“It seems really simple,” said Liz Ogbu as she described her solutions to design challenges at Jacaranda Health, a maternity clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. In a way, her solutions do seem really simple: A personal card with a nurse’s name and contact information, to increase patient comfort and confidence in the clinic; a shuttle to transport patients to and from the clinic, to encourage more mom’s to deliver their babies at Jacaranda; add, a “daddy lounge,” so fathers have a place to wait, or pace, while their babies are being born. Are these revolutionary ideas? Or do you find yourself thinking in the back of your mind, “Hey, I could have thought of that…”

To arrive at these solutions, Liz spent two weeks conducting hundreds of interviews. She conversed with nurses, moms, dads, and even mothers-in-law, in order to better inform her understanding of the lives of all the people interacting with the clinic. Liz strategically role-played in order to experience what it really feels like to be a patient at Jacaranda. With this data, many of which were stories (that she referred to as “data with a soul”) she produced her design solutions to improve the clinic. With such extensive research in the field, how can we say that these solutions seem simple?

Perhaps this paradox is the exact problem that design thinking seeks to address. If these solutions seem simple, seem intuitive, then why weren’t they already employed? This, I believe, is what makes design thinking so innovative. We are trained to think that the simple solutions, the ones that come from the true needs of the user, are too simple to be of high quality. In this way, we are trained to ignore the part of us that empathizes, that connects us to one another. It is for this same reason that our society values IQ tests over EQ tests. But, when we are searching for ways to truly impact the lives of others, we must listen to the part of us that does not judge simplicity.

Have you ever seen a design thinking class in action? Watched them cut out pictures from magazines and glue them onto colored paper? Did you think, is this an adult kindergarten class? It’s easy to think that way the first time you come into Taylor. But, I’ve come to understand that this perception is a reflection of the structured education of our past. The one that says, this is the way things are, and this is the way things will always be. In order to better our future, to change the systems that we know are failing, we must not be afraid to solve problems by utilizing our most simple tools, the ones that nearly every person is born possessing: humanity and empathy.

By: Sofie Kodner, Taylor Marketing Fellow