How Design Thinking transforms Business by inspiring Innovation

1.0??????Preliminaries

Design thinking means keeping the customer at center in mind all the time while driving innovations which are technologically feasible and economically viable. "Design Thinking" was adapted for business purposes by Stanford's David M. Kelley, who founded design consultancy IDEO in 1991. However, Design Thinking started gaining mainstream prominence only around 10 years ago, when people realized that organizations like Apple, P&G, Coca-Cola, Ford, Intuit etc. have been using it as a structured process to solve complex problems. Doing so, they create products, services, spaces, systems & experiences - that not only have human meaning, but also differentiated business value. Leading organizations around the world have drawn their attention to design thinking as a concept of innovation management as these organizations have opened their minds to learn from designers in being creative and innovative. A design thinker sets the customer at the heart of thinking, is collaborative by integrating different point of views, and focuses on the future instead of considering how things work today. A design process model includes four vital steps: the analysis of the problem, designing the solution, the implementation, and the evaluation of the solution. It is imperative to start, by deeply understanding the customer, defining solution success in customer words and then continuously looking to improve. Leaders need to drive the change by maintaining a customer-focused mindset in every communication and decision made. Leading organizations like 3M, Apple and PepsiCo today are using open and collaborative approach to innovation, not just within the design thinking team members but also with the customers - to deepen the customer understanding and increase the odds of success of the solution. Companies are using it as a tool to contemplate and discover innovative solutions to problems of all kinds, from product and service development to the overall strategy of the business. An incorporation of diverse perspectives is the thumb rule here. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

2.0??????How Does Design Thinking Work

Design thinking follows a five-stage framework.

Empathize

The purpose of Empathy phase is to observe consumers to gain a deeper understanding of how they interact with or they are affected by a product or issue. The observations must happen with empathy, means withholding judgment and without telling preconceived notions of what the consumer needs. This human-centered approach helps experts focus on the user instead of their own assumptions about a problem. Observing with empathy is powerful because it can uncover issues the consumer didn’t even know they had or that they could not themselves verbalize. From this point, it’s easier to understand the human need for which the solution is being designed. This process empathizes with users by collecting as much information about them as one can with different set of tools.

Define

The purpose of Define phase is to collect the observations from the earlier stage and define the problem - understanding the difficulties consumers are brushing up against, what they repeatedly struggle with, and how they’re affected by the issue. Once the information have been gathered about the users, their needs and problems in the empathizing stage, the data can analyzed and synthesized in order to scrutinize the real problem to be solved. To understand problems better, it is useful to create personas and define roles so the needs and problems can be attached to different set of users. Once the persona based problems and emergent patterns are understood, single problem statement can be defined.

Ideate

The purpose of Ideate phase is to brainstorm ideas about how to solve the problem that is been identified in earlier stages. These ideation sessions could be in a group, where team gathers in an office space that encourages creativity and collaboration, an innovation lab, or can be done solo. The important part is to generate a bunch of different ideas. At the end of this process, few key ideas have been shortlisted with which to move forward. This stage is about coming up with solutions based on the problem statement. At this point in the process finding the best solution is not the objective but creating as many possible solutions with the help of brainstorming and other ideation techniques.

Prototype

The purpose of Prototype phase is to turn ideas into an actual solution. Prototypes are not meant to be perfect. The point of a prototype is to come out quickly with a concrete version of the idea to see how it is accepted by consumers. By this stage, few solutions or features are developed that is ready to test. Prototypes do not have to be too detailed, high-quality or actually even working yet. The idea is to create a prototype that is sufficiently able to display a specific feature or working mode.

Test

The purpose of testing phase is to collect feedback on your work. Once a prototyped solution is given to consumers, the customers are observed to check how they interact with it. The design-thinking process is an iterative, rather than linear one. At the end of the fifth stage, it may be required to go back to one or several stages. Perhaps the testing may trigger the development another prototype, so back to the earlier stage. When testing the complete product or service, it often happens that data gained through testing will redefine the problem statement or several features, making design thinking a real iterative process.

