An Introduction to Design Thinking

An Introduction to Design Thinking

1. The process Guide

   • Empathize
     • What is it
       • Is the work you do to understand people, within the context of your design challenge
     • Why
       • It gives you clues about what the people think and feel.
       • The best solutions come out of the best insights into human behavior.
       • Engaging with people directly reveals a tremendous amount about the way they think and the values they hold.
     • How
       • Observe
         • View users and their behavior in the context of their lives.
       • Engage
         • Prepare some questions you’d like to ask, but expect to let the conversation deviate from them.
       • Watch and Listen
         • Have them physically go through the steps, and talk you through why they are doing what they do.
   • Define
     • What is it
       • It is your chance, and responsibility, as a design thinker to defne the challenge you are taking on
     • Why
       • The Define mode is critical to the design process because it results in your point-of-view
       • Defines the RIGHT challenge to address, based on your new understanding of people and the problem space.
       • It's also an endeavor to synthesize your scattered findings into powerful insights.
     • How
       • Synthesize and select a limited set of NEEDS that you think are important to fulfll; you may in fact express a just one single salient need to address.
       • Articulate a point-of-view by combining these three elements – user, need, and insight – as an actionable problem statement that will drive the rest of your design work.
   • Ideate
     • What is it
       • Ideate is the mode of the design process in which you concentrate on idea generation.
     • Why
       • You ideate in order to transition from identifying problems to creating solutions for your users
       • Ideation is your chance to combine the understanding you have of the problem space and people you are designing for with your imagination to generate solution concepts.
     • How
       • You ideate by combining your conscious and unconscious mind, and rational thoughts with imagination.
       • Another ideation technique is building – that is, prototyping itself can be an ideation technique.
       • There are other ideation techniques such as bodystorming, mindmapping, and sketching.
   • Test
     • What is it
       • The Test mode is when you solicit feedback, about the prototypes you have created, from your users and have another opportunity to gain empathy for the people you are designing for.
     • Why
       • To refine prototypes and solutions.
         • Testing informs the next iterations of prototypes. Sometimes this means going back to the drawing board.
       • To learn more about your user.
         • Testing is another opportunity to build empathy through observation and engagement—it often yields unexpected insights.
       • To refine your POV
         • Sometimes testing reveals that not only did you not get the solution right, but also that you failed to frame the problem correctly
     • How
       • Show don’t tell.
         • Put your prototype in the user’s hands – or your user within an experience. And don’t explain everything (yet). Let your tester interpret the prototype.
       • Create Experiences.
         • Create your prototypes and test them in a way that feels like an experience that your user is reacting to, rather than an explanation that your user is evaluating.
       • Ask users to compare.
         • Bringing multiple prototypes to the feld to test gives users a basis for comparison, and comparisons often reveal latent needs
   • Prototype
     • What is it
       • The Prototype mode is the iterative generation of artifacts intended to answer questions that get you closer to your fnal solution.
     • Why
       • To ideate and problem-solve.
       • To communicate.
       • To start a conversation.
       • To fail quickly and cheaply.
       • To test possibilities.
       • To manage the solution-building process.
     • How
       • Start building.
         • Even if you aren’t sure what you’re doing, the act of picking up some materials will be enough to get you going.
       • Don’t spend too long on one prototype.
         • Let go before you find yourself getting too emotionally attached to any one prototype.
       • ID a variable
         • Identify what’s being tested with each prototype. A prototype should answer a particular question when tested. That said, don’t be blind to the other tangential understanding you can gain as someone responds to a prototype.
       • Build with the user in mind.
         • What do you hope to test with the user? What sorts of behavior do you expect? Answering these questions will help focus your prototyping and help you receive meaningful feedback in the testing phase.