Design Thinking, The Whole Story.

Welcome to the world of design thinking. We speak design thinking, but don’t worry. Design thinking is not limited to people working in the field of design.

Design Thinking.

Imagine a way of thinking that helps you make decisions and provides an eagle eyes view to all the options available. You must be wondering what design thinking is and why it is so popular?

Well, design thinking is a wildly spread term. It is used in multiple fields and it has been used by the pioneers of those fields (ie: literature, sciences, and engineering.)

You can say it’s an iterative method, where one tries to understand the thought that went into something and then pinpoint the strategies and the solutions both immediate and secondary to a problem(s) that we’re facing. It’s a creative way of solving problems, revolving around human needs.

When you sit and start thinking about a problem the very first question you should answer is: what is the human need that needs help in this problem?

When you use this methodology, you combine what is desired from a human needs perspective and what is possible from a technological and financial perspective.

You start by adopting the problem, think of solutions for it, and try to implement them in a new creative way.

Some advantages of design thinking are the following.

1. Learning to iterate faster.
2. A better understanding of human needs.
3. Reduce the risk associated with launching new ideas, products, and services.

Design Thinking Process.

Phases of design thinking

1. Empathize. (Develop a deep understanding of the challenge). This phase is entirely spent trying to understand the user, his/her needs, and goals. You go into the psychological depth, by applying the ability to feel users and their problem and know their interests and ideas by putting yourself in their position. You have to integrate into their environment and coexistence with them by listening to their personal stories and their positions that they can access. By doing this, you can reach a deep understanding of the user needs and awareness of the method and determine it accurately.
2. Define (clearly articulate the problem you want to solve). In this phase, you define the problems you’re facing through the information collected from phase one. What are the challenges that the users are facing? Once you clarify the problem with specific and clear words, you can start solving it.
3. Ideate (brainstorm potential solutions, select and develop your solution). At this stage, many ideas and solutions to the problem are generated and written. Try to make these solutions gradually from regular solutions until they reach creative and innovative solutions. In this phase you let your creativity run wild with your colleagues. Creativity happens here!
4. Prototype (adopting a hands-on approach of prototyping). This phase is all about trying and turning ideas into tangible products. The prototype is a minified version of the product you’re trying to develop. Every version goes through testing phases to determine what works and what doesn’t, what’s good, and what isn’t. Design a prototype or series of which to test all the parts to your solution.
5. Test (engage in a continuous short-cycle innovation process to continually improve your design). After the prototyping phase, the user feedback phase begins. It’s imperative to collect as much user feedback as possible while remaining true to your vision for the product you’re developing. This phase is important to improve your ideas and coming up with ways of improvements and ideas you didn’t foresee.

It is important to note that the stages of design thinking are iterative, for review, reform, and amendment, and the team may need to go back to one or more of the previous stages to obtain more information about the target audience. By doing so, you’re going to redefine the problem, modify solutions, create new ideas or modify the prototype all together.

Conclusion

All in all, design thinking is a methodology with the goal to attempt to solve problems or challenges you may face while being able to empathize with others.

Ultimately, design thinking is a topic that aims to innovate, develop solutions to problems based on an expectation, or a more sympathetic view of others, and it works in any model of business.