3.0??????Design Thinking Tools

Empathize

Tool(s) for collecting raw information:

• Zoom – It may not be feasible to speak with all interviewees or customers in person, so it’s useful to have a dependable video conferencing solution. Zoom provides exceptionally reliable quality, minimizing audio or video latency issues. It has a wide variety of features available both for individual and business needs including the scheduling of calls, a dial-in phone number and recording audio and video calls even on the free service plan.
• Typeform – It is a survey tool with a fresh and simple look and an easy-to use interface. It has customization options that allow to create forms and questionnaires.?Practical integrations also help save time: for instance, one can easily set up responses to arrive to Slack and be recorded in a Google Sheet.

Tool(s) for organizing the information:

• Batterii – It is an open platform for visual thinkers and designers to get on the same page, structure their thoughts and create more visually. It has carious templates like empathy maps and customer journey maps to stakeholder analysis. With the Batterii communities feature, one can collaborate and co-create with users and collect insights easily before organizing the information to support design process.

Define

Tool(s) for defining the problem:

• Smaply – It is a platform to manage customer experience, allows to create, share and present customer journey maps, personas and stakeholder maps. It provides a beautiful and detailed persona and stakeholder editor that helps defining the personas for design project.
• Userforge – It create in-depth and realistic personas with less clicks than it takes in design software. To foster collaboration and fast decision making you can share personas by URL instead of by the slow process of invitation. The application is easy to use, anyone can create usable personas without design skills. And it is totally free.
• MakeMyPersona by Hubspot – It is a slick solution that can help in structuring the information about buyer personas. It guides through 19 essential questions that covers the most important aspects to build up personas. The answers and the output personas can be downloaded in Word format via email.

Ideate

Tool(s) for Ideate Phase

• The open library of more than 600+ facilitation tools from SessionLab offers a wide variety of ideation methods. From brainwriting to 3-12-3 brainstorm, the best stand-alone activities and complete workshop templates can be adopted to get ideas flowing in the team.
• Whiteboard apps are practical if a platform for brainstorming online with team is needed. For brainstorming, organizing ideas and prioritizing, Stormboard stands out with its functionality to manage sticky notes on different templates, allow collaborators to rate and evaluate ideas and powerful reporting options. Some other whiteboard tools are Mural, Miro.
• Ideaflip is a simple tool for brainstorming sessions either with team or alone. Anyone can add their ideas on post-it like notes to the virtual space. Ideaflip enables commenting and idea grouping on decision-making.

Prototype

Tool(s) for Prototyping Phase

• Boords – It aims to be a complete storyboard toolbox. Their storyboard creator allows to experiment with pictures and gifs, voiceover and action text or redraw existing frames. With the animation tool, it can also make animation from frames with sounds. Plus it allows to collaborate with anyone in real time.
• Mockingbird - It has a clean and user-friendly interface making it one of the best prototyping and wireframe applications. Features include drag and drop UI, linking together several mockups to make it interactive and smart text resizing. Sharing with direct links makes collaboration easy.
• POP - It is a mobile application for turning sketches into animations. It is very easy – just take snaps of sketches or pictures and the app merges them into an interactive prototype. The best thing about POP is that it allows to share prototype and get feedback from users instantly

Testing

Tool(s) for Testing Phase

• UserTesting.com. It is one of the best names in user testing applications. Pick users according to test whether it’s a website or mobile app. The platform records every move testers make, it helps to understand how they navigate and perform the tasks assigned to them.
• Hotjar. This is all-in-one analytics and feedback tool enables to collect data on funnel conversions, see where people click and how they navigate on site. They offer instant feedback from users and feedback polls to identify problems the user may be having.
• Pingpong. It is a user-research platform where you can find tens of thousands of testers from all over the world. The platform will automatically set up the best testers for testing solution. It can also easily schedule interviews which can be recorded and later analyzed.

