What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

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.
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, including design school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. But do you
know what Design Thinking is? And why it’s so popular? Here, we’ll
cut to the chase and tell you what it is and why it’s so in demand.
What is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand
the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt
to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be
instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same
time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving
problems. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of
hands-on methods.
Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an
understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products
or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target
user. Design Thinking helps us in the process of questioning:
questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and
questioning the implications. Design Thinking is extremely useful in
tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the
problem in human-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming
sessions, and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and
testing. Design Thinking also involves ongoing experimentation:
sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas.
Design Thinking’s Phases
There are many variants of the Design Thinking process in use today,
and they have from three to seven phases, stages, or modes.
However, all variants of Design Thinking are very similar. All variants
of Design Thinking embody the same principles, which were first
described by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon in The Sciences of
the Artificial in 1969.
Here, we will focus on the five-phase model proposed by the Hasso-
Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, which is also known as
d.school.
We’ve chosen d.school’s approach because they’re at the forefront of
applying and teaching Design Thinking. The five phases of Design
Thinking, according to d.school, 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 – solutions
It is important to note that the five phases, stages, or modes are not
always sequential.
They do not have to follow any specific order and can often occur in
parallel and repeat iteratively. Given that, you should not understand
the phases as a hierarchical or step-by-step process. Instead, you
should look at it as an overview of the modes or phases that contribute
to an innovative project, rather than sequential steps.
To help you understand Design Thinking, we have broken the process
into five phases or modes, which are: 1. Empathise, 2. Define, 3.
Ideate, 4. Prototype, and 5. Test.
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 nations (and
eventually, if things go really well, beyond), in our lives.
Nevertheless, a great artist like Auguste Rodin, who created this
famous sculpture called “The Thinker” and originally “Le Penseur”,
would most likely have used the very same innovative processes in his
artwork. In the same way, all great innovators in literature, art, music,
science, engineering and business have practiced it and still practice
it.
The Problem with Ingrained (in-built) Patterns of Thinking
Sometimes, the easiest way to understand something intangible, such
as Design Thinking, is by understanding what it is not.
Humans naturally develop patterns of thinking modelled on
repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge. These assist
us in quickly applying the same actions and knowledge in similar or
familiar situations, but they also have the potential to prevent us from
quickly and easily accessing or developing new ways of seeing,
understanding and solving problems.
These patterns of thinking are often referred to as schemas, which
are organized sets of information and relationships between things,
actions and thoughts that are stimulated and initiated in the human
mind when we encounter some environmental stimuli.
A single schema can contain a vast amount of information. For
example, we have a schema for dogs which encompasses the presence
of four legs, fur, sharp teeth, a tail, paws, and a number of other
perceptible characteristics.
When the environmental stimuli match this schema — even when
there is a tenuous link or only a few of the characteristics are present
— the same pattern of thought is brought into the mind. As these
schemas are stimulated automatically, this can obstruct a more fitting
impression of the situation or prevent us from seeing a problem in a
way that will enable a new problem-solving strategy. Innovative
problem solving is also known as “thinking outside of the box”.
An Example of Problem solving: The Encumbered (overloaded/pre
occupied) Vs. The Fresh Mind
Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a
sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real
challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are
modelled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed
knowledge we surround ourselves with.
Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to
pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly
under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through
or reverse out.
The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic
problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers,
firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various
solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.
Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the
truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution
which fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.
A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the
truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly,
"Why not just let the air out of the tires?" to the absolute amazement
of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.
When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with
ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to
pass underneath the bridge.
The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most
obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-
imposed constraints we work within.
It’s often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and
everyday knowledge, because we rely on building patterns of thinking
in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time.
We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously —
for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read —
but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives.
In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought
patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to
start questioning their knowledge.

The Power of Storytelling

Why did we tell you this story? Telling stories can help us inspire
opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real
people and their lives. Stories are important because they are
accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us
with concrete details that help us imagine solutions to particular
problems. While we’re at it, please watch this 1-minute video to help
you get started understanding what Design Thinking is about.

Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box’ thinking. This child shows us why it’s
important to challenge our assumptions and find new ways to solve our problems.
Design Thinking or '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.
At the heart of Design Thinking is the intention to improve products
by analysing and understanding how users interact with products and
investigating the conditions in which they operate.
At the heart of Design Thinking lies also the interest and ability to ask
significant questions and challenging assumptions.
One element of outside the box thinking is to falsify previous
assumptions – i.e., to make it possible to prove whether they are valid
or not. Once we have questioned and investigated the conditions of a
problem, the solution-generation process will help us produce ideas
that reflect the genuine constraints and facets of that particular
problem.
Design Thinking offers us a means of digging that bit deeper; it helps
us to do the right kind of research and to prototype and test our
products and services so as to uncover new ways of improving the
product, service or design.