DESIGN THINKING

Introduction: Why We Need To Design Think

We live in a rapidly changing world, where successfully riding the wave of impactful
innovation depends on our capacity to learn and collaboratively approach the
wicked challenges of our time. Innovation depends not only on our ability to acquire
new knowledge, but also on our success to co-create and learn effectively and
continuously by skillfully putting different knowledge to work. This has a lot to offer
in today’s business worlds, as the constant seeking for innovation has become a
principal source of progress and improvement both economically and societally.

But How?
One way to effectively achieve innovation through co-creation, is the application of
the design thinking methodology, giving some structure to an otherwise chaotic
world, while still allowing for a large creative space to explore and unleash collective
creativity to its full potential:

“Design thinking is a powerful process that facilitates understanding and framing of

problems, enables creative solutions, and may provide fresh perspectives on our
physical and social landscapes. Not just for architects or product developers, design
thinking can be applied across many disciplines to solve realworld problems and
reconcile dilemmas. It is a tool that may trigger inspiration and the imagination, and
lead to innovative ideas that are responsive to the needs and issues of
stakeholders.” (Pressman, 2019, p. 2)
 Design Thinking: A Structured Innovation Process

Design thinking can be used at any product stage, starting with a simple idea or
unhiding value in already existing products or services. Thus, design thinking is
about “reinvigorating a business without necessarily reinventing it.” (Moote, 2013,
p.16).

The objective is to bring some

structure to chaos, where uncertainty
prevails, but patterns and insights are
detectable. This is where you start to
conceptualize your idea. That does not
mean everything becomes less
chaotic, but it becomes clearer and
more focused by time. If you want to
unleash collective creativity to its full
potential, you won’t need more
structure than that.

Five Phases of Design Thinking

Empathize Define Ideate Prototype & Test

Human-centered Team-based Trial & error

Design thinking is based on a Great minds need to work Instead of undergoing a linear
human-centered concept. Thus, together, so that great ideas process of pre-defined steps,
innovation is energized through can imbue our world. A single design thinking is powered
processes of directly observing genius lacks the ability to drive iterative by rounds of going
and understanding what people innovation by him or herself; it back and forth.
(target groups) desire or need is a process of exchange,
in their lives and what they collaboration and co-creation.
dislike.
 Useful questions:
Design Thinking: Empathize Who should we talk to?
Who can we learn from?
What is the experience of our
users?
What?
Empathy is the capability to understand or sense what another person is
experiencing from their standpoint. Thus, during the empathy-phase, the main
objective is to put oneself in the situation of a client, a customer, or any other
relevant stakeholder and ask open-ended questions such as “Why?” to enable
empathetic understanding in ambiguous situations. Empathy is crucial for human-
centered design thinking to understand the people for whom you design and solve
problems; your target groups.

Why?
“The movement from insight to observation to empathy leads us, finally, to the most
intriguing question of them all: if cultures are so diverse and if the twentieth-century
image of “the unruly mob” has given way to the twenty-first-century discovery of “the
wisdom of crowds,” how can we tap that collective intelligence to unleash the full
power of design thinking? […] we need to invent a new and radical form of
collaboration that blurs the boundaries between creators and consumers. It’s not about
“us versus them” or even “us on behalf of them.” For the design thinker, it has to be “us
with them” (Brown & Katz, 2011, p. 45).

How?
You want to zoom out to identify all relevant stakeholders, their perspectives and pain
points. The base of any problem-solving or innovation process has to be thorough
research to develop a solid understanding of the process context, including all related
problems, conflicts, and constraints that may be of relevance.
 Design Thinking: Empathize

Method: Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder mapping is the process of identifying a system of parties involved and
interested in a particular outcome or product and their relations to one another.
This method helps you to visually consolidate and communicate the key
constituents of a design project, setting the stage for user- centered research and
design development.

Stakeholder maps are often first created by speculating all people who may have a
vested interest in the design territory defining the project. At this point it is
important to be exhaustive. As well as identifying end users, it is critical to include
people who will benefit from the project, those who hold power, those who may be
adversely affected, and even those who may thwart, or sabotage designed
outcomes or services. Here, it is crucial to additionally describe the perspectives and
pain points the stakeholder might have in relation to the product.

