How does bias and assumptions affect the empathy and ideation stages of design thinking?

Bias and assumption significantly impact empathy stage of design thinking 1 Bias and assumption influence how designer perceive and interpret user behavior 2 Bias result in complete understanding of user need and experience 3 Designer may seek out information that confirm their existing belief or assumption 4 Bias and assumption create distance between designer and users making it challenging 5 Cultural bias lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation of user behavior preference and needs To mitigate bias and assumption in empathy stage - Perform self reflection on their own bias - Be open to feedback - Foster diversity in team - Involve users in design process taking inputs and feedback - Embrace iterative design

L’empathie est le pilier central du design thinking, où l’on cherche à comprendre profondément les besoins, les émotions et les perspectives des utilisateurs. Mais attention, les préjugés et les hypothèses peuvent sérieusement compromettre cette étape cruciale. Prenons le biais de confirmation. Vous risquez de ne chercher que des preuves qui confirment vos croyances préexistantes. Cela crée une vision étriquée et déformée de la réalité des utilisateurs. Il y a aussi le biais d’empathie, où vos propres sentiments et préférences prennent le dessus, nuisant à une compréhension objective des besoins des utilisateurs.

Being proactive and mindful of biases; facilitators can create a more inclusive and effective design thinking environment. 1. Self-Awareness: Reflect on and challenge your own biases regularly. 2. Team Dynamics: Ensure diverse teams with varied cultural, educational, and gender backgrounds. 3. Inclusivity: Use neutral language and actively gather insights from all participants. 4. Identify Biases: Clearly state inclusions and exclusions to spot biases. 5. Anonymous Feedback: Offer ways for participants to give anonymous feedback.

Beyond open ended questions and leverage multiple sources of data, we have to put aside our own confirmation bias (and that of our clients). I spend a lot of time challenge our clients and our client team's 'latent confirmation biases' as I call them. In doing this during sessions or conversations, we're able to build stronger empathy with our users (or those on the user's journey) and being to develop stronger ideas and solutions for their needs.

I worked with a client to develop their e-commerce website, and they were certain about the type of customers who would visit the site and purchase their products. The client was convinced that the users visiting the website were familiar with technical terms and knew exactly what they wanted to buy. However, we decided to challenge these assumptions by conducting surveys, talking to the customer success team, and interviewing direct customers. Through this process, we gained a better understanding of our customers and their needs. Sometimes you can fall prey to confirmation bias but all biases can be easily tackled by speaking with your users/customers!

L’idéation est une phase clé du design thinking où l’on génère et explore diverses solutions. Toutefois, des préjugés comme le biais d’ancrage (se fixer sur la première idée) et le biais de pensée de groupe (se conformer aux autres) peuvent limiter la créativité. Pour les surmonter, adoptez une pensée divergente pour générer des idées variées et une pensée convergente pour les affiner. Encouragez la diversité et l’expérimentation. David Kelley, co-fondateur d’IDEO, recommande de valoriser l’expérimentation et de voir les échecs comme des étapes vers le succès. En suivant ces conseils, vous maximiserez votre potentiel créatif.

One of key bias in ideation is the limited perspective of individual when brainstorming or coming with ideas. For example, we assume a particular solution works for a certain persona in a particular way can restrict the diversity of ideas generated. In order to overcome- we encourage diversity. diverse perspectives and team members from different backgrounds to participate in ideation sessions so that the ideas can corroborate. We use techniques such as brainwriting, creative matrix and SCAMPER to allow for this type of communication to take place. :)

Working alone together can help eradicate groupthink bias, as you give the quieter participants a chance to share their opinions without worrying about how they might be perceived by others. Follow the double diamond framework and your workshop should flow smoothly from the problem stage of 'discover and define' to the solution stage of 'design and delivery'.

Bias and assumptions can significantly hinder the empathy and ideation stages of design thinking. In the empathy stage, they may lead to a distorted understanding of users' true needs and experiences, causing designers to overlook key pain points or misinterpret user motivations.

Groupthink and anchoring biases are so real, and can really hold back a project. There is a balance to how much time you spending thinking or working on a project consistently. I find that taking time away, for example breaking to go for a run or walk, or putting yourself in an environment where you're thinking of nothing about the subject, helps to keep your bias at bay. You are coming back to the project with "fresh eyes" so to speak. A recent technique I have turned to utilizes the importance of "boredom" and silence. Again, bring yourself away from the project at hand, to an unstimulated activity or area. In this, you are giving your subconscious the ability to fully process and therefore present you with some awesome solutions.

