Design thinking is a method that provides a framework for approaching problems that takes into account users’ needs, experiences, and even emotions. This approach is used in business, technology, medicine, and other industries where improving user experience is important.
This method, invented in the 1960s, is more relevant than ever and helps many companies create products that really improve users’ lives.
How does it work?
This process is divided into certain stages, and there are five of them. Let’s take a look at each of them.
The first stage is empathy
This is the stage where the design team strives to understand and hear the needs of users by immersing themselves in their world and exploring their problems, wishes, and desires. The design team tries to understand their needs and perspectives from their point of view in order to create products and services that truly meet the needs of users.
In this stage, designers conduct observations, interview and communicate with users, collect information about their environment, their routines, their needs and wants. The main goal of this stage is to collect as much information about users and their needs as possible so that the next stages can be more efficient and successful.
The second stage is focusing
The second stage helps to focus on the problem and find out what exactly needs to be solved. This stage consists of the following steps:
- Formulating the question: At this stage, the design team should formulate a specific question or problem to be answered. The question should be specific, not general, and should meet the needs of the users.
- Research: After the question is formulated, designers conduct research to understand what problems are associated with this question. Research can include data analysis, user interviews, user observation, and competitor analysis.
- Collecting answers: In this stage, designers collect answers to the questions and problems identified during the research. They can use a variety of tools to gather answers, such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
- Analysis: Once the answers are collected, designers conduct an analysis to understand which problems can be solved and how. They can use various methods for analysis, such as SWOT analysis, Venn diagrams, and others.
- Prioritization: In the last step of this phase, designers prioritize the problem to be solved. They choose the most important problems and determine how they can be solved.
The designer can use various tools for focusing, such as mind maps, user journey maps, affinity diagrams, and others.
The main goal of focusing is to avoid vagueness and open-endedness and focus on specific tasks and goals.
The third stage is idea generation
At this stage, the team gathers to come up with as many ideas as possible, which can then be reviewed and the one that best fits the problem selected.
This stage uses the technique of “brainstorming” to involve all team members and collect their ideas. Brainstorming is an idea generation technique in which all criticism and judgment is prohibited. Ideas are collected on a whiteboard or on paper, with all opinions and suggestions for their improvement.
The fourth stage is prototyping
In this stage, the development team creates a prototype of the concept that was defined in the previous stage. The prototype can be a physical product or a set of digital files that demonstrate how the finished product will look and function. This stage is important because it allows the team to test how successful their idea will be and how it can be improved before launching it to the market.
A prototype can be created in a variety of ways, depending on what materials and tools are available to the team. For example, a physical prototype can be created using 3D printing, conventional tools, or any other available materials. A digital prototype can be created using programs for developing apps, websites, and other digital products.
The fifth stage is testing
After creating the prototype, you need to test it on users to see how effective the design is. This stage may include conducting user tests, surveys, and collecting feedback.