From Insights to Design Opportunities
Synthesize your research findings and translate them into focused, human-centered design opportunities that will guide the rest of your design work.
Why This Matters
After completing your research and listening to students and supervisors, your team will have a mountain of information — survey results, interview notes, stories, and observations. But data alone doesn’t create change. The real power lies in turning those insights into design opportunities that drive creative action.
This stage bridges the Discover and Design phases of the Work+ Collective Journey. It helps your team make sense of everything you’ve learned and identify where you can make the biggest impact. When done well, it transforms scattered findings into clear, actionable challenges that guide your design sprint.
Your Goal
To synthesize your research findings and translate them into focused, human-centered design opportunities that will guide the rest of your Design work.
This involves:
- Reviewing insights from interviews, observations, and surveys
- Identifying recurring themes, tensions, and needs
- Writing “How might we…” questions that open creative possibilities
- Prioritizing opportunities based on impact, feasibility, and alignment with your goals
From Insights to Opportunities
Step 1: Gather and Cluster Your Insights
Bring your team together and revisit the insights you collected during the Discover phase. Spread them out visually — sticky notes on a wall, or digital boards in Miro or Mural.
Look for patterns and themes that emerge across different voices. Ask:
- What challenges or barriers do students and supervisors mention most often?
- What emotional or relational themes appear in their stories?
- What moments in the student employment journey feel especially confusing or inspiring?
Group related insights into clusters. Each cluster represents a potential area for design exploration — a “story” about what needs attention.
Step 2: Turn Themes Into Design Opportunities
Once your insights are clustered, start framing them as opportunities for innovation. Use the “How might we…” method to turn observations into open-ended, positive questions.
Examples:
- Insight: Students don’t always see how their work connects to their career goals.
→ Design Opportunity: How might we help students recognize and articulate the skills they’re building at work? - Insight: Supervisors feel unprepared to mentor students.
→ Design Opportunity: How might we make it easier for supervisors to guide and support learning on the job?
Each “How might we…” statement should be broad enough to invite creativity, but specific enough to stay focused on a real need.
Step 3: Prioritize What Matters Most
You’ll likely generate many design opportunities — now it’s time to focus. Use a quick impact-feasibility matrix to decide which ones to pursue first.
Ask:
- Which opportunities would make the biggest difference for students?
- Which ones could we realistically test within our resources and timeframe?
- Which align best with our institutional mission and equity goals?
Choose one to three high-potential opportunities to carry forward into the next step of the Design phase.
Step 4: Reframe and Refine
Share your draft opportunities with students, supervisors, and campus partners. Listen to their reactions. Do these challenges feel real to them? Are they phrased in a way that invites creative ideas?
Refine your wording based on feedback. This step ensures your design work stays grounded in the lived experiences of the people it’s meant to serve.
Step 5: Prepare for Prototyping
Your finalized design opportunities now become the foundation for the creative work ahead. Each one is like a question waiting to be explored through prototypes and testing.
Before moving on, document your top opportunities and the insights that led to them. These will guide brainstorming and ensure everyone understands the “why” behind your next design steps.
Reflection Prompt
Which student or supervisor insight stood out most to your team — and how might it become a starting point for change on your campus?
Suggested Resources
- “How Might We” Question Generator (editable in Miro or Mural)
- Insight Synthesis Template
- Example: ASU Work+ Discovery → Design Opportunity Map
- Video: Turning Research Into Actionable Insights
Takeaway
Moving from insights to design opportunities is one of the most important transitions in the Work+ Collective Journey. It’s where reflection becomes direction — where understanding turns into creative possibility. When teams take time to translate what they’ve learned into focused, human-centered opportunities, they set the stage for design work that’s purposeful, inclusive, and ready to make real impact.