Assumption Mapping
The very first additional design method our team used was assumption mapping. After our first round of initial research, we decided to use this method in order to begin to focus on a specific problem space and decide what we needed to research further, potentially through further online research and/or interviews.
Assumption mapping is done by placing insights, facts, questions, and other information on a scale from known to unknown and important to unimportant. Once all points of information have been placed somewhere on the plot based on our current understanding of it, we can begin to separate our information by the quadrants they were placed in.
After putting assumption mapping to the test using our own information from our initial research, we were able to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of using this design method. One of the biggest advantages is being able to clearly identify topics that require additional research in order to create meaningful insight for the problem space. For example, information that is unknown and important can be classified as “leap of faith assumptions”, meaning that we will need to do further research into these topics that seem relevant to our problem space in order to gain further useful insight moving forward. On the other end of the spectrum, information that is known and unimportant can be classified under “defer commitment” moving forward as we already know the information, but it does not seem very relevant to the problem space at the moment.
However, this means that half of the assumption mapping is not entirely helpful for advancing the design process. Known and important information can be set to the side for later or potentially used as jumping off points for further research to back up the insights. Unknown and unimportant information can be acknowledged as topics that are not relevant and will not need to be further researched for our problem space.
In general, assumption mapping is a useful tool to visually see what insight is useful in further defining the problem space or product/process created through the design thinking process. In our case, we used this to help identify different stakeholders in our project, leading us to look for people to interview in all of those stakeholder groups.
Although we used this method after our initial research, I believe that this method could be useful at many points throughout the design process. Specifically, I would recommend using assumption mapping after initial research (like we did), after interviews to organize insight, or after a round of feedback to organize what should be included moving forward.
