Design thinking: the tool every startup needs
If your startup has a designer of any sorts, you’re likely familiar with the phrase design thinking.
Design thinking is used by companies large and small, corporates and startups, private and non-profit businesses alike. For example, German energy company Innogy’s Innovation Hub utilized design thinking to generate ideas for a solution to provide electric car charge port stations. Or there’s the story of how Airbnb used design thinking to save their sinking ship in the early days — they put themselves in the shoes of their users, thought about what the users really needed, and were then able to grow.
If your business doesn’t have a designer, or if you do and the term still sounds a bit unfamiliar, fret not! We’re delving into what exactly design thinking is, why it’s a valuable tool for every startup, and how you can utilize it in your business, whether your team includes a designer a not.
In this article, we interview NewCampus’s own full-stack designer, Michelle, to answer all of these questions and more.
To start off, can you tell us what design thinking is?
Design thinking is a a methodology that a lot of designers use, and now companies are starting to utilize it as well. To quote IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown, “design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
So what that means is that design thinking emphasizes solution-based, iterative, and human-centered approaches to thinking and problem solving. It can be applied to any industry, and is useful in design, product work, and general business solutions. In sum, it is a method which emphasizes creativity, ambidextrous thinking, teamwork, user-centeredness (empathy), curiosity, and optimism.
As a designer, you really have to have empathy for the user — you must always thinking about what the user is going to experience when they’re using your product and how they’re going to feel. With that in mind, design thinking is useful because it emphasizes the user, the human, and provides you with a framework to create for humans.
Why is design thinking important for startups?
Startups move fast. You have to create, test, and (often) fail before you figure things out.
Design thinking is adaptable and iterative, so it’s incredibly useful for startups at all stages of development — whether you’re just starting your business or if you have a successful product and business model.
Sometimes you don’t know your problem. For example, if you’re just starting out, you may have difficulty fully articulating your startup solution. Or if your business is further along, you may know that you have points of friction somewhere, but can’t fully identify them.
The design thinking methodology is perfect for discovery — when you need to identify something you can’t verbalize. It’s a step-by-step methodology that helps you identify your problem and come up with numerous creative solutions, so it’s perfect for quickly and iteratively identifying how to solve problems.
It’s also beneficial because you don’t need to be a designer or have a designer on your team for this methodology. You just need to be open to the process, have a human centered and creative attitude, and an eagerness to identify creative solutions to a problem.
How does one do design thinking?
There really are many different ways to approach it, but one of the most common methods involves a 5 step framework: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test.
- Empathize: this requires learning about your users, the people who are affected by the problem you’re trying to solve. Identify their challenges, and identify how your solution will help them. At this stage, you not only want to ask questions, but you should follow each answer with a why? to dig deeper.
- Define: based on what you learned in step one, define the problem statement. Why are the users experiencing what they are, what’s the problem? You should identify their needs and any insights from your discover phase. A problem statement should look something like this:
(User persona) needs a way to (user’s need) surprisingly/because/but … (insights)
- Ideate: based on the last two steps, come up with (by brainstorming, or sketching) as many ideas as you can. At this stage, it’s all about volume and thinking outside the box. Challenge your assumptions! Any idea is good at this point.
Volume, as in a lot of different ideas, is important because you don’t want to limit yourself based on assumptions you had previously. Right now, you want to get your creativity going.
- Prototype: after you’ve brainstormed multiple ideas, take a look at them and identify some of the best ideas. Then, create prototypes (working models), that you can apply/use and show people.
Actually building something, whether online or physically, that you can show people is important because most people need something physical, something they can look at, in order to understand it. You have to build it before you test it.
- Test: This is when you get feedback from users about the solution you came up with. From testing and gathering feedback, you should learn what they like, what doesn’t work, questions they had, and follow-on ideas you had.
Based on that research, go back to the process and create something new. Design thinking is meant to be a non-linear process, which means you don’t need to be constrained by the steps. If, after defining the problem statement, you come up with new ideas or a new way to frame your problem statement, run with it! It’s all a learning process. Creativity and sponatenity are required.
Who (in the company) should be involved in the design thinking process?
Design thinking is really important for the whole company to understand. And the great thing is that it’s super easy for everyone to work with, it’s not only for designers. Because it’s a way of approaching a problem, a way of finding human-centered solutions, it’s important tool to have for founders, your marketing, sales, and product teams. It’s one of the greatest tools to have in your problem solving tool kit.
Any last words you’d like to share?
In short, design thinking is one of many ways to grow your business. As a startup, you should never rule anything out during the brainstorming phase, whether you’re considering product enhancements, brand design, marketing messages, etc. When brainstorming, you should cast a net as far as you can, try new things. Design thinking allows you to do that.
Above all, design thinking should focus on a challenge that has a human element, because it’s a human centered approach. It’s about the people. And this is important because at the end of the day, whatever your product is, you’re designing for people. Real, living, breathing humans. And these people have emotions and feelings, things you definitely need to consider when you’re building some sort of solution or experience for them.
If, when you’re building something, you only think about how to get more money, you’re not going to go far. If you’re thinking, “how can we improve our users’ experience in order to get more revenue or more investment?”, it’s just not going to work.
The real problem is actually getting into people’s’ hearts and minds, understanding what they really need. If you can’t speak to them, if your users don’t care, the money is not going to come.
Design thinking helps you get there — it helps you get into your users hearts and minds.
It allows you to understand your users’ thoughts, feelings, and how they experience your solution. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have people who have fallen in love with your product — once that happens, everything else will fall into place.
Want to run your own design thinking workshops?
Check out these resources recommended by Michelle:
- Interaction Design Foundation, for both individuals and companies
- Stanford’s crash course in design thinking — a guide, including handouts and resources, to leading a 90 minute workshop
- InVision’s guide to introducing design thinking to your company
Want to see how we apply Design Thinking to our product? Check out our website 🌈
