Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that is ideal for tackling ill-defined or unknown

problems. This makes it very effective for addressing the multifaceted problems faced by
today’s increasingly complex organisations.

In the words of IDEO Founder, Tim Brown, for businesses, “design thinking is all about
upgrading within constraints” – meaning companies must innovate without disruption to drive
growth and stay relevant. The successful ones are those which are always seeking new ways to
compete in their sector – and design thinking is one framework that can help them achieve this.

What Is Design Thinking?

 Design thinking was developed by Stanford Professor David Kelley who is also the
founder of the design agency IDEO.

 Design Thinking is a human-centric, iterative, solution-based, problem-solving framework

Design thinking is:

 A problem-solving approach:

It is a methodology that is ideal for tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown.
This is because design thinking helps us define a problem, challenge any assumptions and thus
reframe it in a way that will help us come up with solutions that may potentially solve it.

 Human-centric:

In design thinking, we seek to understand the user. This is why the user – the person for whom
we are designing our products or services for, is considered at each stage of the design thinking
process.

 Iterative:

This means that in the different stages of the design thinking process, you will use the results to
review, question and improve any initial assumptions, understandings and outcomes. This
makes the design thinking approach a non-linear one.

 Solution-based:
The design thinking process provides a very hands-on approach to problem-solving. You will
formulate several potential problem-solving approaches, prototype them and test them in the
context of the problem being solved. Due to the iterative nature of design thinking, you will be
able to re-shape and optimise these approaches until an optimal solution is chosen.

Characteristics Of The Design Thinking Process

 Design thinking can be seen as ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking since it encourages you to

explore alternatives by creating different, and often innovative solutions that you might
not have thought about.

 At the same time, it focuses on the users’ needs, and thus, it will help you address the
problem as experienced by the user, and that includes contextual and cultural factors.

 Another critical aspect of design thinking is that it encourages collaborative,

multidisciplinary teamwork to leverage skills, personalities and thinking styles of
different persons. This will come in handy in all the stages of the design thinking
process.

In the words of the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school), design thinking
yields innovation by combining three essential components:

 Technical feasibility

 Economic viability

 Human desirability

 At the intersection of the 3 components, lies innovation

ADVANTAGES OF DESIGN THINKING

 It can help you identify needs that have still not been catered for – thus presentig new
opportunities

 Reduces the risk asscociated with launching new ideas since it promotes the idea of
 fail early and often (through prototyping)

 Generates innovative solutions – rather than adding more to existing ones

 Helps organisations learn faster

The 5 Stages Of The Design Thinking Process

The five stages of the design thinking process are the

Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that is ideal for tackling ill-defined or

unknown problems. This makes it very effective for addressing the multifaceted problems faced
by today’s increasingly complex organisations. In the words of IDEO Founder, Tim Brown, for
businesses, “design thinking is all about upgrading within constraints” – meaning companies
must innovate without disruption to drive growth and stay relevant. The successful ones are
those which are always seeking new ways to compete in their sector – and design thinking is
one framework that can help them achieve this.

In this article, we will first discuss in depth what design thinking is. Then we will cover
the design thinking process, whereby we will also go through the five stages of the
design thinking process: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

What Is Design Thinking?

Design thinking was developed by Stanford Professor David Kelley who is also the
founder of the design agency IDEO. His work was also influenced by Professors Terry
Winograd and Larry Leifer at the d.school at Stanford University. Unfortunately there is
no single, agreed upon definition of design thinking. However, in a study conducted by
the Nielsen Norman Group, the majority of the UX and design professionals define it
roughly the same, regardless of industry and experience. Still, there is no agreement on
the specifics.

A concise sentence that defines design thinking would be the following:

Design Thinking is a human-centric, iterative, solution-based, problem-solving framework

Whoa! Let us break this down.

Design thinking is:

A problem-solving approach: It is a methodology that is ideal for tackling complex

problems that are ill-defined or unknown. This is because design thinking helps us define
a problem, challenge any assumptions and thus reframe it in a way that will help us
come up with solutions that may potentially solve it.

Human-centric: In design thinking, we seek to understand the user. This is why the user
– the person for whom we are designing our products or services for, is considered at
each stage of the design thinking process.

Iterative: This means that in the different stages of the design thinking process, you will
use the results to review, question and improve any initial assumptions, understandings
and outcomes. This makes the design thinking approach a non-linear one.

Solution-based: The design thinking process provides a very hands-on approach to

problem-solving. You will formulate several potential problem-solving approaches,
prototype them and test them in the context of the problem being solved. Due to the
iterative nature of design thinking, you will be able to re-shape and optimise these
approaches until an optimal solution is chosen.

Characteristics Of The Design Thinking Process

 Design thinking can be seen as ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking since it encourages you to

explore alternatives by creating different, and often innovative solutions that you
might not have thought about.

 At the same time, it focuses on the users’ needs, and thus, it will help you address
the problem as experienced by the user, and that includes contextual and cultural
factors.

 Another critical aspect of design thinking is that it encourages collaborative,

multidisciplinary teamwork to leverage skills, personalities and thinking styles of
different persons. This will come in handy in all the stages of the design thinking
process.
  design thinking yields innovation by combining three essential components:

 Technical feasibility

 Economic viability

 Human desirability

 At the intersection of the 3 components, lies innovation

In this regard, design thinking: Can help you identify needs that have still not been
catered for – thus presentig new opportunities

 Reduces the risk asscociated with launching new ideas since it promotes the idea of
fail early and often (through prototyping)

 Generates innovative solutions – rather than adding more to existing ones

 Helps organisations learn faster

The 5 Stages Of The Design Thinking Process

The five stages of the design thinking process are the following:

Stage 1 – Empathise:

 The objective of this stage is to gain an empathetic understanding of the users, their
needs and what they really care about.

 To achieve this, we need to put aside any personal assumptions that you might have
about our users or the problem you are tackling.

 observe, engage (for example through interviews) and empathise with people to
understand their experiences, what they value and what motivates them.

 Additionally, it is recommended that a feel of the physical environment within which the
problem lies. These techniques will help to empathise – an essential aspect of the
human-centred approach that is design thinking.

 Collect all the information to synthesise answer of the problem.

Stage 2 – Define (the Problem):

 In this stage, analyse, sort out and sequence the information you have gathered in
the first stage in such a way that lets us define better the problem.

 conducted interviews in the first stage, help to analyse the answers and highlight
any key phrases that relate to the problem.

 Thus, this stage will bring clarity and focus to work because it will know what the real
problem is.

 Ideally, it would be best to wrote this down in the form of a problem statement.

 What is interesting is that up till now, shaped the definition of the problem solely as
seen from the users’ perspectives and without any constraints of existing solutions.

Stage 3 – Ideate:

 Using the problem statement from stage 2, we can start generating several logical
ideas that seek to resolve the problem.

 These ideas are typically rough ideas – ones that are the result of brainstorming.

 The important thing here is to “think outside the box” and generate several ideas so
that there are some options to choose from for prototyping in the next stage.

 sketch these ideas and show them to the users to refine them and at the same time
filter those ideas that are worth investigating further.

Stage 4 – Prototype:

 During this stage, generate several inexpensive prototypes to be able to investigate

and explore the potential solutions proposed so far.

 The aim of the prototype stage is also to have something to share and will act as a
basis of communication with the team members and other stakeholders including
users.

 The main approach To exploring from a number of potentially good approaches to

addressing the problem.

 Therefore, Each solution is prototyped, investigated and accepted, improved, re-

examined or rejected.

 Not spending too much time and not building complex, costly prototypes will thus
make it easier for to let go and move to another one.
 At the end of this stage, you will have a good idea of which solutions are most likely
to address the problem and what their constraints are.

Stage 5 – Test:

 The best solutions from the prototyping stage are tested in the context of the real
product using designers, evaluators and real users.

 Testing is carried out to evaluate each prototype and assess the degree to which it
addresses the problem that is being tackled.

 This is an iterative process since the results from these tests can sometimes be
used to refine the problem, the proposed prototypes and the solutions.

 This leads to further alterations and refinements of the prototypes being tested, and
hence moving back to previous stages.

 Testing also provides an opportunity to understand and empathise more the users
since we are observing and engaging them.

 This is also a stage that will help you personally to refine the way you have framed
the problem and address any remaining pre-conceptions that you might still have.

 The result of this stage is a prototype that solves the problem, and hence one that
can be used as a model to build the real solution.