Design Thinking 101

An introductory note on the principles and process of Design Thinking, meant for faculty members who starting to take a session or two on Design Thinking as a part of a business-studies or entrepreneurship class. Practitioners woud benefit from the article as well.

Introduction to Design Thinking

One of my readers got back to me, after I published my last article on Invisible Learning, and requested my views on Design Thinking. So, I thought of penning down my thoughts keeping in mind my experience from using Design Thinking.

This note is written in the format in which I once created tutorials on Design Thinking... it is meant for teaching novices who wish to build a clear understanding on design thinking and the process behind it.

The concept of design thinking can be applied across diverse disciplines. From education, law, and medicine to ICT, business management, human resource management and design itself, design thinking principles enable and empower a professional to approach the problem statement in a step-by-step manner and take into account all the necessary factors for arriving at the best solution.

Design thinking has its foundation in the concept of analysis and synthesis. Analysis teaches a thinker how to break down the big problem statement into smaller parts and problem statements. Each elementary problem statement is then studied and attempted for solution. Synthesis is done to put all the suggested solutions together to form a coherent big final solution.

In 1987, Peter Rowe’s book titled, “Design Thinking” described methods and approaches that planners, designers, and architects use. The work of Robert McKim was consolidated by Rolf Faste at Stanford University during 1980s to 1990s and then, David M. Kelly adapted design thinking for business interests. David M. Kelly founded IDEO in 1991.

Before we jump into Design Thinking (DT), let’s examine the two standard thinking processes which we have been used to all our lives; and they are Convergent Thinking and Divergent Thinking.

Convergent Thinking is the process of finding the single best optimized solution to a problem that you have in hand and need to solve. Many tests that are used in schools, such as multiple choice tests, spelling tests, math quizzes, and standardized tests, are measures of convergent thinking. Traditional intelligence tests, such as the Stanford-Binet (1), also measure convergent thinking.

So, how does convergent thinking differ from divergent thinking?

Well, Divergent thinking is the process of creating many unique solutions in order to solve a problem. The problem of convergent thinking is systematic and logical, unlike divergent thinking, which is spontaneous and free-flowing.

When using convergent thinking, we apply logical steps in order to determine the single best solution. Whenever we use divergent thinking, we search for options instead of just choosing among predetermined options.

Now, that we have clarified our understanding of these two terms, let’s move on.

When we come across a problem, when we analyse and think about a solution, we unconsciously apply design thinking principles!

Design Thinking (DT) is a human-centred, action-oriented, iterative problem-solving and idea-generating method. In DT, business ideas are generated, entrepreneurial projects are developed and prototypes are tested through engaging with customers. The traditional approach to entrepreneurship was led by writing business plans; the DT approach was meant to overcome downsides of the same. An ‘only’ business plan approach did not trigger much creativity and did not lead to many new ventures. This was the only way known to me when I first stepped out to become an entrepreneur. Having said that, when I now reflect, I, unconsciously, did apply many of the DT principles. We will examine on the side as well.

Let’s get down to the basics. What is Design Thinking?

All human beings have an innate ability to design (Cross, (2011)) and people from all walks of life can learn design thinking and practice it. Design thinking is an approach inspired by the design practices (Lawson (2005), Cross (2007)), which entails a non-linear process consisting of a holistic analysis of the problem as well as an exploration of many different possible solutions before implementation of a final solution. A process which requires an ability to deliberately shift between divergent thinking and convergent thinking. Another essential element is curiosity about and insight into human needs, behavior and context, as a means to qualify both problem understanding and the development of new meaningful and valuable solutions.

Visual and tactile representations (eg. sketches, prototypes, diagrams, models, etc.) are crucial elements in design thinking for communicating, evaluating and qualifying knowledge and ideas, because verbal and written communication does not suffice in supporting dialogue and development work in this type of process. (See also Brandt (2007) and Carlile (1997))

Rittel (1973) and Buchanan (1992) talk about DT as a suitable approach to solve wicked problems, ie., ill-defined open-ended problems that often will lead to newer problems when you get down to solving it. It is necessary to utilize and incorporate knowledge from many disciplines both in order to, firstly, qualify better understanding of the problem and, then, enable the development of innovative solutions.

