Drew Lapp, a product/interface designer and user experience researcher, wrote a blog post that resonated with me, “Design and the Art of Listening.” Over the years, with more design experience, gained trust by faculty, and a desire to move beyond a task list, I listen more. Listening closely and actively to faculty, students, and administrators have enabled me to propose ideas that put me in the position of a co-collaborator. By listening, I am able to empathize and offer an idea for a solution that is relevant and (hopefully) addresses the root of the issue. It’s amazing how much information can come from individual meetings with faculty, hallway comments by students, and discussions in department-wide meetings, just by listening. As I move amongst these user groups, I start to hear common complaints, challenges, and gripes…a designer’s dream! I get fired up to find that solution, but not so fast. As Lapp says, “…much of the time people aren’t able to tell you what they want right away. Sometimes it takes a while to get the answer; sometimes they aren’t able to articulate it themselves. So how do you figure this out? You listen and you listen some more.” Exactly. Back to listening, but now I can ask more intelligent and refined questions that start to get to the heart of the complaint or issue, so that eventually I can, as Lapp so eloquently says “give the people what they want.” Isn’t this the designer’s ultimate goal?

For the past year, faculty often mention the incredible amount of time they are spending correcting basic academic writing errors in student papers. The student’s lack of knowledge in APA style, word choice, sentence structure, and academic research is straining a faculty’s ability to go beyond proofreading and into a more in-depth critique and analysis of the writing piece. This baseline lack of knowledge in a master and doctorate level program compromise the faculty’s real value which is to lend their expertise and experience. Many courses provide links to Purdue’s OWL site, but students don’t know what they don’t know, so many do not take the time to go to the site. Time to listen. We asked students, faculty, and the University’s Writing Center how to solve this problem and then brought all their suggestions together into a collaborative solution – build an Academic Writing Essentials mini course with the Writing Center and faculty and then force students to test out of each module. That’s what we did. Each module offers engaging content and practice activities before a final “test-out” quiz. A student must attain 80% before the next module will open up. If the student completes the Academic Writing mini course successfully then it counts towards 5% of their total grade. We are piloting this solution this Fall… and so far, so good. Students appreciate the review and subsequent confirmation of their academic writing knowledge and faculty are seeing their time better spent on analyzing a student’s paper for clarity of argument and critical thinking rather than if they cited a journal properly. We heard the people, but it not always easy to “give the people what they want.” However, engaged active listening sure increases our chances.

“Give the People What They Want” by the O’Jays