Include general roles, specific Develop hierarchies and key There is no one right way
roles or actual people relationships Stakeholder maps can take on a
E.g., general roles: students or After drafting the first sketch, variety of forms. As long as it
nurses generate a more organized serves the purpose of
E.g., specific roles: CEO or structure, defining possible identifying key players, and
project manager hierarchies, and key relationships their relationships, incorporate
E.g., actual people: Robert or between roles or people. Visualize whatever mix of text, photos,
your best friend through scale, line, or proximity. or graphics.
Design Thinking: Empathize

Other methods
These are some other methods applicable during the empathy mode, including
references if you are interested to learn more about these methods elsewhere.

Why-how Laddering is a method that can be used to uncover stakeholder

needs. The idea is to flesh out a couple of needs for each stakeholder that
you have identified and find a middle ground that is meaningful and
actionable. As a general rule, asking “why” yields abstract statements and
asking “how” yields specific statements.

The love/breakup letter is a great tool for building empathy because they
encourage the writer to think about their emotional responses and behavior
in a new, unexpected way. Here, you want to identify positive and negative
attributes or features in your product or idea. This method is useful for
revealing emotional preferences and drivers of behavior, which are often
more difficult to uncover in an interview.

A storyboard visualizes a sequence of events, using pictures, drawings and

collages. The storyboard should depict user experiences in their holistic
context and make them comprehensible. It should provoke discussions
about possible weak points or possibilities for improvement.

Find more information on different methods here.

Design Thinking: Define

What?
Define is one of the most challenging steps in the design process. The essential idea
is to end up with an actionable problem statement you are trying to solve: your
point of view (POV). Your POV should integrate essential findings from the
empathize phase on your specific users, providing you with relevant insights to
create diverse ideas.

Why?
Wicked problems often lack a substantial definition, hampering the development of
accurate solutions because they are not fully comprehendible. Design thinkers are
challenged to synthesize knowledge from a variety of sources, framing the overall
problem, and based on that, directing the range of possible solutions (Koh et al., 2015).

How?
Synthesize lots if information into a guiding statement containing specific users,
insights, and needs. Reframe your findings into a solution-generating springboard
“How might we…?” questions, generating lots of possibilities.

Example
An adult person who lives in the city… needs access to a shared car 1-4 times for 10-60
minutes per week … because he would rather share a car with more people as this is
cheaper, more environmentally friendly, however, it should still be easy for more people
to share.
 Design Thinking: Define

Method: Personas
A persona, is a fictional character created to represent a user type, stakeholder
group, customer, or client that might use a product, technology, or service of
interest. Since you want to understand your customers, what they need and what
motivates them, you need to create a concise description of the potential user
archetypes. Personas represent the specific users you want to address in your
problem statement.

Use your stakeholder map to create one persona per stakeholder or identified role.
Explorative research methods, like interviews or user observations, will give you
more profound insights into personas life.

Make it personal Demographic representation

Give a full name, an age, State the key demographics. Define a
profession and hobbies. demographic cluster and needs type.
Add a photo. Visualize what percentage of the
population your persona represents.
Make it tangible Product alignment
Formulate a quote that describes Create a collage of objects
core beliefs & perspectives. Define important to your persona.
persona’s needs and pain points. Define relevant trends and
Describe a typical day in persona’s product expectations.
life.

Name: Anne Scott

Age: 23 years old
Occupation: Sociology student but working as a waiter to support herself
Hobbies: Reading, meditating, traveling, cooking (organic), yoga
Personality attributes: Introverted, agreeable, conscientious
Nationality: American
Place of birth: New York
Pains: Is frustrated that she cannot eat vegan or organic food daily because it is too expensive. Would love to not
have to invest in unsustainable unrecyclable but affordable materials.
Gains: Anne wants to find easy and fast ways to live her own life more sustainably without having to invest too much
money (which she does not have yet)
Goals for the future: Anne would love to contribute to a more sustainable future and help those in need. (…)
Design Thinking: Define

Other methods
These are some other methods applicable during the define mode, including
references if you are interested to learn more about these methods elsewhere.

POV madlibs are amazing prompts to reframe your findings into actionable
problem statements that form a solution-generating springboard.
After defining personas, you can develop POV madlibs that will ultimately
allow you to derive various POV statements. You can always come backto
these statements when you get lost throughout the innovation process or
are unsure about what to do or how to decide.