Let’s look at problem. Say, your grandmother wants to be in touch with you using technology, but her frail hand and constantly shaking fingers makes it difficult to use the mouse or the mouse pad. In fact she has never used a mouse ever in her life.

Quite a ‘wicked problem’. Now, what we do we do about it? The process of Design Thinking can help find a solution for this problem. In fact any problem can be approached using this methodology.

There exists many different types of process models for design thinking. Here a process-model defined by Stanford in 2010 will be discussed, which consists of the five phases: Empathize, Define, ideate, prototype and test.

Each phase contains a specific focus and mindset and throughout all phases the students are to work with physical representations of information and insights in order to ensure optimal knowledge transfer between each phase.

You can choose to let these phases represent themes for your teaching and select appropriate methods for each phase as a structure for the process. This can be done by letting the students present or hand in preliminary results from phase activities in order to get feedback from you as a teacher and/or e.g. external lecturers, academic experts, users or other relevant actors. Even though the process model consists of five phases it should not be used as a rigorous management tool for a chronological development process, but should allow iterations along the way in a flexible manor. You can also leave it up to the students to organize their process based on these five phases to allow for more iterative and independent work on their projects.

Empathize

In this phase the students begin their projects with a brief – a challenge – which forms the basis for their project. This challenge they are to examine and explore from different angles.

The main focus of this phase is to gain insight about the user context of the project challenge. Therefore, the students must have empathy for the users and try to understand their everyday lives. It’s about being curious about what concerns the users, what makes sense for them and the interests and values of the users. It can be quite difficult to gain insight into the users’ behavior, since the type of knowledge often is tacit and thus difficult for the users to communicate. Observations of and interviews with users are therefore important methods for “diving” into the user’s everyday life in order to elicit knowledge and new insights. This observational research should preferably be done within the user’s own environment in order to gain a deeper understanding of issues that cannot be explained in words.

This phase also entails academic research, where the students apply their disciplinary knowledge and skills to interpret and discuss the challenge. The students may also conduct expert interviews with e.g. university researchers about relevant topics for their project challenge.

Documentation is a crucial part of this phase and the students will need to document insights from their field work and academic research. It’s a good idea to remind the students about this, because it may be impossible to obtain data after they finished conducting their field work and also because the process can be hectic and difficult to recall without having documentation during the process.

There are a couple of methods that are suitable for this phase, and they are...

Observation

• Ethnographic method for researching human needs and behavior.
• Gain qualitative insights into how an object is used in the everyday by following it through time and space
• Create an overview of the stakeholders before initiating the field research and project work.
• Studying the everyday behaviour of target groups, if time is limited.
• Use photographs to document ideas and needs to inspire the innovation process
• 5 Whys – Analysis tool used to find a single base cause of a problem or to multiple reasons for the same problem.
• By attempting to be the problem, one can appreciate new perspectives and possible solutions.

The Interviews

• A practical guide to the qualitative interview

Walking conversation

• Freeflow talking to pick-up qualitative observations in the informant’s context.

Listen

• Listen to other people discuss your project challenge to get new perspectives and ideas

Design a workshop

• Method used to focus on and ask unanswered questions

Ecosystem

• Provides an overview of complex relationships and graphically represented point of departure for group discussion.

While there are these 6 methods that can be used, but in your class you should be diving deep into the first 4 key ones.

Define

In the Define phase the students must qualify their problem understanding by making sense of the information they got from the previous phase to determine what the problem is and whether it actually is the right problem that they should focus on. For this analysis the students must surround themselves with their data material from the Empathize phase, so that it is visual, tangible and accessible to them for example by using the walls of a project room. This may seem like a minor detail, but it is very important that the data material is presented in this way because verbal and written communication in itself is not enough to support the analytical activities of this phase.

The Define phase entails multiple iterations where the students must revisit their problem statement several times as they learn more about the context of their project and the potential directions for solutions. Instruct the students to formulate their problem definition in a manner where it “calls for” ambitious solutions based on thorough understanding of the users’ context and academic research. This can e.g. be ensured by having the students present their problem definition to you as a teacher and possibly to external clients (e.g. a private company, public institutions, NGOs), academic experts, users or other relevant actors.