Design Thinking Complete Lifecycle Tools

There are versatile online apps that can support throughout the whole design thinking process. These tend to fall into two categories by their approach: they are either tools specifically designed to guide through each step of the design thinking process, or really flexible but generic solutions, such as collaborative online boards.

• Sprintbase – It is a dedicated design thinking software excelling with its focus. Each step of the design process is supported by a dedicated structure and functionality in the app, and smartly guided through the whole workflow.
• InVision – It stands on a broader field by being a digital product design platform not focusing as much on the design thinking process. But in its suite of powerful tools with outstanding user experience one can find solutions for collecting inspiration, organizing information, creating and sharing ideas, sketching, wireframing, and designing prototypes.
• Collaborative online boards - Mural and Miro: Both of these online tools provide a visual collaboration platform for teams. Real time whiteboards can be created, work both with sticky notes and free hand drawing, brainstorm and structure information for a design process.

4.0??????Design Thinking Techniques

Empathy Mapping

An empathy map is a collaborative visualization used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It externalizes knowledge about users in order to 1) create a shared understanding of user needs, and 2) aid in decision making. Traditional empathy maps are split into 4 quadrants (Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels), with the user or persona in the middle. Empathy maps provide a glance into who a user is as a whole and are not chronological or sequential. (i) The Says quadrant contains what the user says out loud in an interview or some other usability study. Ideally, it contains verbatim and direct quotes from research. (ii) The Thinks quadrant captures what the user is thinking throughout the experience. It is possible to have the same content in both Says and Thinks. However, pay special attention to what users think, but may not be willing to vocalize. Try to understand why they are reluctant to share. (iii) The Does quadrant encloses the actions the user takes. (iv) The Feels quadrant is the user’s emotional state, often represented as an adjective plus a short sentence for context.

Following are the steps to create a valid and useful empathy map:

• Define scope and goals – (a) Define what user or persona will be mapped? Will a persona or an individual user be mapped? Always start with a 1:1 mapping (1 user/persona/empathy map). This means that, if multiple personas are involved, there should be an empathy map for each. (b) Define primary purpose for empathy mapping.
• Gather materials - The purpose dictates the medium to be used to create an empathy map. For a sizeable team, it is recommended to have a large whiteboard, sticky notes, and markers. Create a system that works to share out with the rest of the team.
• Collect research - Gather the research that will be used to fuel empathy map. Empathy mapping is a qualitative method, so qualitative inputs is needed: user interviews, field studies, diary studies, listening sessions, or qualitative surveys.
• Individually generate sticky notes for each quadrant - Once the research inputs are collected, the subsequent step is to proceed with mapping as a team. In the beginning, everybody should read through the research individually. As each team member digests the data, they can fill out sticky notes that align to the four quadrants. Next, team members can add their notes to the map on the whiteboard.
• Converge to cluster and synthesize - In this step, the team moves through the stickies’ on the board collaboratively and clusters similar notes that belong to the same quadrant. The activity of clustering facilitates discussion and alignment — the goal being to arrive at a shared understanding of user by all team members. Once your empathy map is clustered, the findings can be vocalized and aligned as a team: What outliers are there that did not fit in any cluster? What themes were repeated in all the quadrants? What themes only exist in one quadrant? What gaps exist in understanding?
• Polish and plan - If more detail are required or unique needs to be addressed, adapt the map by including additional quadrants or by increasing specificity to existing quadrants. Depending on the purpose of empathy map, polish and digitize the output accordingly. Be sure to include the user, any outstanding questions, date and version number. Plan to circle back to the empathy map as more research is gathered or to guide UX decisions.

Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder mapping is the visual process identifying, analyzing, prioritizing and engaging the stakeholders and organizations with a stake in a product, project, or idea on one map. The main benefit of a stakeholder map is to get a visual representation of all the people who can influence project and how they are connected. Four types of stakeholders are normally covered: users, governance, influencers and providers.

