Design Thinking Studio

斯坦福大学"设计思维"夏校

A Two-Week Intensive Entrepreneurship Program

Program Overview

In two intensive weeks, students team up to develop the prototype for a software project that aims to solve a real-world problem in an area of their interest, culminating in a Project Fair (demo day) at the end of the program where teams present their product to other teams and an audience of invited guests. Using the Design Thinking methodology developed by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and employed by leading tech companies, students learn to identify customer needs, ideate solutions, design for user's experience, and develop functional software prototypes.

This program is inspired by and modeled after a real course that Jason and I took in the Stanford Department of Computer Science (CS147: Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction). https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs147/2024/au/index.html However, the program we intend to teach is simplified, especially the technical sides of the course (implementing software) is toned down. With our technical workshops, students without any technical backgrounds in software development can still take away valuable skills and, with the help of modern LLM services (Claude, DeepSeek), can still finish the program with a working prototype of the software product.

Learning Outcomes

Team

Tom Zhang

Stanford BA'25, MS'26

Twice startup founder: Ekatree (logistics startup with $600k pre-seed fundraise), Cardinal (interactive-map based social media platform)

In CS147, Tom and his team built a mobile app, E.K.G. (poster at the bottom of this page), that helps public high school teachers to get to know their students by playing in-class attendance games.

Jason Luo

Stanford BS'26

In CS147, Jason and his team designed and implemented an EdTech (poster at the bottom of this page) focusing on AI powered solutions to college mentorship. The app was implemented using React Native, Expo, and Google Gemini API. This app received "Best Demo" award on the final project fair with 80 industry experts and funding offers.

Targeted Student Profile

Two-week Program Schedule

Week 1

Day 1: Introduction & Needfinding

Morning Session:
  • Welcome and program overview
  • Introduction to Design Thinking methodology
  • Forming teams of 4 based on five interest areas:
    • Design for the Classroom
    • Design for Mental Health/Healthy Behavior
    • Design for Language Learning
    • Design for Older Adults
    • Design for Travel and Safety
  • Needfinding workshop: How to conduct effective interviews
Afternoon Session:
  • Interview planning in teams
  • Field work: Conducting initial user interviews with available subjects
  • Team check-in with instructors and preliminary findings discussion

Day 2: Needfinding & Problem Definition

Morning Session:
  • Complete user interviews
  • Workshop: Point of View (POV) statements and How Might We (HMW) questions
Afternoon Session:
  • Teams develop POV statements and HMW questions
  • Mini-presentations: Each team presents their interview findings, POVs, and HMVs
  • Instructor feedback and refinement

Day 3: Ideation & Early Prototyping

Morning Session:
  • Ideation workshop: Brainstorming techniques
  • Teams generate solution concepts (quantity over quality)
Afternoon Session:
  • Introduction to low-fidelity prototyping
  • Paper prototype creation
  • Introduction to AI tools for development assistance

Day 4: Low-Fi Prototyping, Website, & User Testing

Morning Session:
  • Finish low-fidelity prototypes
  • User testing workshop: How to gather feedback
  • Introduction of the Website Assignment that's due at the end of the program
  • Peer testing session: Teams test each other's prototypes
Afternoon Session:
  • Refine concepts based on feedback
  • Introduction to digital prototyping tools (Figma basics)
  • Teams begin translating paper prototypes to digital format

Day 5: Concept Videos & Mid-Program Review

Morning Session:
  • Concept video workshop: How to communicate your idea through videos
  • Teams storyboard their concept videos
  • Begin creating concept videos
Afternoon Session:
  • Week 1 showcase: Teams present their:
    • Problem statements (POVs)
    • Solution concepts
    • Low-fi prototypes
    • Concept video drafts
  • Instructor and peer feedback

Week 2

Day 6: Medium-Fidelity Prototyping

Morning Session:
  • Introduction to visual and UI design principles
  • Teams shoot and edit Concept Video
  • Teams continue developing digital prototypes
Afternoon Session:
  • Teams work on their Concept Video and prototypes

Day 7: Usability & Refinement

Morning Session:
  • Usability testing workshop
  • Teams conduct usability tests with other participants
  • Document findings and plan improvements
Afternoon Session:
  • Prototype refinement based on feedback
  • Introduction to final presentations and demo format
  • Teams begin preparing presentation materials
  • Film Festival! Teams watch each others' concept videos. Awards in different categories are given through popular vote

Day 8: High-Fidelity Prototyping

Morning Session:
  • Teams work on polishing their prototypes
  • Individual team consultations with instructors
Afternoon Session:
  • Continue high-fidelity prototype development
  • Continue preparing for final pitching PowerPoint, and rehearse
  • Website from each team is due

Day 9: Final Project Development

Full Day:
  • Teams work on finalizing prototypes
  • Finalize presentation materials
  • Teams do mock-pitching to the teaching team one-on-one and receive feedback

Day 10: Project Fair Preparation & Presentation

Morning Session:
  • Free work time for all teams to work on what's needed
Afternoon/Evening Session:
  • Attend and present at Project Fair
  • Demo stations for each team
  • Interactive demonstrations
  • Feedback from invited guests and community members
  • Awards ceremony and program conclusion

Contact Us

We'd love to hear from you.

Tom's Project in CS147: E.K.G.

EKG Project Poster

Jason's Project in CS147: UniVerse.

UniVerse Project Poster