Pour réduire les biais et les hypothèses dans la réflexion conceptuelle, utilisez des outils et techniques spécifiques : 1. Personas, cartes d’empathie, cartes de parcours, récits utilisateur : Représentez vos utilisateurs pour mieux comprendre leurs besoins. 2. Techniques de génération d’idées : ? Comment pourrions-nous poser des questions ? Les crazy eight 3. Validation des hypothèses : ? Mapping des hypothèses ? Prototypage ? Tests Ces approches aident à remettre en question et valider vos idées, réduisant ainsi les biais cognitifs et favorisant l’innovation.

In the journey of design thinking, navigating bias and assumptions is crucial for fostering true empathy and ideation. Employing tools like personas, empathy maps, and user stories enables a deeper understanding of user needs, breaking through preconceptions. Likewise, techniques such as "how might we" questions and the SCAMPER method ignite creativity, challenging biases by exploring diverse perspectives. Validating assumptions through testing and pretotyping ensures ideas resonate authentically with users, fostering a culture of innovation rooted in empathy and inclusivity.

As innovation facilitator of 100+ projects, I advise you to REDUCE BIAS BY PRETOTYPING, like TESLA… FAKE IT BEFORE YOU MAKE IT ???. Pretotyping is a technique for testing - and validating ideas quickly and cheap, founded by Savoia. It involves creating a simplified version of a product or service to collect user feedback and understand market demand. It’s a non-working prototype. Pretotyping reduces the risk of failure by assessing market response early in the development process. A famous pretotyping story is how Tesla ‘faked’ their first electrical car, the Roadster, using a so-called ‘glider’ of a Lotus Elise to confront their potential customers with a ‘real car’, leading to 250+ launching customers who paid $ 5000,- in advance.

Diversity reduces bias. Get a wide range of people and perspectives in the room and you will challenge bias and gain more inclusive solutions.

Pretotyping is a key technique of holding your bias at bay and keeping yourself accountable. Pretotyping is a quick experiment aiming to test ideas quickly, simply, and at low cost, gathering data in order to validate ideas before proceeding. In this, you strip the product or idea way back with the purpose of gathering interest or thoughts from the target market. After developing a concept of your product or service, you develop a realistic customer journey, typically with social media ads and landing pages, to analyze behavior. This can take a lot of the guess work out of the process and help to give you an early idea of audience reception. This is also a great way to discovering issues in the product or service you did not anticipate.

Pour traiter les préjugés et les hypothèses dans votre réflexion conceptuelle, transformez-les en opportunités d’apprentissage et d’amélioration. Au lieu d’ignorer les préjugés et hypothèses, considérez-les comme des déclencheurs de curiosité et d’enquête : 1. Technique des cinq pourquoi : Approfondissez les causes profondes de vos hypothèses en posant “pourquoi” cinq fois pour chaque problème. 2. Technique de recadrage : reformulez votre problème ou défi sous un angle différent pour explorer de nouvelles perspectives. 3. Technique de la boucle d’apprentissage : itérez et apprenez continuellement de vos expériences et des retours re?us. Ces méthodes transforment les préjugés en leviers d’innovation et d’amélioration continue.

Biases and assumptions often creep in, subtly influencing our thoughts and actions, especially in empathy and ideation. Instead of running from biases, let's use them as catalysts for growth. Here’s how: 1. Acknowledge and Reflect: Admit we have biases. Reflect on past projects to identify where assumptions led us astray. 2. Trigger Curiosity: Treat biases as questions. Dig deeper and challenge assumptions. 3. Diverse Perspectives: Surround yourself with diverse teams to challenge assumptions and broaden understanding. 4. User Engagement: Validate assumptions through interviews, surveys, and observations. 5. Iterative Process: Test ideas, gather feedback, and refine. This loop uncovers biases and assumptions. #DesignThinking

Create a prototype based entirely upon your bias and assumptions. Then create another that is the exact opposite. Test both. It's one of the best ways of understanding the impact your bias' and assumptions can have on your final product/service.

Utilizing a bias can act as an eye opening task not only from a design standpoint, but an introspective one as well. Understanding where our biases are rooted can help us to learn more about ourselves, how we think, and, in turn, assist us going forward to predict where our biases may come in to play again. Asking the "why"s is one of my favorite methods, and I think to be the quickest and most effective. If you can answer the "why"s, and sometimes there are multiple answers to each question, you can further dive into the concept and truly get behind the idea, finding yourself looking at it from a way you never thought to before - a fantastic way to push a project where you thought it wouldn't go.

