OME354

APPLIED DESIGN
THINKING
S7/odd/2024-2025
UNIT I DESIGN THINKING PRINCIPLES
Exploring Human-centered Design - Understanding the
Innovation process, discovering areas of opportunity,
Interviewing & empathy-building techniques, Mitigate
validation risk with FIR [Forge Innovation rubric] - Case
studies
Introduction to Design Thinking
•Design thinking is a human-centered approach to
innovation—anchored in understanding customer’s
needs, rapid prototyping, and generating creative
ideas—that will transform the way you develop
products, services, processes, and organizations.
•By using design thinking, you make decisions based on
what customers reaslly want instead of relying only on
historical data or making risky bets based on instinct
instead of evidence.
Design thinking brings together what is desirable from a
human point of view with what is technologically feasible
and economically viable.
• Desirability: What makes sense to people and for people?
• Feasibility: What is technically possible within the
foreseeable future?
• Viability: What is likely to become part of a sustainable
business model?
Design Thinking Process
"Design thinking is not limited to a process. It’s an endlessly
expanding investigation." —Sandy Speicher, IDEO CEO

We teach the phases of design thinking as linear steps, but in

practice, the process is not always linear—the phases
combine to form an iterative approach that you can try out
and adapt to suit your specific challenge.
Frame a Question
Inspire your team to think about your customers (who you’re
designing a solution for) and what they actually need.
Gather Inspiration
Go out into the world and seek inspiration by observing and
discovering what people really need.
Generate Ideas
Use the inspiration you gather to help push past the obvious
to come up with fresh solutions to your problem.
Make Ideas Tangible
Build rough prototypes and find what’s working and what’s
not.
Test to Learn
Test your prototypes, gather feedback, and iterate.
Share the Story
Once you’ve arrived at the right solution, craft and share the
story to introduce it to your colleagues, clients, and
customers.
Some of these steps may happen several times, and you may
even jump back and forth between them. Moving through
the phases of design thinking can take you from a blank
slate to a new, innovative solution.
Exploring Human-Centered Design
• Use people-centered design to tap a population’s insights and
keep them invested.
• Solve the right problem, after in-depth consideration and (e.g.)
using the 5 Whys method.
• See everything as a system, and use systems thinking.
• Take small and simple steps towards sustainable design
solutions. Specifically, incremental modular design or
incrementalism.
Human-Centered Design (HCD)

• Human-Centered Design (HCD) is an approach that prioritizes the

needs, behaviors, and experiences of people throughout the
design process.
• It involves deeply understanding users' lives and using that
knowledge to create solutions that truly address their challenges
and improve their experiences.
• HCD is based on the belief that the people who face the
problems are the ones who hold the key to their solutions.
Core Concepts of Human-Centered Design:

• Empathy
• Collaboration
• Iterative Process
• User Feedback
• Contextual Understanding
Empathy:

• At the heart of HCD is empathy, which involves seeing the world

through the eyes of the users.
• This means understanding their physical and emotional needs,
challenges, and desires.
• Empathy is built through direct interaction with users, such as
interviews and observations.
Collaboration:
• HCD is inherently collaborative, involving multidisciplinary teams
that bring diverse perspectives to the table.
• This diversity fosters creativity and ensures that solutions are
well-rounded and consider different facets of the problem.
Iteraive Process:
• HCD is not a linear process; it involves continuous iteration.
• Designers create prototypes, test them with users, gather
feedback, and refine their solutions.
• This iterative cycle helps in gradually honing the product to
better meet user needs.
User Feedback:
• Continuous feedback from users is critical in HCD.
• It ensures that the design evolves based on real-world usage and
input, leading to more relevant and effective solutions.
Contextual Understanding:
• Designers immerse themselves in the users' environment to gain
a deep understanding of the context in which the product will be
used.
• This helps in identifying subtle but crucial insights that might not
be apparent through remote research.
1.2 Understanding the Innovation process

