Design Thinking: A Practical Guide

Like most things buzzy, the definition of design thinking can appear complicated. They write entire books about it. It must be complicated if it takes a whole book to explain it, right?

In general, design thinking is simply a problem-solving process that’s used to arrive at a human-centered solution.

The thing that makes design thinking so impactful is that it forces us down a path that’s only conclusion is a better experience for people. It's used to design things like jumbo-jet interiors and web interfaces, but it can also be used for more practical, everyday problems.

Let’s give it a whirl.

Problem: You have a child, Sally, who won't eat her vegetables. Being a parent, you want your child to have a healthy diet; it’s a lifetime habit that needs to start early. Sally is your end user—or customer—and she has a problem you need to solve.

Step 1: Empathy

This is key, and I can't stress this enough. During this entire design-thinking process you’ll find yourself projecting your own needs, frustrations, and desires to fix this problem. If you do. You will fail. Empathy takes practice and constant refocus. You have to listen to your customer, talk to your customer, see how she reacts to a big bowl of steaming Brussel sprouts. Don’t judge, just listen, observe, and ask questions.

Step 2: Define

From our empathy step, we’ve collected some useful data to define the issues.

As soon as that bowl of Brussel sprouts hits the table, Sally made that face.

While cooking you ask Sally about the smell of cooking odors, “Brussel sprouts smell like vomit.”

The next night it’s Broccoli, Sally tells you, “Broccoli tastes gross.”

All good notes. You’ve defined the problem: The smell and taste of vegetables is ruining the experience for your child. 

It’s important to remember what we’ve done here. We haven't assumed anything about Sally’s issues with vegetables. We’ve empathized and now defined her needs.

Step 3: Come Up with Ideas

If you want to sound really trendy, you can call this “ideation.” Basically, based on what you have learned from empathy, and defined, you now come up with ideas for a solution. 

Based on this problem we’re trying to solve, you might ask other teams (parents) what they do. You could Search for kid-friendly recipes. Or, you could come up with your own ideas.

Your ideas need to be actionable because you are about to build prototypes.

Step 4: Prototype

Thanks to your empathy, defining the problem, and ideation, you have come up with 3 prototypes:

1. A spinach salad—no pungent cooking odor here.
2. Steamed corn—a much milder flavor than Brussel sprouts
3. Broccoli covered in cheese—You hate this one. In your mind, cheese-slathered broccoli defeats the purpose, but thanks to empathy, you know this is a solution that needs to be tested.

Step 5: Test

This is where a lot of solution seekers miss the point because testing used to mean testing the prototype to make sure it worked. Successfully cooking new vegetable recipes isn't a successful test. Your end user doesn't care if it works if it doesn't ultimately address their need. By testing we mean you put your prototypes in front of the end user, Sally, in this case, to test it to ensure you’ve found the right solution.

So, you test. The spinach salad was a bust. “It tastes like a puppy died.” That reaction is extreme. This prototype is a fail. That’s fine. That’s why we prototype. A strong rejection is excellent data going forward. The corn was not rejected outright. It may have been spread out on the plate to look like more was consumed than actually was, but some of the corn was eaten. Now the Broccoli covered in cheese, you came up with this idea because you know Sally likes cheese. Cheeseburgers, mac and cheese, cheese pizza, she seeks out cheese. Sally ate the broccoli; you put more on her plate, she ate that too. Your design thinking has achieved success.

That’s it. You are now a practitioner of design thinking. Next time you have a problem to solve you can use these five steps as your pre-flight checklist. Soon, it will become second-nature to ignore your assumptions and experiences in favor of empathy and testing. You’ll become a problem-solving rock star in no time.