DESIGN THINKING

Design Thinking is a technique we can use in any field like literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business. Here we shall restrict discussion of the use of Design Thinking to the digital field. Let us define Digital Thinking. Adapted from Uxbeginner.com: “ It is a designer’s work process which helps apply human-centered techniques to solve a problem in a creative and innovative way.” Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted the Design Thinking approach, and Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world”.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a way of thinking and working and provides a simple-to-follow hands-on approach which allows us to systematically solve the problem with user and his/her needs at the centre. So, we need to understand the people for whom the solution is being designed for – whether it is a product or service.

For being successful, we need to carefully observe the target user and empathize with his/her problem. It is a structured way for questioning:

• questioning the problem
• questioning the assumptions, and
• questioning the implications.

Design Thinking is extremely useful in solving problems that are ill-defined or unknown. The problem has to be reframed in a human-centric. This involved divergent thinking which is coming out with as many ideas as one can in brainstorming sessions. Thereafter, use convergent thinking to adopt few of the best ideas to prototype and test. Thereafter, we should get back to the next iteration of design thinking till the problem is solved completely.

Phases of Design Thinking

Design Thinking was first described by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon in The Sciences of the Artificial in 1969. The five-phase model was proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. The five phases of Design Thinking are as follows:

• Empathise – with your users
• Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights
• Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions
• Prototype – to start creating solutions
• Test – the solutions

And start the cycle again if needed …

Concept of “Outside the Box” Thinking

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.

Design Thinking attempts to improve products by analyzing and understanding how users interact with products and studying the conditions in which they operate. Design Thinking involves asking the right and significant questions and challenging all assumptions.

“Outside the box” thinking helps to identify which assumptions are false and which are not. Thereafter, the solution-generation process will produce ideas that helps overcome the genuine constraints of those particular problems. Design Thinking helps use dig deeper, do the right kind of research and thereafter prototype and test our solutions which may help uncover a new way of improving the product, service or design.

Design Thinking – an alternative Problem-Solving method

The design process may need us to bring different groups of people from different departments and different backgrounds together. In such a scenario, creating, categorizing, and structuring ideas and solutions can be an uphill battle. Design Thinking approach offers a way out of this situation.

“Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’
– Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design Thinking is for Everybody

Tim Brown states that Design Thinking techniques and related strategies employed to design is relevant at every level of a business. It is a myth that Design thinking is only for designers. Infact, it is applicable to every creative employee, freelancer, and manager who wants to follow design thinking to find elegant solutions to problems either at the product or service level or at the organization level. Design Thinking can help new alternatives for business and society in contrast to a pure engineering approach

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.”
– Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Important Points

• Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach
• It involves going beyond known aspects of a problem and identifying the more ambiguous and/or peripheral factors that contribute to the problem.
• Design Thinking is an iterative process. As an approach, knowledge or solution is constantly questioned and new aspects discovered which helps to redefine the problem itself. This shall allow us to evolve alternative strategies and solutions which may not have been instantly apparent with our initial appreciation of the problem statement.
• Design Thinking is also referred to as ‘outside the box thinking’. This is because designers are forever attempting to develop new ways of thinking which does not rigidly follow conventional problem-solving methods – so they enjoy artistic freedom in some ways.
• The goal of Design Thinking is to improve products by analyzing how users interact with them and studying the conditions under which they operate. So this technique allows us to dig deeper to uncover ways of enhancing user experience.

“The ‘Design Thinking’ label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results.”
– Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Hero Image: Copyright holder: Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Course: Design Thinking - The Beginner's Guide:
https://www.interaction-design.org/courses/design-thinking-the-beginner-s-guide

Don Norman. “Rethinking Design Thinking”, 2013:
http://www.core77.com/posts/24579/rethinking-design-thinking-24579

Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction, 2009

Bill Moggridge, “Design Thinking: Dear Don”, 2010:
http://www.core77.com/posts/17042/design-thinking-dear-don-17042

What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular? by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular