A way to solve problems
We all face challenges in our personal and professional lives. Sometimes they are so complex it is hard to figure out how to tackle them.
Design thinking offers a non-linear, human-centered approach using a variety of analytical, strategic, and practical processes to solve difficult problems as well as innovate new products and services.
Here’s how Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design approaches this: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
Empathize
Design thinking is human-centered. So think about your customers and other stakeholders. Interview them, observe them, understand what they do and how they do it and what their needs are. Use personas to help identify different types of users.
Define
Now that you know who you are designing for and why, you can identify:
- Where you are now,
- Where you need to be, and
- What challenges sit in the way of completing that journey.
Develop questions that focus attention on the problems at hand.
Ideation
Start brainstorming solutions and actions. No holds barred; no idea is too crazy. With enough notions tossed out a pattern will often be noticeable. The beginnings of a real solution will begin to emerge from the fog.
Prototyping
Quickly, roughly prototype the best solutions. Get feedback, see what stakeholders think. Do iterations, addiding a little more flesh to the bones as you go. Create and validate and adjust and repeat.
Testing
When you get your best solution to the right point, run it by actual users. Have a conversation about it. Listen to what they say about it and watch carefully what they do with it. Be prepared to heavily revise until you get it right in their eyes.