Seeing the whole through the details
WHAT IS DESIGN THINKING? Looking back, I’m not sure what I thought design thinking was before I took this course. I had a sense that it would help me think “more freely” and intuitively about things. I also thought it would be abstract and “systems-based”. Instead, I discovered a practical (but methodical) way to re-frame problems. I would now describe design thinking as “seeing the whole through the details”.
DIFFERENT THAN I EXPECTED: What I wanted to learn in the course was how to think differently about some work problems. While I haven’t tackled them yet, I think that this course has given me tools to identify the problems behind the problems. From there, who knows?
DESIGN THINKING IS ADAPTABLE: Design thinking is adaptable. It can be applied to tangible, practical, conceptual, and even personal questions. Some questions might involve an individual user, some might consider a demographic, and some a broad array of users. Some could involve asking why products or processes work for some users and not for others. Some focus on behaviours, others on product design, and still others on broad systems.
Here are four of the many ideas I’m taking away from the course.
- Focus on the problem, not the solution.
Someone who teaches strategic foresighting at OCAD University in Toronto shared the advice to “fall in love with the problem, not the solution” with me two years ago. At the time, I liked the concept, but had no idea how to do it (fall in love with the problem). It was so natural to default to the solution.
Design thinking has suggested ways I can spend more time on the problem.
I like how my classmate Ana mentioned in her assignment (Moving forward from the discomfort of our own home: How a family of six…): “Questions like ‘How might we get everyone out of the house during the day?’ to ‘How might we just move to a new house?’ were evidence that we were too focused on trying to get to the solution instead of better understanding our problem. Through developing “how might we” statements, she began to make progress in uncovering underlying issues that she hadn’t considered (Baroja:2020).
2. Design starts with what makes humans’ lives easier or more enjoyable (Brown:2009): This statement is sensible, yet profound. Given the choice, humans want what works for them. Design a luxury high-status car that’s uncomfortable to ride in and people may still buy them, but they’ll sit in their garages.
3. There are many tools: I was surprised how many design thinking tools are available. In my assignment I used the Five Whys, the Empathy Map, and Journey Mapping. Some of my classmates used these and others; including the Problem Definition Toolkit, Importance/Feasibility Table, the What’s Your Problem and Reframe Your Problem Worksheets, The Design Thinking Canvas, the Timeline, What’s on your Radar, the Creative Matrix, custom-built tools, and sometimes words, not tools.
I can see how different tools suit different problems. It wouldn’t have make sense to use the Timeline in my project about attracting more people to a small fitness facility, but it made a lot of sense for Alana, Ana, Douglas, and Jennifer to use one in their assignment, which discussed the development of a COVID-19 immunization strategy.
4. Pain points and gain points: These are key insights in the empathy process and help to identify problems and solutions to test. Finding pain and gain points forces one to zero in on specifics. For my assignment, I already knew what one of my “problems” was, but by understanding my users and isolating particular points in the user journey, I identified other problems.
I also realized there was an important link between design thinking’s concept of empathizing with the user and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s observation that we think in two ways: the first is fast and intuitive, the second, slow and deliberate (Kahneman:2013).
Fast thinking is useful if we need to run away from a predator. Slow thinking takes a lot more energy and time, but results in better long term decisions. However, I think our end users are usually thinking fast, not slow. They look at the front door of the store (or website design) and they either walk in (or click) or they move away.
To conclude, design thinking wasn’t what I’d thought it was (which was vague), but it will be very useful to me.
References
Baroja, A. (June 19, 2020) Moving Forward from the Discomfort of our Own Home. Design Thinking BMC 377 Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/designthinkingcourse/moving-forward-from-the-discomfort-of-our-own-home-132589aa6865
Brown, T. (Sept 30, 2009) Tim Brown urges designers to think big. TED Talks, YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAinLaT42xY
Fisher, C. (June 19, 2020) Design thinking tools for a small fitness facility. Design Thinking BMC 377 Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/designthinkingcourse/design-thinking-tools-for-a-small-fitness-facility-2df455651a7a
Jean, A. et al. (July 2, 2020) Immunization Strategy Design. Design Thinking BMC 377 Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/designthinkingcourse/immunization-strategy-design-3365c5861acd
Kahneman, D. (2013) Thinking, fast and slow. Toronto, ON. Anchor Canada
