Design Thinking
Designing for Humanity
Design Thinking
a process for solving problems by prioritizing
the consumer's needs above all else.
Design Thinking
It relies on observing, with empathy
how people interact with their environments,
and employs a non-linear, iterative, hands-on approach
to creating innovative solutions.
Why is design thinking important?
Design thinking enables organizations to
create lasting value for consumers.
Design Thinking
1. Aims to solve a concrete human need
2. Tackles problems that are ambiguous or
dif cult to de ne
3. Leads to more innovative solutions
4. Makes organizations run faster and more
ef ciently
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How Does Design Thinking Work?
• Desirability: What makes sense to people and for people?
• Feasibility: What is technically possible within the foreseeable future
• Viability: What is likely to become part of a sustainable business model?
Resetting Our Mental Boxes and
Developing a Fresh Mindset
Design Thinking
1. Empathize through observation.
In this first stage, the designer observes
consumers to gain a deeper understanding
of how they interact with or are affected by
a product or issue. The observations must
happen with empathy, which means
withholding judgment and not imparting
preconceived notions of what the
consumer needs.
Design Thinking : Empathy
Design Thinking : Empathy
Design Thinking : Empathy
Design Thinking : Empathy :How?
1. Assuming a Beginner’s Mindset
2. Ask What, How & Why?
3. Photo and Video User-based Studies
4. Personal Photo and Video Journals
5. Interviews
6. Engaging with Extreme Users
7. Analogous Empathy
8. Sharing Inspiring Stories
9. Bodystorming
Design Thinking
2. De ne the challenge.
In this second stage, you gather your observations
from the first stage to define the problem
you’re trying to solve. Think about the
difficulties your consumers are brushing up
against, what they repeatedly struggle with,
and what you’ve gleaned from how they’re
affected by the issue. Once you synthesize
your findings, you are able to define the
problem they face.
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Design Thinking
3. Ideate as many ideas as possible.
The next step is to brainstorm ideas about how to
solve the problem you’ve identified. These
ideation sessions could be in a group, where your
team gathers in an office space that encourages
creativity and collaboration, an innovation lab, or
can be done solo. The important part is to
generate a bunch of different ideas. At the end of
this process, you’ll come up with a few ideas with
which to move forward.
Design Thinking
4. Prototype Soultions
This is the stage that turns ideas into an actual
solution. Prototypes are not meant to be
perfect. The point of a prototype is to come
out quickly with a concrete version of the idea
to see how it is accepted by consumers.
Examples of prototypes include a landing
page to test consumer desire for a product or
a video that demonstrates streamlined logistic
processes.
Design Thinking
5. Test and Iterate.
Once you give a prototyped solution to
consumers, you must observe how they
interact with it. This testing stage is the
one in which you collect feedback on your
work.
The design-thinking process is an iterative,
rather than linear, one. At the end of the
fifth stage, you’ll likely have to go back to
one or several of the other stages.
Design Thinking in action
Business: Food delivery & take out
Pain point : delays due to parking issues in urbanized areas.
Idea: UberEats driver app designed to provide step-by-
step directions from restaurant to customer to
ensure smoother delivery processes.
Design Thinking in action
Pain point : returning DVDs
Idea: Offer Subscription service then later streaming
service.
Design Thinking in action
Business: Online shoes, sneakers, boots & clothing
Pain point : returning DVDs
Idea: Offer Subscription service.
Design Thinking in action
Business: Online Bed & Breakfast
Pain point : business not gaining traction, 200 dollars a week.
Idea: Invest in a high-quality camera and take pictures of what customers
want to see, based on their travel observations. For example,
showing every room rather than a select few, listing special
features like a hot tub or pool in the description, and highlighting
the neighborhood or areas in close proximity to the residence.
A Third way to look at problems
It’s essentially a problem-solving approach that has crystallized in the
eld of design to combine a holistic user-centered perspective with
rational and analytical research—all with the goal to create innovative
solutions.
— Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction
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