I think the hat I align most with is the "Creativity" hat. I often try to find fun ways to change or add to something before anything else, sometimes at the detriment of my project. I try to solve issues without thinkin them through but with an understanding on how I want the end goal to look like, at the very least.
The White hat is simply looking at the facts. This means not thinking about conclusions or what to do with the facts, but to simply understand what the data is saying without drawing too many conclusions yet. It calls upon you to ask, "what information do you need?", "is this information enough?", "do we need to get out and get more? if so, how do we get that information?" it's the hat that makes sure you have all the necessary components before you attempt to even understand them.
My website is made to encourage more reasearch and knowledge from the genreal public using digital points earned by selecting and reading articles through. These points can be used to donate to a charity of the user's choosing, so they can save up and doante a bunch all at once.
This hat is the baseline "emotions" we get from the information. This is a valuable step to get all emotions out into the open before we proceed onto the next step of our thinking. It's the step that requires all the participants to explain how they feel from the data without too much explanation, to let people speak about hteir gut reaction from the data or if they have a hunch they think needs to be put out. It's helpful to do this so that the emotions don't play into the next step to heavily, because we need to be aware that as human beings, emotions are a part of us.
My website helps encourage people to be more aware of the information they consume. My discussion partner says it not only helps people stay informed, but also makes people feel good so that they can donate without spending too much of their own time.
The Black hat is the most common understanding of critical thinking and how to attack a problem without any framework in most western ways of thinking. This is the hat dedicated to logic and reason, where judgment about the facts and such are put into words. This hat is made to focus on issues and flaws in someone's way of thinking or the understanding of facts and data through a critical lense. This is the hat people use more often when it comes to all terms of critical thinking.
Users might skim through an article and not read it properly to get these points, thus defeating the whole purpose. My website also requires a lot of consistency from users to be active in going through with the site, so users might be really active at first but due to lack of interest or energy would slowly loose steam as it went on. My discssuion partner brought up how it would require users to check back on the site a lot, and that might be unhelpful.
This hat is the counterbalance to the black hat. Where the black hat offers endless critique, this hat is aimed to find the potential solutions with someone's way of thinking and a more constructive way to understand facts and data. This is also a hat dedicated to logic, but in the sense of finding solutions to issues brought up by the black hat and to bring up generative, constructive thought to lead to a more helpful and progressive discussion. It is there to keep the plan moving towards a goal instead of focusing on all that can go wrong.
Even if the user slowly begins to lose interest in the website, just having the website open to do this will encourage them to be more cognizant, and even the brief period of time a user uses the website will be beneficial in the long term.
The green hat is used in tandem with the yellow hat. Whereas the yellow hat is focused on finding solutions to problems already put on the table by the black hat, the green hat is the hat for proposing new and provocative ways to push the ideas forward. Like the yellow hat, it aims to solve issues but instead it uses this oppurtunity to put forth alternatives to the problems that haven't been considered before, challenging the norm. It aims to find new and creative ways to achieve the overall goal.
During the discussion, my partner thought it would be helpful to add ways for my website to buy things like coupons through the digital points racked up. That way, this would not only help encourage more people to seek out my website for free money, I'll also get some added revenue from the ads and deals offered using the points from different (hypothetical) companies.Me and my discussion partner also thought it would be beneficial to make this website into an extension of sorts, so the wesite wouldn't have to be in the background and oculd be used whenever you're scrolling the web and happen upon a news article. This might support a users passive interest in using it.
This hat is the conductor hat. This hat takes in all the hats that have been used thus far and decides on the direction the discussion will lean to. Is it more beneficial for the issue to be solved through the informational white hat, or through a more empathetic look through the red hat? It attempts to summarise and facilatate the discussion between the hats and inform us on what the overall goal is to keep us on track. It complements the green hat by trying to find creative solutions to answers brought up by all the hats, and is the one who changes the hats during discussion. It is the goal.
After this discussion i thought it would be beneficial to add a feature where the page is checked on how slowly or quickly a user scrolls through an article, so users can't skip ahead or skim the article for points. Also, I could add a feature where users can write reflections of those articles as well-- though it would be hard to make sure those reflections are about the article. Also, I really like the idea of using those points to buy coupons for things instead of just charity, cus it would help with the overall profit and give users something else to aim for when reading these articles. It will also help with revenue because I need the money to donate to charities using the points given to me by the user. With these criticisms and solutions in mind, I think I have a more whole understanding on how this hypothetical website would be run.