understand latent resources – resources that existed, but had eluded her before this stage. As a result of analyzing her café, these resources become manifest assets for Marta, which she valorises for their potential to promote climate education and climate activism among customers. When it comes to identifying latent resources, Marta demonstrates a valuable skill for any designer: insight.
2. Unfulfilled motivations lead to disappointment, maybe leaving activism
Without finding adequate resources that can be mobilized by Marta in the café, the educational and activist motivations expressed by clients would inevitably remain unfulfilled. This could result in disappointment, which could lead to customers withdrawing from Marta’s various activist initiatives.
3. Insight and prudence – key skill and attitude
To avoid disappointing her clients, Marta has an essential attitude for any activist: prudence. Marta encourages only those customer motivations for which her café has in principle the right resources. Prudence does not mean indecision, hesitancy, but on the contrary a “practical wisdom” that allows Marta not to be lured by easy, unrealizable enthusiasms. Prudence was in fact a “cardinal virtue” for the ancient Greeks.
4. Here we have a ‘window of opportunity’!
If in the first phase (Empathize) customers have expressed to her relevant motivations for climate activism, and if in the current phase (Define) the analysis of the café shows her that the café has assets (adequate resources) to respond to these motivations, then Marta sees a “window of opportunity”! In order to exploit this opportunity she will mobilize her clients to take part in the participatory and collaborative design of climate actions in her café!
5. Have insights, revelations, epiphanies, aha moments…
When she sees opportunity, Marta shouts “Eureka!” She knows that this is the right time to mobilize her clients to take part in the participatory and collaborative design process of climate actions, relevant to the café! Marta has the art of getting these deep insights. These are revelations, flashes, epiphanies, Aha moments….
6. Know how to be prompt, seize the “right moment”!
Why do we say “window of opportunity”? Because like a window that opens and closes, opportunity comes and goes … The window metaphor suggests that in order to develop climate activism in a certain third place (like Martha’s café) with certain actors (like her customers), opportunities are fundamentally fleeting. Therefore, they must be exploited over time. Another invaluable skill for any climate activist is promptness! Marta knows how to act quickly and on time to seize the right moment!
7. The “opportunity formula”
In order to identify opportunities, Marta expresses them concisely and clearly, using the ‘formula’:
Motivation + Asset = Opportunity
8. Combining analytical and intuitive thinking
Analytical thinking allows Marta to make relevant associations between customer motivations and café assets, while intuitive thinking allows her to make novel associations. In order to come to ‘see’ effective activist opportunities, but also with great potential for innovation, Marta knows how to use these two distinct but complementary ways of thinking.
9. Methods for lifting intellectual controls
In order for her intuition to be activated and to work, Marta uses various methods to lift her “intellectual controls”. The role of these is to “disconnect” her from the mental connections she normally makes. That’s when intuition ‘kicks in’! It is a spontaneous way of knowing, which helps her to fertilize her analytical approaches with creative mental processes, suitable for innovation.
9 ideas on “Ideate” (third phase)
1. Turning opportunity into a common challenge
Using the first diamond, Marta was able to identify and express concisely and clearly an opportunity for climate action. This is both relevant for the customers (motivations) and feasible for the café (assets). With the second diamond, the first thing Marta has to do is to turn the potential opportunity, as she perceives it, into a challenge that is understood, accepted and taken up by the café’s customers, whom she aims to involve in the design process.
2. Constructing ‘How Might We…’ questions
The challenge is formulated by constructing ‘How Might We…’ questions. This formulation is an essential tool in Design Thinking. It has several advantages: 1) “How” encourages the search for solutions; 2) “Might” opens the mind to unexpected possibilities; 3) “We” reinforces a sense of unity in the group of people involved in the design process.
3. Formulating challenges develops the ‘vision’
Once this way of wording becomes “natural” for her clients, the different opportunities that Marta will identify with them in the café will be perceived and taken up as common challenges. Moreover, by learning to articulate and take on challenges, the café’s clients will significantly develop their vision and will be encouraged to launch common climate actions.
4. First quantitative approach – separated from the qualitative one
The Ideation phase takes place in two stages. The first is quantitative: the team of customers, formed by Marta, aims to propose as many solutions as possible to the challenge formulated and assumed beforehand. There are many techniques for ideation, and Marta uses the most popular one: Brainstorming.
5. Brainstorming – participatory and contributory sessions
A key principle in this first phase is ‘defer judgment’. In other words, the quantitative process of generating ideas must precede and be strictly separated from their qualitative evaluation, which will take place in the subsequent phase. In order to apply this principle, Marta knows how to “calm down” the analytical and critical thinking of the café’s brainstorming customers.
6. The art of stimulating spontaneous, intuitive mental processes
In this phase, intuitive thinking is more important than analytical thinking. Innovative ideas emerge more easily when the right conditions are created to stimulate spontaneous mental processes. Marta knows how to stimulate emulation in the group of clients, so that they come up with creative and bold ideas together. In the Brainstorming session, each participant generates new ideas by combining their own ideas with those expressed by the other participants.
