The Blind Spot of Design Thinking

Design Thinking has a big blind spot. It neglects an?entire class?of customer needs and problems. The Design Thinking process disregards this innovation space simply because the respective users are not in scope — they are from the future.

Of course, some human needs remain the same whether you consider someone living in Berlin in the year 2021 or 1921. However, many needs evolve over time. Some suddenly emerge — maybe triggered by a technological invention, a new discovery, or a change in the environment. For example, the need for effective remote education was a lot less significant before the coronavirus pandemic forced schools around the world to close their doors.

Design Thinking methods like empathy interviews or user observation can do magic in revealing current, even unconscious needs. But they are not made for capturing future needs. This is a pity, however, because solving wicked?future?problems with Design Thinking could create huge value for companies as well as society as a whole.

The?future?is the blind spot

After many years of using Design Thinking, I am still fascinated by the power of taking the user’s perspective. Even for seemingly “technical” engineering problems, stepping into the customers’ shoes can inspire novel solution ideas. Sometimes, Design Thinking also produces disappointing results, of course. If used inconsistently, the process often leads to unsatisfactory outcomes. Moreover, Design Thinking is sometimes applied to problems for which other innovation methods would be more suitable. And even if applied as intended, there is no guarantee for success. But overall, I think it is fair to assume that adding Design Thinking to the repertoire of innovators has substantially increased their problem-solving capacity (see illustration 1 below).

Design Thinking has been used successfully to work on “old” problems that have persisted for a long time (e.g., consider Airbnb, who started by making existing private apartments accessible to visitors where accommodation was scarce). The same is true for new problems that have emerged only recently. But it is?not?the case for future problems and needs that have not yet materialized. Not even the most empathetic interviewer can uncover needs that are not there yet. Nor will future needs reveal themselves during user testing. In this sense, Design Thinking is blind about the future.

The increasing complexity and pace of change will presumably make sure that we don’t run out of problems worth solving anytime soon. Therefore, a more complete graph including future problems may look like illustration 2:

Scenarios are the missing link

Some useful methods for solving future problems have been around for a long time. Examples include forecasting or Scenario Planning. However, while forecasting only works reliably within a time horizon of a few years for most business purposes, Scenario Planning can only be applied to a limited number of problems that justify the very large effort. Therefore, many problems especially from the more distant future will remain “hidden in uncertainty”. The third category of future problems represents the blind spot: emerging problems that Design Thinking would principally be suitable for — if only the problems and corresponding future needs were known.

To capture future needs, a plausible view of the future is required, and it needs to include rich detail to understand when and how these needs play out. Scenarios can provide this missing link. In contrast to ordinary trend research, scenarios focus on the interplay between various trends. Well-designed scenarios make you understand how it would “feel” to live in such a future world. They therefore enable creating vivid?Personas from the Future?– imaginary users that inhabit the future scenario worlds 10 or 15 years from now.

The challenge that remains is where to get the scenarios from. A classical Scenario Planning exercise may take many months – not a reasonable time frame and effort for most purposes. One solution is doing a?Scenario Sprint?instead. It can be completed in as little as one week with a handful of people. A Scenario Sprint fits nicely in any Design Thinking project schedule.

The Design Thinking process can essentially stay the same

With suitable scenarios available, any capable Design Thinking practitioner can create solutions for future problems. Most Design Thinking methods and tools can be used unchanged. Even the overall process can be retained with slight reinterpretations (the following explanations are based on the 6-phase Design Thinking process):

1. Understand:?This phase essentially stays the same but with a strong focus on trends and uncertainties (that have already been considered for the Scenario Sprint).
2. Observe:?Consider the?imaginary people who inhabit your scenario worlds. Bring their world to life, e.g. by writing short stories, role plays, graphic novels, etc. You may also identify some real humans that already today think and act similarly to your scenario population. Build empathy with them.?
3. Create Point of View:?Develop your?Personas from the Future?and focus. When setting your priorities, you have to factor in that there are several alternative scenarios with very different implications. Choose strategically.
4. Ideate:?Use your favorite creativity techniques and idea selection methods.
5. Prototype:?Prototype as needed. Make sure to stay away from science fiction, though (your solutions should be plausible).
6. Test:?If you can find some real people who could represent your?Personas from the Future, test with them. Also consider testing with experts or peers who have not been involved in the solution development.

Scenario Design Thinking — it is worth the effort

For sure, a lot of future problems will remain disguised in uncertainty even when applying “Scenario Design Thinking”. However, for the problems we can catch before they get really big – and therefore hard to fix – the effort will pay off 10, maybe 100 times. Moreover, the innovation space for future problems will be much less crowded with competitors. While others are just beginning to notice the problem, you can have your first solution ready to be tested in the market. Such a head start can be decisive — especially if there are network effects and the solution is hard to imitate.

Imagine you could have solved the problem of hate speech in social media before it spread.

Imagine you could have created a really user-friendly, scalable and secure videoconferencing software before the coronavirus pandemic started.

Imagine you could fix the future problems that Artificial Intelligence applications will cause before we become too dependent on them.

Imagine …?

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Acknowledgements: Thanks to the SOMMERRUST team for the valuable feedback and particularly to Frank Rust, who raised the point that this topic may be worthwhile exploring further during one of our many discussions about Design Thinking and the conundrum of innovation. Source of illustrations: SOMMERRUST ? 2021.