The 2x2 Matrix is a decision support technique where plots options on a

two-by-two matrix. Known also as a four blocker or magic quadrant. This
approach to problem-solving tasks might be very effective for business
management as it works well to simplify connections between insights and
put findings on a simple scale.

An empathy map is a collaborative tool teams can use to gain a deeper

insight into their customers. Much like a user persona, an empathy map can
represent a group of users, such as a customer segment. It is useful for
defining a customer, as well as identifying needs and insights. It’s best to use
after you’ve completed observation sessions with your users.

Find more information on different methods here.

Design Thinking: Ideate

What?
Ideation intends to generate radical design alternatives. It is a process of flaring: go
broad and gather as many ideas as you can, the same as during the empathy mode
with information. Based on the previously defined actionable problem statements,
you will now create different ideas of how to solve these problems.

Why?
The ideation phase is crucial to transition from your problem definition to the
exploration of different solutions. This is the phase during which the collective creativity
of design teams is most crucial to explore the defined solution space fully. By doing so,
you spark creativity and innovation, move beyond the expected, and exploit the
multiplicity of perspectives in your team. Unlocking unexpected or hidden areas of
ideas and solutions is vital to successfully foster innovation processes.

How?
We are going to use our actionable problem statement and think of ideas that might
help solve the problem. Importantly, there are some rules fostering creativity and
innovation such as “no idea is wrong”, “ no judgement” and “the more ideas the
better”. Additionally, you could appoint a facilitator who is not actively generating ideas
but enforces these rules and maintains a positive atmosphere. I will leave this up to you
and you can find the information on the step-by-step guide as well.
Design Thinking: Ideate

The Method: Crazy 8 x Visual Brainstorming

Crazy 8 is a core design sprint method where you sketch out 8 ideas as fast as you
can in 8 minutes. Aligning with ideation, the goal is to push beyond the first and
most often least innovative idea, generating a wide variety of solutions to your
previously defined actionable problem statement. Weird, impossible, and
impractical ideas often give way to truly inspired ones.

Step 1. Each team member has their own section in

which they create 8 ideas.
Step 2. Set a timer of 8 minutes.
Step 3. Individually, each team member sketches 8
ideas (1 idea per minute).
Step 4. When the timer ends everyone stops working.

Visual Brainstorming uses visualization as a tool to organize information, capturing

ideas by using something like a mindmap. Take your ideas gathered in the Crazy 8
exercise and establish possible connections or relations between them. Also write
down anything coming to your mind in relation to that.

Step 1. Put your problem statement in the middle.

Step 2. Write all your ideas around it can connect it
to the statement like in a mind map.
Step 3. Go back through all your ideas and write
down every thought you have, how they maybe
relate to each other, support them with visuals,
expand upon them etc.
Step 4. Determine elements that are sticking out and
color them.
Step 5. Organize your ideas.
Design Thinking: Ideate

Other methods
These are some other methods applicable during the ideate mode, including
references if you are interested to learn more about these methods elsewhere.

Bodystorming is based on the idea of brainstorming. It is about actually

experiencing a physical situation in the role of the person in question. The
participants adopt the spatial, temporal, cognitive, motivational and
emotional perspective of the user. The aim of the method is to obtain
information and inspiration through the actual experience of concrete
situations, which help to generate ideas and open up new needs and paths.

Worst Possible Idea is an ideation method where team members

purposefully seek the worst solutions in ideation sessions. The “inverted”
search process relaxes them, boosts their confidence and stokes their
creativity so they can examine these ideas, challenge their assumptions and
gain insights towards great ideas.

Find more information on different methods here.

Design Thinking: Prototype

What?
Prototyping is the iterative development of artifacts – digital, physical, or
experiential – intended to elicit qualitative or quantitative feedback on your ideas
during the ideate phase. The sole purpose of prototyping isn’t to finish. It is to learn
about the strengths and weaknesses of your ideas and to identify new directions
that further prototypes might take. Since your ideas are in an early stage, your
prototypes should be inexpensive and low-fidelity, enabling you to learn quickly and
explore various possibilities.

Why?
Prototyping is not about designing the most ideal or most functional prototype. It is
about making your ideas tangible, understanding your users and the design space, and
enabling you to discuss and evaluate your different concepts, while inspiring others. The
prototyping process implies iterative cycles of developing something and testing it,
refining it and then doing this again and again.