7. Participatory construction of a prospective scenario
The ideation phase now reaches the qualitative stage. Together with her team of clients, Marta uses the “corpus” of ideas generated earlier. She evaluates, selects and combines them in order to build a prospective scenario that gives a possible and desirable image of her café as a “climate café”, an activist one. This is precisely the scenario of the “Climate Third Place” (“Tiers Lieu climatique”, the project through which we are constructing and experimenting this approach).
8. Evaluation criteria: relevance, plausibility, coherence
The construction of the prospective scenario will provide Marta with detailed information about the potential objects, events, services, decors and atmospheres through which her café could encourage and facilitate climate activism among her customers in the future. The evaluation criteria of the constructed scenario are: relevance, plausibility and coherence of the assumptions from which it is built.
9. Convergence of perceptions, points of view, uses of language …
Marta’s challenge is to design a scenario of her future café with the involvement of her customers, based on a participatory approach. The participatory approach to scenario building will facilitate the alignment of information, perceptions, views and languages used by the café’s customers. Once these customers develop and share a common, innovative and positive vision for the transformation of their café, this imaginary of the future can inspire and guide their present actions.
9 ideas on “Deliver” (fourth phase)
1. Building prototypes to bring ideas to life
At this point in the Appreciative Design process, Marta has a scenario for her café, envisioned as a “Climatic Third Place”. Now, with the help of prototyping, Marta starts to translate this scenario into ‘reality’. For now, her scenario is just a set of representations. As such, they can be “thought”, but not “visualized”, “touched”… Now, Marta and the team are building prototypes capable of bringing imagined ideas to life.
2. A prototype is tangible, it allows testing the imagined solution
A prototype can take many forms, but it is necessarily “tangible”. It can be a mock-up, a role-play, an installation, a redesigned space, an online interface, a storyboard… Its role? Instead of investing too much in realizing every detail of an idea, we build a simple and inexpensive prototype that allows for quick visualization and testing of the idea.
3. A “visual” understanding of the Climate Third Place
All the prototypes will give the café’s customers and staff a concrete, tangible, “visual” understanding of its transformation into a “Climate Third Place”. The strength of a prototype lies in its comprehensibility, both for its designers and its users. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures!
4. Test before investing too much resources, money, time
Marta builds prototypes so that she can quickly test the ideas she imagines for her café. Prototyping allows her to get feedback from customers early on in the design process, before investing too much resources, money and time in designing and implementing those ideas. By systematically observing how her prototypes are perceived by customers, Marta chooses to either improve them or abandon her ideas altogether. The “failure” of idea testing is not serious if it happens early enough in the design process.
5. The opportunity to receive and learn from feedback
Testing gives Marta the opportunity to receive feedback and learn from it. By carefully analyzing the feedback, Marta plans new iterations. Thus, she will have to come back to the process to revise “Ideate” (third phase) if the designed scenario lacks creativity; to revise “Define” (second phase) if the identified strengths are not very relevant; or even to revise “Empathize” (first phase) if she realizes that she did not understand well enough the motivations of her café’s customers.
6. Iterations until the prototype reaches a “validated version”
Each new iteration allows Marta to improve her prototype. The iterations will be carried out until the prototype in question reaches a version “validated” by customers (users). Only then Marta decides to invest resources and efforts in implementing the imagined solution (realization, extension, generalization, etc.).
7. Prototyping ‘experiences’ rather than ‘products’
Appreciative Design is an “experience design”. So, rather than designing “climate products” (printed guides, exhibition panels, installations to outfit her café), Marta designs “climate experiences” (i.e., what the customers who are supposed to use those guides, panels, installations, etc., can learn, think and feel about climate).
8. “Excellence” of lived and perceived experiences
What Marta aims to achieve through the design process is the “excellence” of the experiences lived and perceived by the customers of her café. She aims to give them the opportunity to participate in the construction of cognitively, emotionally and sensory ‘memorable’ experiences of activism within her café.
9. Increased self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy
Prototyping, in particular, is an approach that will “energize” customers and café staff! This approach will generate a fruitful and interesting dialog as it systematically connects ideas to concrete things. For customers who engage in this activity, it is very stimulating to see that they are creative and have innovative ideas, but also that these ideas can be materialized, turned into real, tangible things. The process increases participants’ self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy.
And now…
Now, follow Marta’s lead by launching an Appreciative Design approach in the Third Place that you yourself run or regularly frequent!
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This material is produced within the project “Tiers-Lieux climatiques. L’Education au Changement climatique centrée sur l’Humain” (Climate Third-Places. Human-centered Climate Change Education), implemented by REPER21 (Romania) in partnership with Canopée (France) and A SUD (Italy), with funding from the Erasmus+ program.