• Identify. The first step is stakeholder identification. A stakeholder is anyone that has an interest in the outcome of a project or process. Stakeholders fall into two main categories – those who contribute to a project, and those who are affected by a project.?Sometimes stakeholders fit into both categories. The client who provides the funding for the new IT project definitely falls into the contribute category, but they will also be affected by the project outcomes because they will be using the new IT system. Projects can be delayed or sidetracked if key stakeholders are not identified, so at the outset of a project it is important to identify stakeholders.
• Analyse. The next step is stakeholder analysis. This involves defining stakeholders’ roles and expectations. All stakeholders are not created equal.?Some have the potential to generate a much greater impact on the project than others. The best way is to follow a logical process.?Be systematic.?Using a matrix which maps stakeholders according to their influence and interest allows you to paint a picture of stakeholders’ level of involvement and therefore the type of engagement that need to have with them. So, it is intended to have understanding of what motivates stakeholders and how to win them.
• Priorities. Once the stakeholders and their influence is understood, it is the time to priorities their needs. By categorizing stakeholders they can mapped into appropriate engagement levels – do they need to be managed closely? Keep them Satisfied? Keep them informed? Or simply monitor them? Remember that stakeholder status can change during a project lifecycle.?So analysis and prioritization needs to be regularly updated.
• Engage. The final stage is the process by which key stakeholders are engaged to win their support and understanding. This forms the basis of Communications Plan

Customer Journey Mapping

It is a tool that can be used to visually represent customers' interactions with brand. This process can give critical insights on the customer journey - which can use be used for business advantage. Following is the process to make a customer journey map in 7 steps:

• Set your targets - It's easier to navigate, monitoring the tasks and staying on track when the destination is known. Identifying goals and setting targets are essential first steps of learning how to make a customer journey map.
• Create buyer personas - A buyer persona is a fictional character which represents a specific customer segment for the brand. When creating a buyer persona, consider the characteristics: background, demographics, lifestyle, personality, information sources, and shopping preferences. This is where interviews, surveys, and other forms of market research come in. This information will help the researcher to place himself/ herself in the shoes of customers.
• Identify motivations and pain points - Technically, this step is performed while creating buyer person and can be included in earlier Step. While defining buyer persona, the points to be considered - What keeps them going? On the other hand, what's stopping them from reaching their goals? Do they have fears and reservations?
• Map out the buyer’s journey - It's important to note the different stages of the buyer's journey in order to be able to provide more personalized experiences for customers down the line. There are 3 stages to the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. (i) Awareness stage - Buyers are able to identify the challenges that they are facing. (ii) Consideration stage - buyers are actively looking for ways to deal with the challenges that they are facing. (iii) Decision stage: Buyers have settled on a solution and are only searching for the most suitable product or service.
• Maximize your touchpoints - Traditionally, brands make first contact with the customer at the beginning of the buyer’s journey. In digital age, brand's first contact with the customer won't always be at the beginning of their journey. Now, touchpoints have many channels through which a customer may come across a brand and the brand gets opportunities to make the right impression on the customer. Go with touchpoint or channel strategy what is the most appropriate from the perspective of the customer.
• Find your Moments of Truth – Before finalizing customer journey map, it needs to be assessed whether every step earns the customer's trust. Moments of Truth are crucial points in the customer journey. These are instances wherein a customer's opinion about specific brand are formed based on their experiences. Around 64% of customers want brands to connect with them and they value authentic, meaningful interactions. It is advised to earn customer loyalty for a brand by using the insights from each steps of the customer journey mapping and create a memorable experiences for every touchpoint/ channel with the customer.
• Revise – Everything cannot be right on the first try, so continue refining the process until it is just right. Don't think of customer journey mapping as a one-time thing, either! The customer journey can change and the brand must be ready to adapt.

