User-Centered Design

What is Design Thinking?We open this text by explaining design thinking in what we hope to be a simple and direct language.Our goal is to use this initial description as a reference point that we can return to throughout our discussion in this book, even as we begin to complicate the idea of design thinking later.So, what is design thinking, exactly?In short, design thinking is an approach for creating solutions to difficult problems.It is simultaneously a way of thinking about problems (i.e., a creative mindset) as well as a process for seeking resolutions to those problems (i.e., a problem-solving methodology).People typically use design thinking in response to complex problems that have no easy or definite solution, namely "wicked problems" (see Rittel & Webber, 1973).Design thinking projects are also fundamentally human-centered: They focus on understanding and addressing people's real concerns.Finally, the design thinking process encourages collaboration, creativity, and responsiveness.It asks diverse teams of designers to create a broad set of potential solutions and then to test those solutions with real stakeholders.If this definition sounds ambiguous, it is because ambiguity is the nature of design thinking.As we note below, a benefit of the design thinking mindset is that it asks practitioners to consider the situation, problem, and audience, without assumptions about solutions.This nonlinear approach can benefit projects that do not have straightforward ways of finding or applying solutions.It is this openness to ambiguity and exploration that makes design thinking stand out in design frameworks, including many of those used in technical and professional communication (TPC) projects today.Design thinking is a unique exploratory lens for problem-solving that offers a flexible, heuristic approach to innovation. A Sample Application of Design ThinkingAs you will learn in this book, design thinking is a concept claimed both by academics and by industry, often with somewhat incompatible goals and incentives.We will explore the variance between definitions of design thinking 4 Tham and Thominet in greater detail below, but first, we want to ground this introduction further with a brief example.Design thinking has been implemented in a wide range of social and technological innovation projects.For example, Jeanne Liedtka, Andrew King, and Kevin Bennett (2013) described ten design thinking projects, including projects that focused on creating better trade shows, improving business-to-business marketing, making customer support experiences more enjoyable, and developing a system for subsidizing meals for the elderly.For a more specific example, we can look at how the Golden Gate Regional Center (GGRC), which provides support for people with developmental disabilities, used design thinking to revise their process for assessing and onboarding clients (Sutton & Hoyt, 2016).At the outset of the project, the GGRC investigated the experiences of clients and then mapped their own work processes in relation to clients' experiences.This mapping activity helped them identify a number of different "pain points" for clients, including the extended duration of the onboarding process and the need to repeatedly travel to the GGRC for required appointments.In response, the design thinking team collaboratively imagined several ways to address these problems.One of their more innovative ideas was to use a Winnebago motorhome as a mobile office so the entire GGRC team could travel directly to the clients' neighborhoods and complete all of the appointments at one time.They then prototyped this idea by renting a Winnebago and testing the method for one day.While this strategy processed assessments "10 weeks faster than normal," it was also too expensive to sustain and scale up (Sutton & Hoyt, 2016).So, the design thinking team took what they learned from the experience and developed new prototypes, such as GGRC open houses in local neighborhoods and mobile social workers who used tablets to serve families in their own homes.The above example is often what design thinking processes look like.An organization or community faces a significant and intractable problem.Rather than patching small issues or relying on well-established solutions, the organization seeks to understand users' experiences and uses this knowledge to reframe the problem.Then, they collaboratively seek innovative solutions, no matter how far-fetched those solutions might initially seem.Finally, they directly prototype and test potential solutions with real users to gauge their effectiveness.There are, of course, reasonable criticisms of this process.As we can see in the example, design thinking requires a significant investment of time and resources.It can also lead to detours, such as the Winnebago prototype, which are not feasible at scale.And it is sometimes difficult to determine a stopping point in design thinking projects, or a moment when prototyping and testing end, and a selected solution is fully implemented.In sum, design thinking is not fit for every context and problem.But in the right context, design thinking can help organizations to see complex problems anew while seeking imaginative solutions that might fall outside the scope of other design frameworks.With this basic understanding of design thinking, let's take a look at how it came about.1. 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