Maya Sardar's BUAD 451 Blog

 I thought that the Ideo Shopping Cart experience was a great example of what design thinking looks like in a corporation.  I noticed a few similarities to what our class did. First, their design thinking team was made up of an "eclectic group," as they had psychologists, marketers, scientists, and more. That is similar to our class because we all have different backgrounds and majors. For example, at my table, Julia is interested in psychology, Ian is interested in the law, and I am interested in the arts. We therefore bring a very different perspective to how we go about the design thinking process and the ideas we generate. Second, they started their process by going straight to their consumers and the people who actually use shopping carts. We did something similar when we interviewed our classmate to figure out what we could make better about their mobile phone experience. Starting with the consumer is a core part of the design thinking process and it is always important...

Introduction My name is Maya Sardar, and I am a senior studying marketing and psychology.  I am taking Customer Insights for Innovation because I want to understand how to keep customers' needs at the center of my business so they trust and respect my product. I am looking forward to having a group project where we get to practice our market research skills and use the Design Thinking process. I took Professor Luchs' Sustainability Inspired Innovation & Design class where I got familiar with the Design Thinking process. In Professor Luchs' class, we were specifically focused on how sustainability needs to be at the forefront of innovation. In our semester-long project, my group selected a company, created a persona, and took steps to create a sustainable and innovative end product. Our company was Dove and the end product was "Simply Dove," a body wash concentrate to reduce waste and save time. It truly changed the way I thought about innovation and the defini...