Design Thinking as an Integrated Knowledge Translation Tool
By Patrick Faucher
In an earlier post, KT Productivity Hacks, I talked about design thinking. It’s a project-based approach that can help knowledge translation (KT) and implementation practitioners get at the root of a problem, boost productivity, and incorporate meaningful feedback from end-users.
Design thinking is an iterative and solutions-based process that bears many similarities to integrated knowledge translation (iKT). They both involve engaging (knowledge- or end-) users as collaborators throughout a project. While their methodologies and applicability may somewhat differ, I believe the two fields overlap, and can even learn from one another.
To expand on this idea, I’ve developed a comparison chart that highlights the similarities and nuanced differences between ideal integrated KT and design thinking:
DESIGN THINKING: A GUIDED TOUR
Needless to say, I‘ve drank the design thinking Kool-Aid. It’s enriched a number of KT projects I’ve been a part of, including redesigning pre-operative forms to reduce unnecessary testing; improving the features and functionality of issue-specific websites; and developing a patient experience video to better inform patients about how to prepare for a colonoscopy.
I’ve compiled a list of educational and entertaining resources about design thinking to help keep you busy through the summer and maybe, just maybe, convince you to add a design thinking mindset to your iKT toolkit.
The Basics
1) Redesigning the Shopping Cart
Go back in time and watch ABC Nightline’s segment on a “Deep Dive” brainstorming process with IDEO — a world-renowned design firm that applies design thinking to innovate products, experiences, and business — being applied to the humble shopping cart. This case study is certainly starting to show its age, but it’s perhaps the easiest way to start to understand design thinking in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M66ZU2PCIcM
2) An Overview of the Design Thinking Process
One of the product managers for Adobe Xd — software designed to make fast prototyping faster and more interactive — walks through the five phases of the design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
3) Design Thinking Card Deck
A deck of two-sided cards from the Stanford d.school that summarize the key concepts of design thinking. It’s an excellent summary to keep in your back pocket, and pull out to use in the moment when you need something to prompt a shift in mindset or inspire new ideas.
Application
4) A Guide to Human-Centered Design
Though it does require registration, this free PDF download from IDEO walks readers through human-centered design (i.e. focusing on the user experience throughout the process). This includes discussion about the requisite mindset —what it means to have creative confidence, taking risks, viewing failure as a learning tool, being optimistic and empathetic, and understanding the need to be willing to go back to the drawing table over and over (and over) again. It also features over 50 methods (from interviews to rapid prototyping to collages) to incorporate design thinking and human-centered design into your work.
5) Co-Design Through Participatory Research Methods
While not perfectly a design thinking process, this paper demonstrates how using a participatory research method in the development stage can enrich the creation of a knowledge translation product — in this case, a workbook designed with people who smoke and drink alcohol at harmful levels. It also speaks about the lack of this type of work, and why it’s so important.
6) Empathetic Design as a Research Strategy
Another published article, this time on physical design and meeting the needs of users. It discusses an empathic design research strategy that “builds on the capitals (e.g., background, physical abilities, and education) of the individual and the designer, to ensure that more intuitive design outcomes are generated which meet real needs, rather than assumed needs.”
7) Creative Confidence Podcast Series
There’s a wealth of interviews in this podcast series from IDEO Online University (IDEO U) with experts who practice design thinking for a living. Pick up tips from their successes and failures, and get inspired for your next project. Of particular interest to our readers might be Design Thinking in Healthcare, which is on my own summer listening list.
Advancing & Challenging Design Thinking
8) Let’s Stop Talking About THE Design Process
This is where many researchers get nervous — when we start talking about a fluid process to design thinking, rather than a rigorous approach. Carissa Carter, Director of Teaching and Learning at the Stanford d.school, walks readers through the eight core design abilities they strive to instil in their students.
9) Rethinking Design Abilities
“At the Stanford d.school we practice ‘design abilities’ to navigate today’s incessant murkiness.” More from Carissa here about how to become a design thinker, comparing ‘tangible’ abilities such as synthesizing information and learning from others, to ‘intangible’ abilities that are just as important — such as moving between the concrete and the abstract, and designing how you design (if I may, meta-design thinking?).
10) Design Thinking in a Hyper-Complex World: Enter Systems Thinking?
This is where the lines between design thinking and my other favourite topic, behavioural economics, begin to blur. The author introduces the concepts of emergence (the whole being greater than the sum of its parts) and leverage points (key places in a system’s structure to apply solutions), which I believe are essential to effective iKT in healthcare.
That’s all for me. See you in the Fall!
Summer Reading List (a late take)
Though I missed the deadline for the 2019 Knowledge Nudge summer reading list [sorry Ed.], my pick would have been The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace (the link transports you to a review, which I wholly support). If you’re short on time, feel free to leaf to the end of each chapter, which summarize the actionable items of each section. I suspect most people — not just managers — will find a gem or two within its pages that they could be put into action tomorrow.
About the Author
Patrick Faucher is the Creative & Strategic Services Lead for the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation’s Knowledge Translation platform. A communications strategist with over a dozen years experience, he specializes in creating content engineered to build awareness, understanding, engagement, and adoption through an approach rooted in design thinking (rapid prototyping) and behavioural insights (nudging).
