How can you generate and validate new UX design ideas using design thinking and innovation methods?

The fundamental of Design Thinking is to put human in the center of gravity. Unlocking the magic of solutions actually starts with empathy building. What energises me even more is the very principle of holistic thinking through the lenses of DVF (Desirability, Feasibility and Viability). In the practical world, we can even dimensionalize them further. For example, desirability may include more than consumer’s desirability. It can be also customer desirability, business desirability. Likewise, feasibility can go beyond technical feasibility. It may touch on commercialisation feasibility, scale feasibility, etc.

Be open and prepared for rejections! Take deep breaths and not let yourself be discouraged when testing your ideas with the end users. Keep your mind open and see the rejections and see them as a valuable chance to validate your problem statement and gain a deeper understanding of your users.

One thing that I have found helpful is brainstorming and ideation sessions with a diverse group of team members. The goal here will be to generate a range of creative solutions without judgement. We can use some of the well-known methods like mind-mapping and sketching to explore ideas.

Design thinking aligns modern technology with user needs, crucial for UX and product designers. It enhances user-centric tech development, supports agile adaptation, and drives innovation in emerging fields like AI, IoT, and VR/AR. This approach is key for navigating tech's complexity, ensuring products are not just functional, but also intuitive and meaningful, fostering user engagement and satisfaction.

Building empathy for the problems users face, is critical. It takes time for it to fully crystallise. Be careful not to immediately jump to any solution that a user proposes in their feedback, as it likely won’t be the best solution for the problem. Users will instinctively behave differently to how they might say they will during feedback sessions so be sure to find a good balance between qualitative and quantitative analysis when understanding a problem or creating a solution for it. That way you’re blending a user’s perspective with the way that the behave.

In my experience. The most innovative ideas and out-of-the-box thinking appear when you can break down the topic into its fundamental parts to understand it at the atomic level. Try to learn and practice ?? principle thinking. Then get to ideations when you are aiming for disruptive innovation ??

In my opinion, those methods guide innovation, but they require adaptation to specific contexts. I developed the OMEDI method over the last 20 years to improve it. It's an approach synthesizing Design Thinking and efficiency in Tangible Innovation, proven effective in large corporations. By condensing lengthy processes and lowering risk, OMEDI—inspired by the IDEO method—prioritizes efficiency and speed. Tangible innovation, the OMEDI method: 1. Observing and identifying patterns 2. Measuring with quantitative analysis for strategic alignment 3. Exploring cross-industry insights for innovative solutions 4. Defining clear, actionable outcomes 5. Implementing and learning for CI This method enhances innovation focused on tangible results G

These are great summaries. One suggestions I have is to spend time in the same context as product users. For example, how is someone checking a bus schedule while holding a cup of coffee or trying to concentrate in a noisy environment. In addition, it may have been implicit in these techniques but including product users in brainstorming sessions can help identify what they are most concerned or excited about when it comes to new product features or designs.

If the culture of the organization or group is likely biased toward convergent thinking (logic), meaning, ideas tend to be formulated and valued based on analytical parameters; most likely, your participants will have a hard time warming up to the idea of offering multiple solutions without worrying about feasibility. You need to invest time and energy to build trust so divergent and lateral thinking can naturally happen. Innovation is not a switch you can turn on and off, it is part of your corporate culture. Methods are only a way to exercise and shape creative muscles. The best brainstorming sessions come organically; when there is a well-understood problem, everyone shares similar goals and has equal standing in the group.

Every user experience project should have a hypothesis, this is to not only ground the experiment/experience in a measurable way and to keep collaborators aligned to what the objective of the exploration is. Framing: We believe that [doing this/building this feature/creating this experience] for [these people/personas] will achieve [these outcomes]. We will know this is true when we see [this market feedback, quantitative measure, or qualitative insight]. (Credit: Spotfiy) Another note: it is critical to bring along your stakeholders while innovating/designing in general. Include them in the exercises outlined here and you will see not only a more diversified solution, but a better working relationship over time.

Imagine how the perfect smartphone could transform your daily life…. ???? It all starts with design thinking – a method that understands your needs and pain points. Think about those frustratingly complex interfaces ????and the constant battery anxiety????. With design thinking, we put ourselves in your shoes to find innovative solutions. Through brainstorming and creating early versions of the phone, we've come up with intuitive/Innovative interfaces that make your life easier, energy-efficient technology to keep you powered all day ??, and overall enhanced user experiences that are designed around your needs. This is how we're reshaping the way you interact with your devices, putting you at the center of the smartphone experience.

Customer journey mapping and storyboarding are great tools to communicate innovative ideas. During a class with storyboard artists in the film industry, I learned that each board communicates along multiple dimensions such as lighting, emotion, and character interaction. Each board stands on its own and contains crucial details of the design. From a product design perspective, each board should illustrate essential information about a new idea and how it impacts the user in a particular scenario. Then designers can take a step back to see how each board or touchpoint fits seamlessly into the holistic design. In this way, an iterative design process can merge product innovations with the tools needed to document and communicate the results.

An important point when brainstorming is "no judge". Many teams usually evaluate ideas in brainstorming step, so that it is harder to find a really good and creative solution because people may be afraid to be judged. We should accept every idea in brainstorming session without immediate evaluation. Evaluation should only occcur after all of ideas have been collected. Some ideas may initially seem crazy, but they can prove effective if we leverage their advantages.

Before implementing any design thinking and/or innovation efforts, it is necessary to reflect on the life cycle stage of your product/service. As an example, many established organizations consider a startup model a framework to innovate already mature products and redefine the status quo. This causes frustration down the line when the new ideas are not getting traction and do not take advantage of the real opportunities this level of maturity offers: an established user base, legacy products, a wealth of institutional knowledge and lots of misunderstandings to fix. You do not need complex methods to start, just the opportunity for multiple parts to share their perspectives and facilitate alignment. Storyboards are wonderful at that.

It is essential to consider that Design Thinking is more successful when applied to wicked problems. Problems that have multiple factors and require various solutions and approaches to make progress. This invites us to avoid a one-size-fits-all remedy and helps us to discern the nuances of complicated, politized or ever-changing problems.

For large scale problems involving numerous stakeholders, competing motivations and no clear solution, Systems Thinking can uncover the interconnectedness of things and identify which areas should get our attention. Systems Thinking ultimately allows us to find holistic solutions by accounting for the needs of all stakeholders while understanding the dynamics of the system as a whole. In Peter Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, he defines systems thinking as “A discipline for seeing wholes. ...a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static ‘snapshots.’ And systems thinking is a sensibility—for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character."

Stay curious by keeping notes. Keep a record or notebook of your ideas. Jotting down ideas of new UX design ideas, design thinking and innovation methods will help spur on other ideas.