The design thinking framework involves the following phases:

empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
1.2.1 Empathize
• During the empathize phase, your primary goal is to learn more about the
user and their problems, wants, and needs, and the environment or
context in which they’ll experience your design.
• The most important part of the empathize phase is to step away from your
assumptions and guesses and let your research findings inform your
decision-making in later design phases.
• Your user research might include user surveys, interviews, and
observation sessions, and you might also need to conduct some research
on the competitors’ products to determine how your user frames
competitors’ products as part of their daily life and daily problem-solving.
1.2.2 Define
• In the define phase, you’ll analyze your research findings from
the empathize phase and determine which user problems are
the most important ones to solve, and why. This will drive you
toward a clear goal for the design of the product.
• The most important outcome of this phase is a clear problem
statement, which is a description of the user’s need that your
designs will address. You might also develop a value
proposition, which is a summary of why your user would or
should use the product or service that you’re designing.
1.2.3 Ideate
• Ideation involves collaborative brainstorming with other members of your
team to generate as many solutions as possible to a problem.
• This could include marketing, engineering, product management, or any
other stakeholders for the product or service.
• During brainstorming sessions, you should explore all possible solutions.
Don’t focus on whether something is a “good” or “bad” idea, just collect as
many ideas as you can. The important thing here is to keep this process
judgment-free.
• After brainstorming, you’ll then analyze your potential solutions and start to
make choices about which ones are the best options to pursue as prototypes.
• You might return to user or competitive research to help you narrow down
your ideas, and you might also create user flows to illustrate how the user
will interact with your solution.
1.2.3 Prototype and Test
• Prototyping and testing are interconnected, which means that
you’ll test your designs at each stage of prototype development
rather than waiting to test until after the working prototype is
complete.
• If the design is too polished the first time you present it to users,
you might not get as much feedback.
• Think about ways to include testing throughout the design
process, so that you’re iterating your designs based on user
feedback instead of other reasons.
• The goal of testing prototypes is to continue to refine the
prototype as you gain insight into whether the design for your
product or service is easy to use and solves the user’s problem.
• At some point, you’ll finalize a prototype, and then you’ll provide
it to developers, who will then turn your design into a product.
1.3 Discovering areas of opportunity
• Discovering areas of opportunity is a crucial step in the
innovation process.
• It involves identifying gaps, pain points, and unmet needs that
current solutions do not address adequately.
• This step sets the stage for developing innovative solutions that
provide significant value to users.
• This section explores the techniques for discovering these
opportunities and provides case studies to illustrate the process.
Techniques for Discovery
1. User Research
2. Market Analysis
3. SWOT Analysis
4. Trend Analysis
1. User Research

• User research is the foundation of discovering areas of opportunity.

• By understanding the users' needs, behaviors, and pain points, designers can
identify areas where improvements or new solutions are needed.
Interviews: Conducting one-on-one interviews with users to gain in-depth
insights into their experiences and challenges.
Surveys: Using surveys to collect data from a larger group of users to identify
common patterns and issues.
Observation: Observing users in their natural environments to see how they
interact with products or services and to identify any difficulties they
encounter.
2. Market Analysis

• Market analysis involves studying the market to understand current trends,

gaps, and emerging needs.
• This analysis helps identify opportunities that can give a competitive
advantage.
Competitive Analysis: Examining competitors’ products and services to
identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Trend Analysis: Analyzing industry trends and technological advancements to
anticipate future needs and opportunities.
SWOT Analysis: Assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
to understand the market landscape and identify areas for innovation.
3. SWOT Analysis

• SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps in identifying areas of

opportunity by evaluating internal and external factors that can impact the success
of a product or service.
Strengths: Identify the strengths of your current solution and how they can be
leveraged.
Weaknesses: Recognize the weaknesses and areas where improvement is needed.
Opportunities: Discover new opportunities in the market that can be capitalized on.
Threats: Identify potential threats that could hinder the success of your solution.
4. Trend Analysis

• Trend analysis involves keeping an eye on the latest trends in the

industry, technology, and consumer behavior.
• This helps in anticipating future needs and identifying areas
where innovation can make a significant impact.
Industry Reports: Reviewing industry reports and publications to
stay informed about the latest trends.
Technological Advancements: Keeping track of new technologies
that could be leveraged to create innovative solutions.
Consumer Behavior: Analyzing changes in consumer behavior to