Unit-5
What Is Design Thinking?
Design thinking was developed by Stanford Professor David Kelley who
is also the founder of the design agency IDEO. His work was also
influenced by Professors Terry Winograd and Larry Leifer at the
[Link] at Stanford University. Unfortunately there is no single, agreed
upon definition of design thinking. However, in a study conducted by the
Nielsen Norman Group, the majority of the UX and design professionals
define it roughly the same, regardless of industry and experience. Still,
there is no agreement on the specifics.
A concise sentence that defines design thinking would be the following:
Design Thinking is a human-centric, iterative, solution-based, problem-
solving framework
Whoa! Let us break this down.
Design thinking is:
A problem-solving approach: It is a methodology that is ideal for
tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown. This is
because design thinking helps us define a problem, challenge
any assumptions and thus reframe it in a way that will help us come up
with solutions that may potentially solve it.
Human-centric: In design thinking, we seek to understand the user.
This is why the user – the person for whom we are designing our
products or services for, is considered at each stage of the design
thinking process.
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Iterative: This means that in the different stages of the design
thinking process, you will use the results to review, question and
improve any initial assumptions, understandings and outcomes. This
makes the design thinking approach a non-linear one.
Solution-based: The design thinking process provides a very hands-on
approach to problem-solving. You will formulate several potential
problem-solving approaches, prototype them and test them in the context
of the problem being solved. Due to the iterative nature of design
thinking, you will be able to re-shape and optimise these approaches
until an optimal solution is chosen.
The 5 Stages Of The Design Thinking Process
You can apply the design thinking method to solve complex problems by
taking the five stages approach as proposed by the Hasso-Plattner
Institute of Design at Stanford ([Link]). What is interesting about this
approach is that it first starts with employing divergent styles of thinking
to explore as many possibilities as possible, but then it encourages
convergent styles of thinking to isolate potential solution streams. That
being said, these five stages are not always sequential and can occur in
parallel and repeat iteratively. Therefore, the best way to see them are as
phases that contribute to an innovative project.
The five stages of the design thinking process are the following:
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The 5
stages of the design thinking process (Image source: Interaction Design
Foundation)
Stage 1 – Empathise: The objective of this stage is to gain
an empathetic understanding of your users, their needs and what they
really care about. To achieve this, you need to put aside any
personal assumptions that you might have about your users or the
problem you are tackling. You should observe, engage (for example
through interviews) and empathise with people to understand their
experiences, what they value and what motivates them. Additionally, it
is recommended that you get a feel of the physical environment within
which the problem lies. These techniques will help you empathise – an
essential aspect of the human-centred approach that is design thinking.
This stage will inevitably yield a considerable amount of information –
which you will then need to use for the 2nd stage. Your challenge will
be to synthesise all this information within the context of your design.
Stage 2 – Define (the Problem): In this stage, you should analyse, sort
out and sequence the information you have gathered in the first stage in
such a way that lets you define better the problem you are tackling. If
you have conducted interviews in the first stage, you can analyse the
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answers and highlight any key phrases that relate to the problem. Thus,
this stage will bring clarity and focus to your work because you will
know what the real problem is. Ideally, it would be best if you wrote this
down in the form of a problem statement. What is interesting is that up
till now, you have shaped the definition of the problem solely as seen
from the users’ perspectives and without any constraints of existing
solutions.
Stage 3 – Ideate: Using the problem statement from stage 2, you can
start generating several logical ideas that seek to resolve the problem.
These ideas are typically rough ideas – ones that are the result
of brainstorming. Still, they should be valid approaches that can
potentially solve the problem being tackled. The important thing here is
to “think outside the box” and generate several ideas so that there are
some options to choose from for prototyping in the next stage. You can
sketch these ideas and show them to the users to refine them and at the
same time filter those ideas that are worth investigating further.
Stage 4 – Prototype: During this stage, you will work with your team to
generate several inexpensive prototypes to be able to investigate and
explore the potential solutions proposed so far. The aim of the prototype
stage is also to have something to share and will act as a basis of
communication with your team members and other stakeholders
including users. It is essential to remember that you are not trying to
identify the correct solution here. Instead, you are exploring from a
number of potentially good approaches to addressing the problem.
Therefore, you should not waste much time thinking about how to
prototype or building a prototype. You should pick up some materials
and start. Each solution is prototyped, investigated and accepted,
improved, re-examined or rejected. Not spending too much time and not
building complex, costly prototypes will thus make it easier for you to
let go and move to another one. At the end of this stage, you will have a
good idea of which solutions are most likely to address the problem and
what their constraints are.
Stage 5 – Test: The best solutions from the prototyping stage are
tested in the context of the real product using designers, evaluators and
real users. Testing is carried out to evaluate each prototype and assess
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the degree to which it addresses the problem that is being tackled. This
is an iterative process since the results from these tests can sometimes be
used to refine the problem, the proposed prototypes and the solutions.
This leads to further alterations and refinements of the prototypes being
tested, and hence moving back to previous stages. Testing also provides
an opportunity to understand and empathise more the users since you are
observing and engaging them. This is also a stage that will help you
personally to refine the way you have framed the problem and address
any remaining pre-conceptions that you might still have. The result of
this stage is a prototype that solves the problem, and hence one that can
be used as a model to build the real solution.
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