Design thinking

Design Thinking

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Design thinking is a methodology used for practical and creative problem-solving. It is a form of solution-based thinking with the intent of producing a constructive future result. Design thinking is a human-centered approach that integrates the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

Overview

Design thinking is often used in design and engineering but has been increasingly applied to business and education. It involves a series of steps that include understanding the user, challenging assumptions, and redefining problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with an initial level of understanding.

The Process

The design thinking process is typically divided into five stages:

Empathize

The first stage involves gaining an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. This is done through user research, engaging with people to understand their experiences and motivations, and immersing yourself in the physical environment to gain a deeper personal understanding of the issues involved.

Define

In the define stage, you put together the information you have created and gathered during the empathize stage. This is where you will analyze your observations and synthesize them to define the core problems you and your team have identified. These definitions are called problem statements.

Ideate

During the ideate stage, 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.

Prototype

The prototype stage is where you start to create solutions. 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. Prototypes may be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments, or on a small group of people outside the design team.

Test

In the test stage, you rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase. This is the final stage of the five-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.

Applications

Design thinking is applied in various fields, including healthcare, education, business, and technology. It is used to develop innovative solutions to complex problems by focusing on the needs of the user and creating a balance between desirability, feasibility, and viability.

Related Pages

• Human-centered design
• Innovation
• Problem solving
• User experience design