Background

This exercise will help you practice your customer observation skills and also help you to develop a broader range of ideas for the project. Simply watching potential customer behaviors (unobtrusively) and talking to people is an excellent way to identify product opportunities. Remember the lecture on consumer persona. Any time that you are out and about is an opportunity to observe!

This exercise will help your 2.009 project idea generation for your Team meeting 2. The locations below should be somewhat easily accessible.

Instructions

Review the location options and pick one place to observe before your team meeting. If you would like to coordinate with classmates (working in teams of up to 3 people), please do. This can also help if time/availability is limited. If there are locations that are more pertinent to some of your ideas than those listed below, please feel free to add to the list.

Suggested location options include:

an airport/bus/train station	a fire station	a park	a machine shop
a grocery or hardware store	a post office	a playground	a gym
a clinic or doctors practice	a busy intersection	a hiking trail	a sport practice or event
a community center	an ice cream or candy store	a workshop or art studio	a commercial kitchen
a laundromat	a zoo or aquarium	a construction site	a mall
a club	a restaurant

Go to your chosen place and observe.

Based on what you see, generate at least 10 different opportunities. Later, pick what you think is a good, feasible idea from your list and make a more detailed sketch that is suitable for pin-up during your next team meeting.

You should be prepared to take about 2 minutes to present your idea and sketch in Team meeting 2.