Batangas

State
University
College of Engineering, Architecture and Fine Arts

ENGG 401 - INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING

MODULE 2
DESIGN THINKING

Dr. Elisa D. Gutierrrez

Engr. Janice F. Peralta
Engr. Danica Marie B. Mercado
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ENGG 401 - INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING 1 Course Rationale and Description 1 Intended
Learning Outcome 1 Criteria for Assessment 1 Supplemental Content 1
MODULE 2 - DESIGN THINKING 2 Introduction 2 Topic Outcome 2 Lectures 3 Design Thinking:
Varied Definitions and Descriptions 3 A Design Methodology 3 A Problem-Solving Approach
or Process 3
Phases/Stages of Design Thinking 4 Empathize 5 Define the problem 5 Ideate 6 Prototype 6
Test 6
The Non-Linear Nature of Design Thinking 7 Attributes of Design Thinking 8 Characteristics
of Design Thinkers 9 Summing Up… 10
Activities 10 Supplemental Content 10 References 10
ENGG 401 - INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING

Course Rationale and Description

Introduction to Engineering is a course designed to teach students about the different engineering
fields and expose them to research opportunities, career possibilities, and coursework that will
challenge and engage them. Engineers must be problem solvers, creative thinkers, and leaders in
order to be successful in the profession. For this to happen, students need to stay in engineering
programs, be pleased with their choice of major, and develop engineering identity. This introductory
course provides a framework for the practice of engineering. This framework is a broad outline of the
tasks and responsibilities of an engineer, and the use of disciplinary knowledge in executing those
tasks. Further, this course aims to stimulate students' interest and strengthen their motivation for, the
field of engineering by focusing on the application of relevant core engineering disciplines. The
course also includes personal and interpersonal skills knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are
essential at the start of a program to prepare students for a more advanced product, process, and
system building experiences.

Intended Learning Outcome

● ILO1 - Develop professional behavior and a code of ethics in areas like project
management, teamwork, and leadership.

● ILO2 - Demonstrate understanding in design thinking and engineering design process to

create effective problem statements, and design, build, test, and analyze a simple
prototype product that addresses realistic constraints and system requirements while
using basic project management techniques.

● ILO3 - Apply appropriate design process, prototyping, and modern engineering tools in
activity/project building.
Criteria for Assessment
Group Project (GP) 45%
Experiential Learning Activities (ELA) 25%
Self and Peer Assessment (SPA) 10%
Midterm Exam (ME) 20%

Supplemental Content
Course Information Syllabus (CIS) (link)
Introduction to Engineering Website (link)
1 | ENGG 401 - Introduction to Engineering

MODULE 2 - DESIGN THINKING

Introduction

Design Thinking is one of the more recent buzz words in the design community. In this module, you
will be well-informed what design thinking is and its main characteristics will be investigated. The five
stages of the design thinking process will be thoroughly discussed in this section as well as its
application in project execution. This module will also take a look at the process and the methods
associated with it.

The overall goal of this design thinking course module is to help you design better products, services,
processes, strategies, spaces, architecture, and experiences. Design thinking helps you and your
team develop practical and innovative solutions for your problems. It is a human-focused, prototype-
driven, innovative design process. Through this module ,it is hoped that you will develop a solid
understanding of the fundamental phases and methods in design thinking, and you will learn how to
implement your newfound knowledge in your professional work life. This material will provide you
practical examples, case studies, videos, and other useful group activities, which will help you dive
further into design thinking.

This course module contains a series of practical exercises and activities that build on one another to
create a complete design thinking project. With these activities, you’ll get invaluable hands-on
experience with the methods you encounter in this course. These learning activities will help and
teach you take your first steps as a design thinking practitioner. What’s equally important is you can
use your work as a case study for your portfolio to showcase your abilities to future employers.
After going through this module, it is expected that you can systematically extract, teach, learn, and
apply these human-centered techniques in solving problems in a creative way in your future design
activities and businesses to come up with innovative solutions to real-world problems.

