Design Thinking Process: Solving a problem
A Company has reached out to you (your team) to create a solution to aid their users to order food online.
Using the design thinking approach, walk me through how you intend to create the solution.
Design thinking is the methodology or approach used to provide solution for an identified problem i.e. seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions to the identified problems. It is a continuous process providing a solution-based approach to solving problems.
With the task given above, I will be highlighting the stages of design thinking and how each stage can be used in a bid to create the solution needed by the company.
The stages of design thinking process include:
- Empathy with the users
- Define the problem
- Ideate solutions
- Prototype
- Testing
In solving the task at hand, I will look at what the company wants and what the users want. In finding a common ground between the two parties, I’ll empathize with both of them. By doing so, both parties will be put into consideration while developing possible solutions.
Furthermore, I’ll create a user persona to know what the average user of the company’s product looks like and what they’re trying to achieve — in this case, probably satisfying a hunger. Also, I’ll research to know what the users want and the challenges they witnessed in using the platform over time. This can come in form of online survey or one-on-one interview with selected users. This will help identify the pain point for the users as the essence of creating a solution is to relieve the users from these pain points.
Pain points could be problems with the user interface, onboarding, not understanding the mode of operations or the platform the company is using.
With the findings from the research, the exact problem will be defined by identifying the hindrances and the pain points of the users. The defined problem will be well laid out with clarity to find a befitting solution.
Furthermore, the team will have a brainstorming session with the company, presenting the identified problems with them and together, we come up with solutions within their capacity that can be implemented to solve the problems.
Following this, sketch will be developed from the ideas generated by the team using a low fidelity wireframe. This will show the basic outline of what the expected solution should look like.
With the ideas and the sketch generated, the UI designer will create a prototype using any of the prototyping tools to make a representation of the solutions adhering to the principles of visual design (color, typography, line, whitespace and contrast).
Finally, the product will be tested with the users to know if the problems identified have been solved with the product and if there’s any need for improvement on any other level. This improvement could be redefining the problem and creating another solution.
From the above task, I have shown how the different stages of design thinking process can be applied in our daily tasks as UX/UI Designers. Design is not only about aesthetics however it is important to ensure that the solutions developed are user centered to have a happy client and happy users.