How?
Prototypes can be anything from a first sketch to visualize an idea, over a click dummy,
to a physical hardware mock-up. The earlier you turn your idea into something tangible,
the better you can evaluate it.

First, decide what you want to understand, express and validate. Formulate a goal and
list your assumptions. Ask yourself what the essential areas are that you wish to
explore, include and communicate. Don’t “fall in love” with your prototype. If you are
too attached to one prototype, you won’t be able to incorporate constructive,
sometimes also negative, feedback. Failing early leads to much better final products.
Design Thinking: Prototype

Method: Paper Prototyping x Parallel Prototyping

Paper Prototyping is the is the outlining of screenshots on paper as an alternative
for digital representations. It is useful for early-stage conceptualizing to prevent
costly investments in functional prototypes that need to be abandoned. The
conceptual prototype is eventually developed into a physical prototype.

Step 1. Pick an idea you have previously developed.

Step 2. Develop, sketch, or write a conceptual
representation of this idea on a piece of paper.

Parallel prototyping is about exploring the multiple design alternatives at one time.
The intention of solution or design evaluations is not to pick the single best or most
preferred solution within your team but to also test different singled out variables to
combine different elements of the multiple prototypes over time into a more
superior version.
Design Thinking: Prototype

Other methods
These are some other methods applicable during the prototype mode, including
references if you are interested to learn more about these methods elsewhere.

Experience prototyping facilitates active participation in design through

subjective engagement with a prototype system or service, product, or
place. It fosters active participation to encounter a live experience with
products, systems, ser- vices, or spaces. For exploring and evaluating design
ideas, design teams can use experience prototyping internally, and with
clients and users. The method here involves typically low-fidelity prototypes
in iterative design development, to try things out and gain critical feedback
based on realistic scenarios.

You use a Wizard-of-Oz prototype to fake the functionality you want to test
with users, thus saving you the time and resources of actually creating the
functionality before you refine it through testing. Do not spend a lot of time
but rather build prototypes fast so they remain easy to adapt

A Role Play is a type of prototyping or simulation technique that can help in

quickly eliciting the user experience for a product or service from the target
audience. A role-play, just like prototyping, can be used as a way to gather
data, tweak and re role-play to gather more data from the activity.

Find more information on different methods here.

Design Thinking: Test

What?
Testing is the mode in which you aim to place your low-resolution artifacts into the
appropriate context, which is the users, customers, or client's environment – real-
world or fictional. Test as if you are looking for errors, refining your prototypes as
accurately as possible. It is a flaring and narrowing process and cannot be really
separated from prototyping as the sole purpose to prototype is to test and to refine.

Why?
“To refine your prototypes and solutions. Testing informs the next iterations of
prototypes. Sometimes this means going back to the drawing board. 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 test and refine
your POV. Sometimes testing reveals that not only did you not get the solution right,
but also that you have failed to frame the problem correctly.” (d.bootleg, 2018, p.5).

How?
You ideally ended up with a couple of very early-stage and rough prototypes, so that
you now can have a look at each and possibly combine different elements together
Place your idea into real-world or simulate real-world conditions. Isolate different
variables, e.g., test multiple prototypes.
Design Thinking: Test

Method: 4-Quadrant
The 4-quadrant method is a feedback capture grid that can be used for receiving
feedback either in real-time for customers and users or for feedback on solutions
within the design team.
Step 1. Prepare feedback capture grids with four quadrants.
Step 2. Each team member reviews the prototype of another
and writes their feedback in each of the four quadrants:
− Upper left (+): things you like or find notable
− Upper right (∆): constructive criticism
− Lower left (?): things that raised questions/were confusing
− Lower right ( ): novel ideas that were evoked
Design Thinking: Test

Other methods
These are some other methods applicable during the test mode, including
references if you are interested to learn more about these methods elsewhere.

A scenario is a narrative that explores the future use of a product from a

user’s point of view, helping design teams reason about its place in a
person’s day-to-day life. Ultimately, the purpose is to make design ideas
explicit and concrete, so that the design team can empathetically envision
the future ways in which a product is likely to be used. Scenarios serve as an
anchor for the team to revisit the product’s future use.

The Bingo selection method aims to preserve innovation potential. Choose

inspiring ideas you want to incorporate into a physical prototype, a digital
prototype, and an experience prototype, a digital prototype, and an
experience prototype.

Find more information on different methods here.