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Design Thinking
Basics

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“We must design for the way people behave, not for how we would wish them to behave.”

― Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity

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DESIGN FOR POSSIBILITY.

Design Thinking hinges upon the concept that we can uncover new ways to solve problems–ways we’ve never even considered. It takes work. It takes time. And it takes a group effort of sustained, collaborative brainstorming from diverse perspectives. And it takes a willingness to consider anything as possible.

Not confined to traditional ‘design’ projects, challenges big, small, defined, nebulous, tactical and strategic can be tackled through the process. So, think big, bring together a team with widely varying experiences and expertise, and keep those ideas flowing.

DESIGN FOR PEOPLE.

A truly human-centered approach puts the design thinker in step with the people they’re designing for. Tim Brown of IDEO agency has described it as, “It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker, it has to be ‘us with them.’”

That mindset dictates a commitment to the process, which means taking the time necessary to truly understand your audience at the outset and to constantly check back in to ensure your work remains true to their needs from beginning to end.

REFLECTION:

Consider the most recent project you worked on. What was the impetus? Solving a problem that was identified from up on high? Or a problem from the perspective of your audience? With a solution driven by whose needs? Type in some notes about how you tackled the challenge–and whose perspectives drove the process.
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THE FRAMEWORK.

Far from linear, the Design Thinking framework necessitates flexibility and revisiting of various stages often throughout the process. That back and forth is natural and fruitful! It allows for confirmation that your prototypes are resonating and should move forward, OR that adjustments should be made and more input sought in order to land on the best solution.

Click on each stage below to learn more.

  • Empathize

  • Define

  • Ideate

  • Prototype

  • Test

  • Empathize

    In this stage, you’ll be seeking to understand your audience. Through in-depth interviews about the current state and where they’d like to be in the future–what works well and what doesn’t, you’ll begin to see the problem through their eyes and identify needs more clearly.

    Shadowing is also helpful to see what people are doing and how they’re behaving when they bump up against the challenge you’re trying to solve. Are they working quietly at a computer? Are they at a loud, busy place? Alone? In a group? A first-hand look at where and how your solution might be used in the future could spark new ideas for attacking execution.

    Throughout the Empathize stage, the key is to be non-judgmental. You are gathering information. Be objective and keep an open mind.

  • Empathize

    In this stage, you’ll be seeking to understand your audience. Through in-depth interviews about the current state and where they’d like to be in the future–what works well and what doesn’t, you’ll begin to see the problem through their eyes and identify needs more clearly.

    Shadowing is also helpful to see what people are doing and how they’re behaving when they bump up against the challenge you’re trying to solve. Are they working quietly at a computer? Are they at a loud, busy place? Alone? In a group? A first-hand look at where and how your solution might be used in the future could spark new ideas for attacking execution.

    Throughout the Empathize stage, the key is to be non-judgmental. You are gathering information. Be objective and keep an open mind.

  • Define

    Once you’ve gathered information from interviews and shadowing, you’ll synthesize it in the Define stage. Common themes will bubble up and help to determine the challenges you solve for and pain points you’ll choose to alleviate.

    Creating personas provides structure in this stage and serves as a source of truth to ensure later stages remain true to the people you’re designing for. If you’re designing for different roles, those different objectives can be laid out in this stage.

    The result of the Define stage is your problem statement(s) or design challenge(s). These statements are essentially human-centered rather than focused on how it’ll be executed. Each statement should also be broad enough to allow for creative freedom, yet narrow enough to be manageable.

    Once your challenges are defined, you’ll translate them into How Might We questions to set up the Ideate stage.

    How Might We questions open us up to creative solutions we may not have considered before. They spark brainstorming and allow for divergent thinking. It’s that ‘might’ that really is the key. It’s much more freeing to consider how something ‘might be solved’ rather than how something ‘will be solved.’

  • Define

    So, if your challenge is to increase attendance at training sessions among hospital staff on 3x 12-hour shift schedules, your How Might We question could be: “How might we adjust our training or scheduling to enable nurses to learn this information presented?”

    Once you have a How Might We question for each challenge, you’re ready to move on to Ideate.

  • Ideate

    Now it’s time for the fun stuff! It’s time to think outside the box. Come at your How Might We questions from new perspectives. Nothing is off the table.

    This is traditionally the stage at which some participants declare themselves to be without a creative bone in their bodies, but guess what: every problem needs a wide variety of brains working on it. And there are a plethora of activities and frameworks designed specifically to spark creative brainstorming. So, in this process it’s impossible not to be creative.

  • Ideate

    After you’ve gotten creative juices flowing and used a few activities to generate many, many ideas, the group will narrow down the number to something reasonable for prototyping. The exact number depends on your situation. There is no hard and fast rule.

    One method of prioritization is the quadrant framework below. Think about each idea in terms of effort and impact. Each idea is written on a sticky note and those notes are physically placed where they fall on the graph according to the anticipated effort and impact.

    Ideas that fall in the high impact + low effort quadrant are first priority to tackle. Low impact + high effort ideas can be tabled completely. Your team can decide subsequent priorities.

Prototype

This the stage at which ideas begin to take shape. The ideas chosen to prototype will be quickly and inexpensively fleshed out, resulting in a scaled down version of the project or plan, so each can be evaluated and tested by the team–always coming back to the personas identified in the Empathize stage. Does this product/feature/process/plan serve their needs and solve their problem?

Prototypes are accepted, rejected, or sent back to be tweaked based on the team’s feedback and how they’re meeting the challenge for the intended audience. This stage gives some insight into the potential response from a larger audience in the Test stage.

Test

Far from the final stage of a linear process, the Test stage is another step likely to be revisited several times in this iterative cycle. Designers and evaluators test the more fleshed out prototypes for how well they satisfy the intended audience’s needs. Often learnings from this larger group serve to redefine the challenge and kick off further iterations before a satisfactory solution is reached.

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