Design thinking

22 Jan 2020

For a while, design thinking puzzled me. Around 2014, there seemed to be a wave of agencies promoting Design Thinking as a ‘new’ capability. I had read plenty of articles outlining the methodology: understanding users and their problems, ideating potential solutions, creating low-fidelity prototypes, and testing these with users to gather feedback. I wondered, “But I’m already doing this. What’s missing?” It turned out I was already using Design Thinking, just without the label.

This post sets out my approach to Design Thinking.

Origins of Design Thinking

Design thinking has been around a lot longer than 2014, people have been using Design Thinking and it’s human centred design practices since the 1970s but the term Design Thinking is often credited to David Kelly and Tim Brown of IDEO fame who coined the term in the 1990s.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is an approach and methodology, put simply, it’s a hands on and user centric way of solving problems.

Design thinking is not linear, it’s iterative and can be circular. You may find out things later in the process, that you didn’t know at the beginning, so you repeat or jump back to another part of the process.

Design Thinking can lower risk, the process is dedicated to multitple test and learn loops in rapid succession. Therefore you can proactively reduce risk by testing your assumptions and getting feedback early. Implementing change early is far less disruptive and costs less.

Design Thinking is understanding more about your users and their needs. The more you know about your users and their needs, the better decisions you’ll make about your product or service to solve the users problem and meet their needs.

Design Thinking is colloaborative. To solve problems we need to involve a mix of talents and the end users.

How do I use design thinking?

Let’s look at the key steps and phases of applying design thinking…

Step 1 - Understand

You start by trying to understand the problem you are trying to solve and empathising with users. This may involve conducting research, engaging with users, and gathering insights from those with specialist knowledge.

Go out to observe and talk to users

Find out what their needs are
What problems are they trying to solve?
Find out if they have any existing solutions to their problems
Finding out what works well for your users is equally important.

You will also want to talk people who have specialist knowledge and insights about the topic or who run service (including people at the outer edges of the service)

Here are some research methods you could use:

Contextual enquiry - go and see your users using the service in their natural habitat. For example, if the service is a boiler repair, spend a day with an engineer visiting customer homes.
Face-to-face (or video) interviews - Recruit users for exploritory or structured interviews to gather insights directly from their experiences and needs.
Diary studies - ask users document their interactions and experiences over a period of time to gain a better understanding of their daily challenges. I’ve found that WhatsApp can be a good channel for this, users send a daily report, allowing you to ask questions as the diary progresses.
Mystery shopper - Experience the service yourself. For example, open an account, purchase a product, return an item and get a refund, make a complaint :). Make sure to document the experience, your thoughts and observations as you go.
Surveys - Use surveys to gather quantitative data, offering statistical insights into user behaviors and preferences.
Customer service research and complaints analysis - you can learn a lot from the people who interact with users and digging into real customer queries and complaints.
Competitor review - if there’s an existing service, you can use it to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for differentiation.

This list is by no means comprehensive but offers a starting point.

Collate and synthesise you insights and learnings

Once you’ve gathered your research, the next step is to collate and synthesise your insights:

Map end-to-end journeys through existing services to identify pain points and areas for improvement.
Get all your assumptions out, write them down, you’ll want to remove these later.
Synthesise and combine all your research to clearly define what your best understanding is of the problem, the users and their needs. Create an insight space on your wall
Turn insights into structured problem statements
Lastly, develop a set of questions that your design process will aim to answer, ensuring you stay focused on solving the right problem.

Step 2 - Explore

Once you have a clear understanding of the problem, it’s time to explore potential solutions through ideation and prototyping.

Ideate

Begin by generating as many ideas as possible. Encourage wild and creative thinking, as this phase is about exploring all possible avenues, no matter how unconventional.

How might we - Use “How might we” questions to frame problems in a way that opens up possibilities. For example, “How might we make the onboarding process more engaging?”
Crazy eights - This is a rapid ideation exercise where participants sketch eight ideas in eight minutes. It’s a quick way to push creativity and explore a broad range of concepts. But to be honest, I have found that you will get better results if you give people much more than 8 minutes!

Prototype

After ideating, move on to prototyping. The goal is to create low-fidelity versions of your ideas quickly and cheaply.

Sketches and wireframes - If you’re designing a digital interface, sketch out the UI or create simple wireframes. For a service, you might storyboard the user experience.
Physical models - For tangible products, build basic models or mock-ups to visualise the solution.

The purpose of prototypes is to gather feedback. Initially you can share them with team members and friendly stakeholders to get immediate feedback about what works, what doesn’t, and why. The feedback you receive will guide you in refining your ideas.

Step 3: Test

Testing is a critical phase where you validate your solutions with real users. This step is about learning, not just verifying, so be open to discovering new insights.

User Testing - Conduct usability tests with real users. Observe how they interact with your prototypes and gather feedback on what’s working and what isn’t.
Iterate Based on Feedback Design thinking is not a linear process, so be prepared to revisit earlier stages based on what you learn during testing. Sometimes, testing will reveal new aspects of the problem or uncover additional user needs.

Testing helps ensure that the solution is truly user-centric and addresses the core problem effectively. This phase is also where the iterative nature of Design Thinking shines, as you may cycle through prototyping and testing multiple times to refine your ideas.

The Double Diamond Framework

Design Thinking maps perfectly to the Double Diamond framework (my favourite mental model), which divides the process into four key stages: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.

Discover - Aligns with the “Understand” phase, where you explore the problem space and gather insights.
Define - In this stage, you synthesise your findings and define the core problem.
Develop - This corresponds to the “Explore” phase, where ideation and prototyping take place.
Deliver - Involves testing, refining, and implementing the solution.

The Double Diamond emphasises the importance of divergent and convergent thinking, expanding your understanding of the problem and possible solutions (thinking out) before narrowing down your focus to the best options (thinking in).

Principles of Design Thinking

Team Approach - Leverage diverse perspectives and expertise to enhance creativity and problem-solving.
Solving Real Problems - Ground your ideation in real, pressing needs to ensure relevance and impact.
Exploring Many Ideas - Encourage divergent thinking to explore a wide array of potential solutions.
Lightweight Prototyping* - Focus on quick, low-fidelity prototypes to test ideas without significant investment.
Test, Test, Test - Continually test assumptions and solutions to refine and validate your approach.

Final Thoughts

Design Thinking is a powerful methodology for tackling complex problems in a user-centric way. It emphasises empathy, creativity, and iterative testing, it enables teams to develop innovative solutions that truly meet user needs. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, incorporating Design Thinking into your work can lead to more impactful and successful outcomes.

For further reading and resources to deepen your understanding, check out the following: