Design Thinking — Solve Your Problem Creatively and Strategically
“Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.- Interaction Design Foundation”
Design thinking also helps scale the design process through large organizations. Business leaders who use the shared vocabulary and toolset of design thinking can confidently create better, human-centered user experiences and disruptive products.
We’ll walk you through the 5 steps of this design thinking framework, which will provide a toolkit for design challenges large and small in your organization.
The core of the design thinking approach is a focus on empathy, or using a beginner’s mindset and immersing yourself in the user’s experience to uncover deep needs and insights.
Defining the problem with a point of view (POV) is a key part of the process: who is your user (with as many specific details as possible); what is their deep, unmet need; why is this insightful (what insights did you glean from your empathetic need-finding process?). Often, reframing the problem using a unique POV will lead to more innovative solution spaces.
The design thinking process goes through a cycle of generative flaring and selective focusing. In the definition phase, we narrowed down to a specific Point of View; now, in the ideation phase, we flare out and generate as many ideas as possible.
For many designers, prototyping is where the fun begins. Sometimes the key to good empathy is sharing or co-creating a prototype with your users and getting feedback. Prototyping helps us learn, solve disagreements, and test hypotheses quickly and with minimal repercussions.
By testing our prototypes with real users and getting feedback, we can refine our POV, learn more about our users, and make the next iteration of the product that much better. As they say at Stanford’s d.school: “Prototype as if you know you’re right, but test as if you know you’re wrong.”
Reference and Book For Design Thinking: Design Thinking Handbook
