How many times have you used an app that, although useful, feels like it was meant for someone else? How many times have you thought to yourself, “If I had designed this, I would have made it much better / prettier / simpler”? Designing a mobile app or a product is easy. Designing an interesting, fun, engaging app that speaks to its audience is not. If you put a teen audience in the equation, then the task becomes even more challenging.
Design Thinking is a methodology for creating new and innovative ideas and solving problems, that is applicable to all walks of life. It focuses on understanding the people involved, the unique circumstances tied to each situation, and coming up with creative, innovative solutions tailored to the actual user needs.
Our goal is to create future innovators by bringing Design Thinking into the teenage classroom. Through a hands-on, fun and interactive workshop, teen students can experience the “magic” of Design Thinking and design their own mobile applications, while also developing valuable skills such as empathy, the ability to collaborate, to deal with ambiguity, and, of course, to create.
Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
Let us start by designing it!
Elena has been working at EXUS Innovation department for more than 17 years, researching, developing and validating concepts for new IT products and services in sectors such as education, creativity, wellness, active ageing and security. The last three years she has been leading the EXUS Design Thinking team, organising and facilitating Design Thinking sprints for constantly improving EXUS’s product offering, customer relationships and internal procedures. Her increased empathy skills, combined with her technological background, enable Elena to design services and solutions that resonate with and give value to end-users of all ages and backgrounds. An experienced trainer and a mother of two, Elena is excited about exploring the creative imagination of teens in the workshop.
Yiannis is the lead UX/UI designer at EXUS. He is a multidisciplinary designer and illustrator with more than 20 years’ experience in designing for digital platforms (cd-roms, web, mobile). He has also illustrated children’s books, posters and book covers. A teenager at heart, Yiannis loves comics and animation films and has an adorable superhero dog named Miss Marvel.