If the students are collaborating with an external client they can engage in dialogue (or perhaps negotiation) in order to agree on a problem definition that can make the basis for their further project work.

There are a couple of methods that are suitable for this phase, and I would like to talk about them a bit.

Cluster Analysis

• Clustering can be used for analysing and organising material gathered from qualitative research, e.g. data derived from Observations, Interviews and Workshops. By organizing and re-organizing data material the students get better acquainted with their research material, a dialog arises about what has been seen and o interpret it, and when categories are formed there might arise new connections and new insights.
• Clustering is very suitable for group work, because the research material is visually represented, which facilitates an overview of the research material in the whole group. Another important benefit from clustering is the dialogue that happens during the exercise, which should support the collaborative process of interpreting data and obtaining shared understanding in the group.
• The output of the exercise is an overview of categories/themes that the students can continue to work on in their projects.

Design a Workshop

• In many innovation processes it is essential that one has considered the potential user or customer role during the development phase. Therefore, it can be a good idea to have the students design and facilitate a workshop with stakeholders relevant to their idea/concept/project.

How might we…?

• The How might we…? question is a specific phrase, which is used for framing the challenge that the students want to develop solutions for. By asking the simple yet constructive question: How might we…? it is emphasized that there are many different ways to solve a challenge (with “How might”) and that it is something that “we” do together.
• Formulating How might we …? questions can be done to follow-up on a research phase just before brainstorming on ideas for solutions – e.g. by letting the students transform their insights from e.g. field work and other research into How might we …? questions.
• When developing How might we …? questions divergent thinking is applied in order to brainstorm on the possibilities that are within the student projects. You can either choose to develop many different How might we …? questions or decide on an overall How might we …? question.
• A good How might we …? question uses a clear, understandable language and inspires to research new and alternate facets of a problem area as well as specific ideas for solutions. Please be aware that the students develop appropriate questions that are neither too broad, overly constrained or solution-oriented:
• An example of a question that is too abstract and ambitious: How might we perfect the user experience?
• An example of a question that is too narrow and solution-oriented: How might we improve the user experience by placing a table football game in the common room?
• An example of an appropriate question: How might we help patients maintain their social identity while being users at ‘the Patient’s House’?

SWOT Analysis

• SWOT analysis is a commonly used strategic tool. The method investigates an organisation or solution’s strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities in an effort to map out development potential.
• The method is deployed via a simple structure that provides an overview of an organisation’s strengths and competitive standing by focusing on the organisation’s internal (own, inner) strengths and weaknesses, as well as the organisation’s external (beyond its control) opportunities and threats. The organisation’s internal resources are hereby situated within an authentic context. Overall, the method provides a good overview of the organization’s competitive standing and strategic options. The SWOT analysis is often coupled with a SWOT matrix.

Mind-Map (2)

• A Mindmap can be used to unpack and uncover a theme and to develop ideas and suggestions. The objective is to gather input and thoughts about a given idea and put these ideas on paper in such a way that relationships may be visualised.
• The method is suitable for group or individual work. It may be applied throughout the innovation process, but is very effective in the early stages of innovation.

Ideate

In this phase the students must apply divergent thinking to explore their challenge and develop many ideas for potential solutions.

The students probably already have a favorite idea, but it is important that they explore many different types of ideas – even the less obvious ones – in order to push their notions about what is possible. This is not always easy in an academic context, where the students are trained in critical thinking. To support this process you as a teacher can assure the students that all ideas (also the bad or silly ideas) contain an interesting aspect and that there will be plenty of opportunities to criticize and analyze the ideas later on in the process.

The ideation process works best when the students alternate between divergent thinking for example by brainstorming activities and convergent thinking by assessing the ideas, e.g. in a clustering exercise. The right conditions must also be in place in regards to the requirements and criteria for the solution and of course a clear formulation of the project challenge / problem definition, which was prepared in the Define phase.