Topic Outcome
1. Operate the five stages of Design Thinking Process : Empathize, Define,
Ideate, Prototype, Test
2. Describe the Design Thinking process as applied in project execution 3.
Demonstrate the design thinking processes in developing practical and innovative
solutions to real-world problems
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Lectures

What Is Design Thinking, And Why Is It So Popular?

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and General Electric, have
rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading
universities around the world. What is design thinking, and why is it so popular and effective?

Design thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art,
music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it ‘design thinking’? What’s
special about design thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract,
teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and
innovative way — in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.

Design Thinking is a design methodology and iterative process that provides a solution-based
approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful in tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or
unknown, by understanding the human needs involved, by re-framing the problem in human-centric
ways, by creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and by adopting a hands-on approach in
prototyping and testing.
Design Thinking: Varied Definitions and Descriptions

There are various ways of teaching and practicing Design Thinking, and definitions and
descriptions vary accordingly.

A Design Methodology
Basically, Design Thinking is a design methodology. It differs from traditional design approaches in
specific ways. For example, some authors characterize Design Thinking as more creative and user-
centered than traditional design approaches.

A Problem-Solving Approach or Process

Design Thinking can be regarded as a problem solving method or, by some definitions, a process for
the resolution of problems. As a solution-based approach to solving problems, Design Thinking is
particularly useful for addressing so-called “wicked” problems. Wicked means that they are ill-defined
or tricky. For ill-defined problems, both the problem and the solution are unknown at the outset of the
problem-solving process (as opposed to “tame” or “well-defined” problems, where the problem is
evident and the solution is possible with some

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technical knowledge.) Even when the general direction of the problem may be clear, considerable
time and effort is spent on clarifying the requirements. Thus, in Design Thinking, a large part of the
problem-solving activity consists of defining and shaping the problem.

A Creativity Approach

Unlike analytical thinking, which is associated with the “breaking down” of ideas, Design Thinking is a
creative process based on the “building up” of ideas. Analytical approaches focus on narrowing the
design choices, while Design Thinking focuses on going broad, at least during the early stages of the
process.

A User-Centered Approach That Brings Design into the Business World

Design Thinking is a more creative and user-centered approach to problem solving than traditional
design methods. They point out that “Design Thinking defies the obvious and instead embraces a
more experimental approach.” The heart of the method is in understanding the customer: All ideas
and subsequent work stem from knowing the customer.
The Design Thinking methodology is not just applied to design problems. Design Thinking is seen as
a way to apply design methodologies to any of life’s situations. It is often used to explore and define
business problems and to define products and services. In other words, Design Thinking brings the
design approach into the business world. In this vein, Design Thinking has been characterized as a
discipline in which the designer’s sensibility and methods match people’s needs, by applying what is
technically feasible and by contemplating what a viable business strategy can convert into customer
value and market opportunity. As a methodology or style of thinking, it combines empathy for the
context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality and
feedback to analyze and fit solutions to the context – All this helps derive a solution that meets user
needs and at the same time generates revenue, that is, drives business success.

Phases/Stages of Design Thinking

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We will focus on the five-stage Design Thinking model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of
Design at Stanford ([Link]). [Link] is the leading university when it comes to teaching Design
Thinking. The five stages of Design Thinking, according to [Link], are as follows: Empathize,
Define (the problem), Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Let’s take a closer look at the five different stages
of Design Thinking. Understanding these five stages of Design Thinking will empower anyone to
apply the Design Thinking methods in order to solve complex problems that occur around us - in our
companies, in our countries, and even on the scale of our planet.

1. Empathize

The first stage of the Design Thinking process is to gain an empathic understanding of the problem
you are trying to solve. This involves consulting experts to find out more about the area of concern
through observing, engaging and empathizing with people to understand their
experiences and motivations, as well as immersing yourself in the physical environment so you can
gain a deeper personal understanding of the issues involved. Empathy is crucial to a human-
centered design process such as Design Thinking, and empathy allows design thinkers to set aside
their own assumptions about the world in order to gain insight into users and their needs. Depending
on time constraints, a substantial amount of information is gathered at this stage to use during the
next stage and to develop the best possible understanding of the users, their needs, and the
problems that underlie the development of that particular product.

