What is Design Thinking?
The practical and creative approach for solving problems is called design thinking. It finds its origin in multiple fields such as engineering, business, architecture to name a few but now its applications are far and wide, no limited to design-specific fields.
Design thinking is user-centric. This means that the needs of the end user is the first and most important consideration of the design thinking process. This is the solution-based approach to problem solving.
Before moving forward, we must first understand what it means to have solution-based. To adequately do that we must also understand what is not solution-based thinking, which is called problem-based thinking.
Solution-based thinking as the name implies, means thinking focused on finding a solution. That is, harnessing constructive plans to tackle a problem. Whereas, problem-based thinking is centered around obstacles and limitations. Keeping in mind the above, we can say that design thinking revolves around iteration of experiment until the ideal solution is found.
What is the Design Thinking Process?
To address the above question, we must first understand the 4 Principles of Design Thinking
- The human rule: All design processes in nature are social. We look at the designs from the human point of view
- The ambiguity rule: Ambiguity is a constant, unremoved and un-simplified. We are limited by our knowledge but we should still be able to see things from more than one angle.
- The redesign rule: The needs of the human being are never changing, constant but the parameters (situation and conditions) surrounding these needs are ever changing. Hence, we must always redesign new solutions while taking into consideration the new parameters;
- The tangibility rule: The use of prototypes to bring ideas to life aid designers in communicating more efficiently.
The Five Phases of Design Thinking
Keeping the 4 principles in mind, the design thinking process consist of five steps or phrases:
- Empathize
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
Empathise: This step focuses on understanding the user and understanding their wants, objectives and needs. We must observe and engage the user and gather their real insights
Define: the information gathered in step one is used to define the problem. Here, we analyse our finding, making sense of the things that are a concern to the user, their difficulties and barriers, the observed patterns, the main problem that needs to be addressed? At the end of this phase, there should be a clear problem statement in a user-centric way.
Ideate: After understanding the users and having a clear problem statement, the next step is to generate possible solutions. This is where creativity must be put into play. Here there is no judgement, the team simply needs to find the best solution for the problems.
There are different techniques that can be used in this stage, brainstorming, mind-mapping, bodystorming (roleplay scenarios), provocation (an extreme technique with the goal of getting designers to challenge established beliefs).
At the end of this phase, the team should only be considering the best possible ideas.
Prototype: This is where experimentation takes place. Here, we create a scaled down version of the ideal solution or solutions (prototype) and put them to test to determine which idea is actually a viable solution to the concern / problem at hand. While taking note of any constraints or flaws that need to be addressed.
The solution may be accepted, redesigned, improved on or rejected.
Test: From here, we user test. Based on the results here but more often than not, the test phase leads us back to one of the previous phases, where we build on the learnings from the test phase. The goal at this point is to either come to a conclusion on the final solution to our problem statements or give us insights to iterate our possible solution or the problem statement