You can usually spend a few hours on ideation before you need a break and possibly repeat the process again. It is probably in the breaks when you are not focusing on developing ideas that the best ideas will emerge.

Prototyping

In design thinking you can make prototypes of products as well as services, experiences and processes. In this sense a prototype should be understood as a physical representation of the idea, which can communicate selected features to relevant stakeholders in order to get feedback. In the early stages of the innovation process you work with lofi, cheap prototypes and only when approaching the final solution, you spend more resources on your prototypes.

There are many advantages of prototyping:

• Prototyping allows you to develop and test your ideas in a tangible way.
• Prototyping save resources when you use prototypes to develop and test the ideas from the early stages and continuously before implementation.
• Prototyping takes an iterative approach to idea development in which the students continually develop and change their ideas concurrently with the testing of prototypes. This way prototypes can reveal aspects of the ideas that might not be realized otherwise.
• The method is very useful in terms of communication and collaboration within project teams and externally with stakeholders as the physical representation of the idea enables a common framework for understanding what the idea actually is about.

In this phase the students will need material for building their prototypes and they also need data material from the previous phases as a source of knowledge and inspiration. It is important that the students have chosen a target group for the prototype and a specific hypothesis or question that they need answered in the test of their prototype.

Prototype processes are inherently iterative so make time for several test runs and follow up on them in the process.

Test

It is important that the students carefully consider how prototyping should be integrated in their innovation process. Prototypes should be tested and reviewed – many times – during the innovation process and this process must be incorporated in the students’ project plans. In addition the students should concurrently develop and test several prototypes that can be compared with each other during the test period in order to maintain a divergent view of possible solutions.

It is demanding to manage a well-organized test process because the students must be able to handle many challenges related to prototyping tests. They should e.g. be able to:

• keep an open mind and not try to influence the users, who are testing the prototype, in a certain direction.
• be able to find balance between instruction and observation of the users and possibly involving users as co-developers.
• organize and set up tests in an engaging and lifelike manner which also elicits realistic and honest feedback from the users on the prototype.
• incorporate insights from the tests into new ideas for solutions
• handle iterations in the process and possible frustrations related to this. Perhaps the prototype tests lead the students to the realization that they must reframe their problem definition.

When does the Test phase end? This depends on the course framework such as the course timespan and learning objectives. In addition, it’s up to the students to assess when in the process they can start to converge towards a final solution based on feedback from prototype tests and how their solution solves their problem definition and fulfills the criteria for the solution. This process can be supported by the teacher by having feedback sessions, milestone presentations and a final presentation where the students can communicate and discuss results from tests of their prototypes.

In the Test phase, the prototype or the model is presented to the customer and the customer experiences it completely on a full scale. The feedback from the end user decides whether the solution suggested by the design thinkers has been fruitful or not. If the end user does not approve of the solution, then the entire process has to be iterated. The concept of iteration is hence central to the process of design thinking.

One this phase is over, one can go back to the first stage if one wihes to use the principles all over again to handle particular problems that might have come up by the end of the 'Test' phase.

Design thinking not only helps to come up with innovative solutions, but also helps to address the exact problems faced by the customer and target the customer’s requirements in the best possible manner. Design thinking not only helps to come up with innovative solutions, but also helps to address the exact problems faced by the customer and target the customer’s requirements in the best possible manner.

Wish you the best of luck in your endeavours as a design-thinking specialist.

Notes

The introductory part has sections that are sourced from https://innovationenglish.sites.ku.dk/model/design-thinking/

1 - The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition (SB: FE) is a standardized test that measures intelligence and cognitive abilities in children and adults, from age two through mature adulthood.

2 - How to go about creating a MindMap…

> Start by writing the topic/central question in a circle in the middle of the paper.

> In relation to this central topic, the students draw and write input, symbols and key words, which are connected with lines to the topic in the circle. With the help of lines and other markings, new connections may emerge as the activity proceeds.

> Thereafter, general themes and ideas for solutions may be suggested.

> Creating patterns, as opposed to typical linear notes, enables new connections, structures and associations that are easier to remember. In addition there might appear new insights or contradictions during the making of a mindmap.