How can you learn from failed design thinking experiments?

Failure is not indicative of incompetence or a reason to quit; it offers valuable feedback and learning opportunities. It exposes gaps in your comprehension of the problem, users, context, or solution. Failure highlights flaws in your logic, methods, or execution. Embracing failure as part of the design thinking process helps prevent repeated mistakes. It leads to the discovery of fresh insights and the exploration of new possibilities. Ultimately, failure enhances problem-solving skills and encourages innovation.

I learned it’s vital to meet and observe how a user works. You can’t merely go by only the requirements. Something I already knew, but learned the hard way.

El fracaso no existe como tal. Es parte de todo proceso, especialmente cuando tiene que ver con innovación. El fracaso debe esperarse y tomarse como algo positivo, porque dentro de cada error hay información valiosa que debe ser analizada para corregir, mejorar y conseguir el objetivo propuesto. Cuando estamos ante un error, lo que debemos hacer es cuestionarlo. ?Qué pasó? ?Por qué pasó? ?Qué otras opciones existen? ?De qué forma se puede corregir/hacer diferente? Si aprendemos a mirar el fracaso como información y no como un golpe al ego, lograremos avanzar mucho más rápido.

Cultivating a mindset marked by curiosity, openness, and resilience is crucial for extracting lessons from unsuccessful design thinking experiments. Curiosity encourages the asking of critical questions about failure's roots and its implications, thus leading to deeper insights. Openness involves embracing failure without judgment, allowing for the exploration of different viewpoints and alternative strategies. Resilience empowers individuals to bounce back from setbacks and apply the gained knowledge to improve future iterations. This mindset not only turns failures into valuable learning experiences but also strengthens the design thinking process, promoting ongoing improvement and innovation.

Whilst you should have some system to be able to learn and research to come to understandings about product direction –?in the early stages do not complicate it too much. Most of the time when processes in UX are overcomplicated, time is wasted. The real value is usually in just prototyping and trying things out until you find users are satisfied (that reflects in both feedback, interviews, and ultimately better revenue/less churn/other financial metrics)

A phrase I hear often within the Design Thinking space is 'fail fast, fail forward' when in actual fact we should reframe that failure into 'learn fast, learn forward'. We're here to learn, grow, and improve. Failure is the only way we do that!

When conducting a Design Thinking experiment with your team, pay attention to the outputs. Carefully assess whether the opportunity to gain insights justifies allocating resources to testing a product or service, no matter how innovative or different it is from the competitors. Take risks into account, and be prepared to change or abandon projects when necessary. A product that is well-conceived and tailored to user needs has the potential to surpass a groundbreaking but unsustainable high-cost development.

Insights gained from further learning or research may not actually be what your team needs to execute on, at least right there and then. The direction suggested by research outcomes may be too costly, or may need to be approached in an incremental way as to achieve the desired outcome. Rapid prototyping and iteration are usually keys to making this work, and to getting the balance right between cost, functionality and user satisfaction.