2. Define the problem

During the Define stage, you put together the information you have created and gathered during the
Empathise stage. This is where you will analyze your observations and synthesize them in order to
define the core problems that you and your team have identified up to this point. You should seek to
define the problem as a problem statement in a human-centered manner.

To illustrate, instead of defining the problem as your own wish or a need of the company such as,
“We need to increase our food-product market share among young teenage girls by 5%,” a much
better way to define the problem would be, “Teenage girls need to eat nutritious food in order to
thrive, be healthy and grow.

The Define stage will help the designers in your team gather great ideas to establish features,
functions, and any other elements that will allow them to solve the problems or, at the very least,
allow users to resolve issues themselves with the minimum of difficulty. In the Define stage you will
start to progress to the third stage,

Ideate, by asking questions which can help you look for ideas for solutions by asking: “How might
we… encourage teenage girls to perform an action that benefits them and also involves your
company’s food-product or service?”

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3. Ideate

During the third stage of the Design Thinking process, designers are ready to start generating ideas.
You’ve grown to understand your users and their needs in the Empathize stage, and you’ve analyzed
and synthesized your observations in the Define stage, and ended up with a human-centered
problem statement. With this solid background, you and your team members can start to "think
outside the box" to identify new solutions to the problem statement you’ve created, and you can start
to look for alternative ways of viewing the problem. There are hundreds of Ideation techniques such
as Brainstorm, Brainwrite, Worst Possible Idea, and SCAMPER. Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea
sessions are typically used to stimulate free
thinking and to expand the problem space. It is important to get as many ideas or problem solutions
as possible at the beginning of the Ideation phase. You should pick some other Ideation techniques
by the end of the Ideation phase to help you investigate and test your ideas so you can find the best
way to either solve a problem or provide the elements required to circumvent it.

4. Prototype

The design team will now produce a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the product or
specific features found within the product, so they can investigate the problem solutions generated in
the previous stage. Prototypes may be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments,
or on a small group of people outside the design team. This is an experimental phase, and the aim is
to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages.
The solutions are implemented within the prototypes, and, one by one, they are investigated and
either accepted, improved and re-examined, or rejected on the basis of the users’ experiences. By the
end of this stage, the design team will have a better idea of the constraints inherent to the product
and the problems that are present, and have a clearer view of how real users would behave, think,
and feel when interacting with the end product.
 5. Test

Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified during
the prototyping phase. This is the final stage of the 5 stage-model, but in an iterative process, the
results generated during the testing phase are often used to redefine one or more problems and
inform the understanding of the users, the conditions of use, how people think, behave, and feel, and
to empathize. Even during this phase, alterations and refinements are made in order to rule out
problem solutions and derive as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

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The Non-Linear Nature of Design Thinking

We may have outlined a direct and linear Design Thinking process in which one stage seemingly
leads to the next with a logical conclusion at user testing. However, in practice, the process is carried
out in a more flexible and non-linear fashion. For example, different groups within the design team
may conduct more than one stage concurrently, or the designers may collect
information and prototype during the entire project so as to enable them to bring their ideas to life and
visualize the problem solutions. Also, results from the testing phase may reveal some insights about
users, which in turn may lead to another brainstorming session (Ideate) or the development of new
prototypes (Prototype).
It is important to note that the five stages are not always sequential — they do not have to follow any
specific order and they can often occur in parallel and be repeated iteratively. As such, the stages
should be understood as different modes that contribute to a project, rather than sequential steps.
However, the amazing thing about the five-stage Design Thinking model is that it systematizes and
identifies the 5 stages/modes you would expect to carry out in a design project – and in any
innovative problem-solving project. Every project will involve activities specific to the product under
development, but the central idea behind each stage remains the same.
7 | Module 2 - Design Thinking

Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified during
the prototyping phase. This is the final stage of the 5 stage-model, but in an iterative process, the
results generated during the testing phase are often used to redefine one or more problems and
inform the understanding of the users, the conditions of use, how people think, behave, and feel, and
to empathize. Even during this phase, alterations and refinements are
made in order to rule out problem solutions and derive as deep an understanding of the product and
its users as possible.

Attributes of Design Thinking

Table 1 below lists the summary of the Design Thinking core attributes, together with their
descriptions. To provide a better overview of the attributes, some comments based on the definitions
were also given.

Table 1: Core Attributes of Design Thinking

ATTRIBUTE DESCRIPTION COMMENT

Ambiguity Being comfortable when Design Thinking addresses

things are unclear or when wicked , ill-defined and tricky
you don’t know the answer problems.
 Collaborative Working together People design in
across disciplines interdisciplinary teams.

Constructive Creating new ideas based Design Thinking is a solution-based

on old ideas, which can approach that looks for an improved
also be the most successful future result.
ideas

Curiosity Being interested in things Considerable time and effort is spent

you don’t understand or on clarifying the requirements. A
perceiving things with fresh large part of the problem solving
eyes activity, then, consists of problem
definition and problem shaping.

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Empathy Seeing and understanding

things from your customers’ The focus is on user needs (problem context).
point of view
Holistic Looking at the bigger Design Thinking attempts to meet
context for the customer user needs and also drive business
success.

Iterative A cyclical process where The Design Thinking process is

improvements are made to typically non-sequential and may
a solution or idea include feedback loops and cycles
regardless of the phase (see below).
 Nonjudgment Creating ideas with no Particularly in the
al judgment toward the idea brainstorming phase, there are
creator or the idea no early
judgments.

Open mindset Embracing design thinking The method encourages “outside

as an approach for any the box thinking” (“wild ideas”); it
problem regardless of defies the obvious and embraces a
industry or scope. more experimental approach.

Source: (from Baeck & Gremett, 2011) with descriptions and comments

Characteristics of Design Thinkers

There is a certain overlap between the attributes of Design Thinking and the characteristics of
Design Thinkers, because the latter perform the former. Following are the characteristics of design
thinkers:
● Focus on human values and needs. Have empathy for the people, solicit user feedback,
and use it in their designs
● Make experimentation an integral part of the design process, are active “doers”,
communicate through meaningful artifacts
● Collaborate with people from various backgrounds and respects their viewpoints; enable
“breakthrough insights and solutions to emerge from the diversity”.
● Can deal with wicked problems, are curious and optimistic, are integrative (holistic)
thinkers who look at the bigger context for the customer.
● Are mindful of the overall Design Thinking process with respect to goals and method

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Summing Up…

Design thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach specific to design, which involves

assessing known aspects of a problem and identifying the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that
contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the
concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution. Design thinking is an iterative
process in which knowledge is constantly being questioned and acquired so it can help us redefine a
problem in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly
apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box
thinking’, as designers are attempting to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the
dominant or more common problem-solving methods – just like artists do. At the heart of design
thinking is the intention to improve products by analyzing how users interact with products and
investigating the conditions in which they operate. Design thinking offers us a means of digging that
bit deeper to uncover ways of improving user experiences. Companies are facing ill-defined and
complex problems every day—and bringing design.

Activities
ELA 0A - POEMS (Activity Guide [pdf])
ELA 0B - 100 uses (Activity Guide [pdf])
ELA 1 - Wallet Challenger (Activity Guide [pdf])
ELA 2 - Design Thinking Implementation (Activity Guide [pdf] )
Review Quiz 2 [Google Form]

Supplemental Content
Watch the following videos about “Design Thinking” in Introduction to Engineering
website [ link ]

References
Gerd Waloszek (2012), Introduction to Design Thinking,
[Link]
Design Thinking: The Beginner’s Guide, Retrieved July 31, 2020, from
[Link] Rikke Friis
Dam and Teo Yu Siang (2020, July 15). Interaction Design Foundation. What is Design
Thinking and why is it so Popular? [Link] The
Basics of User Experience Design by Interaction Design Foundation
[Link]

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