Design Thinking Can Take on Challenges in a Digital-first World

If you thought?emerging technologies?can solve every riddle of an emerging digital-first world, just pause, and think hard. There are challenges which can test the strength of technologies. The best?User Experiences (UX)?aren’t crafted by cutting-edge technologies alone. Technology despite all its sophistry, can’t plumb the depths of human emotions or delve into the human psyche. You haven’t understood your users and their expectations fully unless you have taken a deep dive into their minds and mapped their emotions. Design thinking empowers you there. It’s an iterative yet non-linear process where you understand your users, challenge assumptions, ideate solutions out of the box, prototype and test. Iconic brands like Apple, Google and Samsung have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach. Be it creating a business model for selling solar panels in Africa or running operations of Airbnb, design thinking is supplanting orthodox problem solving to tackle dynamic business challenges.

The Steps in Design Thinking

Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers, artists or creative professionals. All great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practised it.?Design thinking is both a science and an art. It can be applied to any field and isn’t design-specific. A human-centred approach, design thinking has five phases- Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.