Six thinking hats in digital design projects
Created by Edward de Bono, the six thinking hats method aims to improve the quality and effectiveness of thinking and decision-making by getting groups to think more constructively from different perspectives. The “six hats” represent six modes of thinking, each associated with a coloured symbolic “hat.”
The six hats:
The white hat focuses on objective facts and data. This is important for understanding user research and requirements in digital design. It keeps the design process grounded in real user needs.
The red hat allows designers to share their feelings, emotions, and intuition. This helps spark creativity and new design ideas.
The black hat enables designers to point out risks, weaknesses and to critique ideas. This results in stronger, more resilient digital products.
The yellow hat brings out the positives — the benefits, value, and optimism. This hat ensures the team balances critical thinking with positive, constructive energy.
The green hat focuses on possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas. This sparks innovation in the design process.
The blue hat allows designers to think about the thinking process itself. It enables more structured idea generation and problem solving to create user-centred digital solutions.
The six thinking hats in practice
The method advocates thinking about an issue from multiple perspectives systematically. One perspective focuses solely on the available data and facts. Another looks at the intuitions, feelings, and emotive reactions surrounding the issue. A third examines the negative aspects and risks, while a fourth explores the positive, constructive, and optimistic view. The fifth perspective centres on critical thinking, while the sixth takes a big picture view to integrate ideas and explore new directions.
The power of this method lies in considering a problem from all these angles in a structured manner before coming up with solutions or making decisions. This pushes people to move outside their usual thinking styles and biases leading to more comprehensive and well-rounded conclusions.
The six thinking hats encourages participants in a discussion to think from different perspectives. This structured approach helps groups explore an issue more completely and avoid getting stuck in unproductive modes of thinking.
In digital projects that involve multiple stakeholders like developers, designers, project managers, and clients, using the six hats can improve collaboration and decision-making.
By metaphorically putting on different hats, team members can shift mindsets and uncover insights that may have been missed with traditional brainstorming. For example, developers can point out technical constraints while wearing the black hat, but also brainstorm creative solutions with the green hat. Designers can logically evaluate ideas with the white hat while expressing design instincts with the red hat.
Using this method keeps perspectives broad during requirements gathering, prototyping, and development. It encourages empathy among team members who have different thought processes. Discussions become more balanced between critical and creative thinking.
The six hats method maximises the productivity of collaborative sessions, leads to better design decisions, and ultimately creates more effective digital products. With practice, applying the different thinking hats can become a natural part of productive teamwork.