Turning biases into a springboard for innovation could transform how you approach challenges, turning every project into a learning opportunity. How do you encourage your team to embrace and investigate their assumptions rather than shy away from them?

- ?? Conduct user interviews and surveys to gather qualitative insights on how well your solutions meet user needs and expectations. - ?? Use quantitative metrics such as satisfaction, usability, adoption, retention, and impact to evaluate the effectiveness of your solutions. - ?? Implement A/B testing to compare different versions of your solutions and identify the impact of bias and assumptions. - ?? Track progress over time with key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor how well your solutions perform and adapt as needed. - ?? Regularly review and reflect on feedback to identify and address any biases or assumptions that may have influenced the design process.

Pour mesurer l’impact des biais et hypothèses sur vos résultats de design thinking, utilisez des méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives : 1. Méthodes qualitatives : évaluez les besoins et attentes des utilisateurs via entretiens, groupes de discussion et observations. 2. Méthodes quantitatives : suivez des métriques comme la satisfaction, la convivialité, l’adoption, la rétention et l’impact. Ces évaluations permettent d’ajuster et d’améliorer continuellement vos solutions pour maximiser leur efficacité et leur pertinence.

A robust approach combines user feedback with hard metrics like adoption and retention rates. This strategy highlights areas where biases may have crept into the design process and provides a clear path for iteration. Regularly revisiting these insights can help refine solutions to better meet user needs and ensure our designs are inclusive and effective. Leveraging diverse team perspectives throughout this process is vital to uncovering and mitigating unnoticed biases.

Developing and implementing an idea is the first half of the game. The rest is about the uptake from the consumer - how are they interacting with the product, how effective is it, does it interact with the consumer how you thought it would? From this point, the work is still not done. One could take these facts and start to work on a re-iteration of the concept, look into a type 2, or simply re-adjust what exists to perfectly fit into the consumer's need. Once facts like these are extracted, it is always good to analyze and go through a thorough report of all the data. This action allows us to fully digest the metrics, educating ourselves for the next time we are faced with similar biases or for the further iteration of this project.

It's not easy to conduct a quantitative measuring of the impact of bias and assumptions. We might do a qualitative measures and that is good enough. Like I said in all the other contributions, we should not get too worked out in the analysis part during the Design Thinking work. As a pragmatic Design thinking professional, we need to get the prototype out for testing. Doing too much of impact measurement on bias and assumptions is a waste of time and effort.

Bias and assumptions can significantly hinder the empathy and ideation stages of design thinking. In the empathy stage, they may lead to a distorted understanding of users' true needs and experiences, causing designers to overlook key pain points or misinterpret user motivations. During ideation, bias can stifle creativity by limiting the range of ideas considered, often resulting in solutions that reflect preconceived notions rather than addressing real user challenges. Overcoming these biases is crucial for developing innovative, user-centered designs.

Yo recomendaría mapear nuestras propias suposiciones como equipo trabajando en una temática. Esto nos lleva a ser más conscientes durante el proceso y buscar realmente soluciones que se basen en la información obtenida desde los usuarios más que en lo que suponemos que necesitan.

All design thinking phases are vulnerable to biases. Sometimes avoiding certain degrees of assumptions is hard for the most obvious reasons—perceived value from the client's side, time constraints, and budget limitations. Assumptions are less expensive and quicker to deploy, and for a cheaper price, they bring project risk for incomplete or inaccurate user insights, and ultimately to ineffective or misaligned solutions. Like all other processes, this design process also requires coherent funding to be properly accomplished, especially in branches that are not digital-only. Adequate investment ensures unbiased research, crucial for developing solutions that truly address the nuanced needs of users across various contexts.

I’d suggest differentiating biases on individual level in the sense of the traditional work by Kahneman and Tversky (1974) from group dynamics. Confirmation bias was mentioned in the empathy phase but since it is the tendency to seek for data confirming a hypothesis it seems to sit better with evaluation. The problem with confirmation bias is not so much to miss out understanding some users. Rather from a scientific perspective the problem is that you logically can’t confirm a hypothesis with data, but only falsify it.

Putting your biases aside and being able to critically think into a project or concept is key to success within design. Nine times out of ten, you are going to be working for a company that you may not share 100% of beliefs with, or studying a consumer that you can less than relate to. But it is your job to be able to empathize, ideate and create in order to fill the space you've identified and solve a problem. It is important to find tools to help you work through your biases and put yourself fully into the shoes of the identified customer. This is something that learned very well throughout my time in university - and even down to my high school design courses. Otherwise, it's trial by fire...which is very effective too!