Design thinking and how it’s not what you think it is
It isn’t someone in a black turtleneck making already-designed products look more pretty
Apple is the most valuable company today. Why is that? While most would argue that it is due to their spectacular design thinking, the majority of them don’t actually understand what design thinking is beyond its looks.
The original iPhone was a huge deal
Though it is true that attractive design lures customers in, user-centered designs goes beyond its looks. The first iPhone, arguably the biggest product launched in the past decade, wasn’t successful merely because it looked pretty. At the time, smartphones weren’t as widespread as today, but the iPhone was the gateway to the mobile world we live in today. It was the extremely simple and intuitive user interface, user-experience that drew so much attention. “Smartphones” weren’t exactly popular with the adults, much less the younger audience due to its complexity; with the iPhone, though, parents were surprised by how quickly a mere infant could pick it up and learn to use it. The design thinking mindset is summed up quite well in the Harvard Business Review published in June 2008:
Now, however, rather than asking designers to make an already developed idea more attractive to consumers, companies are asking them to create ideas that better meet consumers’ needs and desires. The former role is tactical, and results in limited value creation; the latter is strategic, and leads to dramatic new forms of value. (86)
IDEO’s design thinking
In the ABC video about IDEO’s shopping cart design process, Jack Smith follows IDEO from the request to the finished product. The video reveals a lot about the process and is quite similar to the “Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation” mentioned in the Harvard Business Review (June 2008 issue).
The portrayal of “design” today has often become into a fashion show, where the company that can make the “sleekest” or “cleanest” product has a “better” design. The IDEO team, though, shines light on what design thinking truly is. They didn’t care about the appearance of the shopping cart at all, not until the last step where they attempted to take the best of each prototype and merge it all together. This shows how the attractiveness of a product comes after the functionality that has been already established.
Modular functionality, easier checkout, and more features were core to the design of the shopping cart, not the slightly thinner and simpler look it had. If the IDEO team were only concerned about the looks, they wouldn’t have bothered to research on the customers as well as businesses about problems and usages of the carts.
The surgeons described a new device for sinus surgery. One designer grabbed a marker, a film canister, and a clothespin and taped them together. “Do you mean like this?” he asked. (87)
This is another great example of how the design in centered around the user rather than its looks. In another instance, the IDEO team helped a group of surgeons develop a new sinus surgery device, and the excerpt above is a conversation in the prototyping stage. Prototypes don’t need to look perfect — they only need to be good enough to receive feedback. Final products are based on prototypes, and prototypes are revolved around the problem it wants to solve, not looks, which is the only reason why a simple marker-film-clothespin-tape thing works.
While it may seem at times products are created just for its looks, us customers won’t ever be able to see the sheer amount of researching, prototyping, and testing that goes behind each product launch. Design thinking isn’t mainly about making a product look attractive, rather, is mainly about trying to solve a problem by implementing designs that accomplishes customer needs and desires.
