From Theory to Practice: Applying Design Thinking to the College Experience
Design thinking is an iterative, human-centered method to help tackle complex problems. Tim Brown of IDEO emphasizes that it’s about “creating an environment conducive to growth and experimentation, and the making of mistakes in order to achieve out-of-the-ordinary results.”
I was able to put these ideas into practice through a modified design sprint. Working with my partner, Emily DeFreitas, we interviewed each other on what it’s like to be a Quinnipiac student. We followed the design thinking process to identify, organize, and test solutions for everyday challenges.
1. Empathy
The design thinking process begins with empathy. As Rikke Riis Dam writes, this stage is about “gaining real insight into users and their needs.”
Through my interviews with Emily, I uncovered common frustrations that students struggled with:
Limited food options and confusing menus
Lack of fresh fruit on the Mount Carmel campus
No way to know which items were worth trying
No clear channel to give feedback to dining services
2. Define
With these, we reframed the challenge into a problem statement:
“Eating good food is a challenge because students don’t have a place to read reviews and submit feedback.”
From there, we developed our guiding How Might We question:
How might we ensure Quinnipiac students eat good food on campus?
As Charles Eames once said, “design depends largely on constraints.” You can reframe problems into a specific challenge to address while still being creative.
3. Ideate
The ideation phase encouraged us to generate as many solutions as possible based on our problem statement and HMW question.
Fast Company reminds us: “It’s easy to fall into the trap of repetitive yet effective solutions. Look at the problem from more than one perspective.”
We created a variety of concepts, including:
Student food tasting events with voting
Quick feedback kiosks in dining halls
Social media polls and surveys
A digital food review app where students could share ratings and photos
4. Prototype
For my solution, I decided to create low-fidelity wireframes for a Quinnipiac Food Review App. The prototype included features such as:
Viewing menus and ratings by campus
Uploading photos of meals
Submitting feedback and suggestions
Filtering by food station or category
5. Test
When testing my prototype, feedback highlighted both strengths and opportunities for refinement. Students liked the real-time updates and filtering options, but suggested:
Using QU’s branding for consistency
Adding a calendar to showcase upcoming food events
Clarifying who would manage and respond to feedback
Conclusion
What stood out to me is how relevant design thinking is at every scale. It works for smaller-scale projects and for top-level products. Such include PUMA and FuseProject, which reimagined the shoebox with their Clever Little Bag, an idea that emerged after more than 40 prototypes. Our sprint showed how the same method could reimagine dining at a university.
Participating in this design sprint made the readings and viewings come alive. The five stages—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—gave structure to what might otherwise have felt like a vague brainstorming session. More importantly, they revealed how design thinking can turn everyday frustrations, like navigating campus dining, into opportunities for meaningful change.
Hi, I’m Allison!
I am a graphic and interactive designer, ready to craft strategy-driven and engaging designs for you now!