Design thinking, an overview
By: Kingsley Omin
Tags: Design Thinking, Design Process, Product Design

Whenever we see new innovations, there is always some form of design thinking behind it, and this is why companies around the world use design thinking as an innovative tool in creating a product. So it is important for product managers, designers and business owners to know and understand what design thinking is.

There are many design thinking methodologies but the most prominent one was created by Hasso Plato Institute of Design (5step methodology)

So, what is design thinking?

Design thinking is a non-linear and iterative human-centred approach of creatively solving a problem, this means understanding the user's needs and creating innovative solutions.

Design thinking focuses on understanding peoples needs and creating solutions that meet those needs. Design thinking can help businesses unlock new market and identify new strategies. this help businesses to deliver a personalised experience to users.

The Five Stages of Design Thinking

Here are the different stages of design thinking and it is not a linear process.

Empathize —

Here, you are trying to understand your users, who they are, their challenges and what they need.

This is done through user research, interviews, surveys etc. This is basically gathering information through talking to users, to gain more insights and understand their pain point.

Empathy is crucial to a human-centred design process because design is at the service of people.

Define —

From the insights gathered, this is when you analyze your observations and synthesize them to define the core problems you and your team have identified. These definitions are called problem statements. When creating a problem statement, focus on the user’s needs (keep it user-centred) rather than business goals.

Ideate —

The ideation stage marks the transition from identifying problems to exploring ideas and solutions. This usually involves a brainstorming session with the team to challenge assumptions and identify innovative ways to solve the problem.

Consider activities like sketching during the ideation process.

In the Ideation stage, the aim is to explore options and generate multiple ideas, ideas that could potentially inspire newer and better ideas which the team can then filter and narrow down to the most innovative ones.

Prototype —

This step is all about experimentation and turning ideas into tangible products. A prototype is basically a scaled-down version of the product which incorporates the potential solutions identified in the previous stages

Test —

Prototypes are tested with actual users to get feedback, whether or not it solves their problem. As feedback comes in, prototypes are iterated upon and then reintroduced to users for more testing and feedback until the product solves the user's problem. Think of the test step as an extension of the research process.

All these steps are to help practise the ideology of the user-centred design.

The benefits of design thinking

Here are some of the benefits of design thinking.

• Significantly reduces time-to-market

• Cost savings and a great ROI

• Improves customer retention and loyalty

• Fosters collaboration & innovation

• Can be applied company-wide

Conclusion

The concept of design thinking is not a linear one, some of these steps may happen several times. In general, this helps organisations to focus more on the user's needs to create a personalized and desirable solution.