What on earth is ‘design thinking’ and how can it be taught?
You have probably heard the term or strategy called ‘Design Thinking’, which is quickly becoming an increasingly valued and sought-after skill by companies… but what is it? In this article, I am briefly going to explain the value of design thinking, as well as how it can be applied to different contexts and fields.
Design thinking, in a nutshell, is about taking a difficult or complicated situation and turning it into a manageable one. It forces one to explore and define complex problems and arriving at a solution by thinking about different factors (which could in-turn relate to any given different subject or content) such as the user, the client, the environment, the culture, and the tools at hand. The strategy can be applied to almost any given defined or yet-to-be-defined situation be it physical or digital (like a product). A service, or even something more abstract like a concept or a simple observation.
A design thinking approach can be easily adapted and delivered to people in different situations/contexts and can be taught as a key skill with a host of benefits. It helps people problem solve and think entrepreneurially, rationalising content and placing an activity in a more prevalent, logical context. It can encourage people to be more empathetic and work collaboratively, using team-working skills.
Designers focus on five steps when applying design thinking, but the first two are the most important and lay the foundation for the rest of the process.
Step 1: EMPHASISE
Find a specific area that you would like to work with. This can be user, subject or location-specific. Think what the real issues are that need to be solved and use open-ended language at this early stage to help think broadly and creatively.
The area could be framed from problem-solving your own personal experience or from the current situation or concept you are working with.
E.g. what problems might an elderly person have at home?
Step 2: DEFINE a specific problem — a surprisingly tough task.
This is trickier but requires people to think logically. What is the specific problem that you are going to aim to address? Can you identify any problems you have witnessed or experienced yourself?
E.g. My grandparents have mistakenly taken each-others, specific medication because the packaging is hard to read.
‘A Problem Well-stated is Half-solved’. Charles Kettering.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions” Albert Einstein:
Einstein believed the quality of the solution you generate is in direct proportion to your ability to identify the problem you hope to solve.
Now to better explore this problem and so that Einstein doesn’t run out of time, we must frame it correctly. To do this we think like a designer by reframing the question so that is is more exploratory: How Might We.
‘How’, can we help our user with their problem. What different ways can we approach a solution?
‘Might’ suggest we are embarking on something new and exciting and it is ok to make mistakes and potentially fail.
‘We’ remind us that this should be a collaborative process of team-work, working together for a common solution and being empathetic to others.
The problem may alter and be redefined throughout the process because the process repeats in iterations until you have found a desired solution.
Step 3: IDEATE
Draw rough sketches or simply make lists, write down ideas and generate possible solutions. It is all about quantity over quality at this stage. Drawing is not entirely necessary but it can help when presenting ideas to others.
The greater the number of ideas, the better. As peoples’ first idea is likely not to be the best solution. To think more broadly: people can be asked to generate ideas in 3 categories called the 3 ‘P’s:
‘Potty’ (crazy ideas) e.g. pillboxes delivered by drone daily.
Even seemingly naive or crazy ideas often lead to the best practical solutions and force people to think creatively.
‘Personal’ (shape it around their own personal experience or memory) e.g. I know my Grandma struggles to read the small print on bottles.
‘Practical’ (think logically about how an aspect of the design might work in reality). This forces the individual to think about sub-sets of the problem space e.g. How are bottles labelled and packaged at the moment and why? What type do they use? What colours?
Another method is ‘Crazy Eights’. Where individuals are given a sheet of paper where they draw 8 boxes. They are given 8 minutes to come up with 8 crazy ideas as possible. After the allotted time the person can select, present and aim to justify their 2 favourite ideas.
Step 4 PROTOTYPE or create a plan.
Create a rough sketch or cardboard model of your design. The keyword here is ‘prototype’. It should be quick and in a lesser material than the finished product. e.g. a pill bottle could be prototyped with tape and card.
Step 5 Evaluate and iterate — Test the idea and gather feedback from others. Then make any necessary improvements and repeat the process. Iterative design, meaning the stages are not so linear, but rather in cycles. Where you develop your concept/idea over time, through evaluating… planning, designing, making, evaluating… Though this is an area I will cover in more detail in a future article.
To summarise: The Problem: An elderly person can’t easily read the medicine bottle and might take someone else’s medication. This could be harmful and even deadly. Proposed Solution: Adding colour-coded rings to a medicine bottle that are unique to each person in the household to help people with limited vision identify their own medication more easily. The User: Elderly people, people with limited sight, people living in multiple-person households or care homes. The Client: Pharmacy who wants to produce user-friendly products at an affordable price, family members who care about someone who takes medication and might mistakenly take someone else’s.
Step 5 TEST.
The process of design and design thinking is an inherently collaborative process so it is important to test with users to identify any problems or improvements. Then further develop the solution, in a continuous looping process (iterative design). The process involves deeply understanding problems and crafting solutions based on continuous empathy and research.
For tips on how to test with users, you may like to read…
Application
To help illustrate the fact that this strategy can be applied to any given number of situations. Below is an example from the Smithsonian Design Museum in New York on some ideas showing how design thinking could be applied to various fields:
ARTS
- How might we…
- Use empathy to inform our own performances?
- Collaboratively express our opinions about the effects and influence of artworks?
- Independently create artworks that experiment with visual art conventions and techniques?
e.g. how might we design a service that encourages a new generation to engage with museum/galleries?
MATHEMATICS
How might we…
- Investigate which numbers are odd or even?
- Identify and compare real-world examples of fractions?
- Use math (algebra, statistics, etc.) to solve real-world problems?
e.g. how might we help people better control their personal finances and avoid debt/borrowing?
ENGLISH
How might we…
- Construct a simple sentence?
- Present our learning to an audience?
- Creatively use sentence structures and language devices to create particular effects?
e.g. how might we make publishing easier for people in LEDC’s?
SCIENCE
- How might we…
- Design systems to sort and classify information?
- Work collaboratively to conduct experiments according to the scientific method?
- Use the periodic table to investigate atomic structures?
e.g. how might we combat the common cold with technology?
HISTORY
- How might we…
- Investigate the history of an artefact and what it reveals about the past?
- Use the philosophy of the warrior in our own lives?
- Explore the Civil rights movement and its influence from a global perspective?
e.g. how might we ensure the wrongs of the past are not repeated in the future?
GEOGRAPHY
- How might we…
- Help to create deeper connections between humans, landforms, and landscapes?
- Apply human-environmental systems thinking to environmental change?
e.g. how might we encourage people to measure and be aware of their local environmental data?
LANGUAGES
- How might we…
- Introduce ourselves and our friends to another language?
- Share our understanding of texts in another language?
- Organize and present information and ideas?
e.g. how can we make language learning more accessible?
STUDENT-CENTERED
- How might we …
- Help “Johnny” to contribute more actively in the classroom?
- Empower students to write more reflectively about their learning experiences?
- Encourage higher enrolments of students in the Humanities disciplines?
Summary
Please follow this blog for future posts on Design Thinking and the Design Process. If you have enjoyed this article and it has got you thinking, please clap, comment and share. Let’s keep sharing ideas of how the valued skill of design thinking can be applied in different contexts to help each other and others.
Elliott
Diagraam Design
Further reading:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/design-thinking-for-a-better-you/?_r=1
