Preliminary work on design thinking: addressing challenges using low-fidelity prototyping with rural teenagers

Abstract

The strength of design thinking activity lies in the participation of users in contributing ideas in the process. In this paper, we report our findings from a preliminary work which was carried out with rural teenagers. Our aim is to inculcate the critical and creative thinking among them. Low-fidelity prototyping was used as a mean to illustrate their ideas into tangible solutions in a form of mobile application. The teenagers enjoyed the brainstorming and building the mock-ups using low-fidelity prototyping sessions. They reflected that the activity made them think about what mobile applications can do and elated on the fact on how they can actually design one. We take this work as a pilot study where in this paper we will also discuss the shortcomings that need to be addressed.