?Context Mapping

Context mapping is a technique that falls in the category of generative techniques, allowing designers to get to a deeper understanding of what users know, feel and dream. In generative techniques, users actively participate in generating ideas that can serve as a starting point for the design process. The context of a product is the circumstances or settings in which it will be used, and which adds meaning to its existence. The same concept is applied to user–centered design. A UX designer needs to know the broader vision of the product that is being designed. He/she needs to know who is going to use this product.

Context mapping procedure involves three steps:

• Preparing and developing the probes: Three steps (determining the goals, developing the probes, and planning the follow ups) help to get started in the best possible way, and which three types of probes usually work well.

Cultural probe are based on the basic interrogatives: what, when, where, why, who, and how. And just as important as “How are users interacting?” is “How are users feeling?”

UX related Probes are (i) Clarify. People express themselves differently. For a researcher to be able to understand the real message, it is important to clarify what you hear from the participant. (ii) Detail. Usually, a lot is left unsaid. Often because people think they have already said it. Always ask the participant to detail out things which you feel slightly ambiguous. (iii) Rationalize. Behind every action there are feelings and reasoning. Ask for prioritization of elements in terms of importance to the participant. (iv) Imaginate. Context of use is very important. If it is important to understand the Interfaces to be used in different situations in the real world, ask participants to imagine them being in that scenario. (v) Ideate. Chances are rare that the participant is a designer, artist or a creative person. People generally remember the experience of the things they have been using to get their tasks done. Prompt them to tell good things from those interactions and things that could have been done better.

• Collecting: The main stage is where the insights are collected from users with the help of exercises in probe kits. The results are taken as input for the generative session where the goal is to get to a deeper understanding of what users know, feel and dream through the ideas they generate. (i) First, users will be given probes kit with small exercises, and they will live with it for a few days. This step is called sensitizing. They will fill the kit as input for design process. (ii) The data will be used as input for the generative session. The kits have sensitized users, so they are more prepared to think about the future and create solutions themselves. In the generative session, users will be assisted to create ideas. (iii) Lastly, an open discussion with the users will be conducted. In the generative session, they would create new ideas on what shall work in their context with reasoning.
• Communicating: Analyzing and sharing the insights with the design team or other stakeholders in the project concludes the context mapping process and ensures that the design process continues in the right direction. Sometimes, patterns or clusters will emerge. Other times, a single picture will stand out. Regardless of the types of insights, fellow design team members need to push the design process in the right direction and innovate.

Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is about designing multiple possible future scenario's in which current context drivers are extrapolated to assess their impact on the current business model and identify threats and opportunities to act on.

Scenario planning involves six steps:

• Brainstorm Future Scenarios – The first step is to decide a time frame. While setting the time frame, various factors are considered: the life cycle of product, political conditions of country, competitors’ analysis, technological advancement
• Identify trends and driving forces – It is advised to focus on the following factors whenever identifying trends and driving forces. The kind of questions to be answered: Who has an interest in these decisions? Who will be affected by them? Who could influence them?
• Create a Scenario Planning Template - Identify the driving forces of the environment that is the key-factor, as listed in earlier step. These driving forces can originate in the following areas: Society and its structure, including demographic, economic and political factors, and public opinions as well; Markets and Customer Behavior; Technology and Innovation; Industry’s competitive structure; Organizational capacities and core competencies.
• Develop a Scenario - The essential task of scenario planning is developing the actual scenario. Build a condition according to each factor, the above steps are evaluated and then create a situation according to the traits and trends of the market. Proper scenario development is equivalent to writing a movie scene. Build a plot, and then develop story around it.
• Evaluate a Scenario - By following a systematic step-by-step procedure, the scenario team can achieve a balance between wild creativity and free form imagination based on knowledge and experience. The type of segregation used for finding strategies is essential to finding focal issues and degree of uncertainty. The kind of questions to be answered: What will be the energy prices? Will they rise or fall? What will be the views of customers about product? Will they incline towards modernization or rationalization? What will be the rate of advancement of technology? What will be the approach of government?
• Update Strategies and Policies Accordingly - A month or two after the scenarios is implemented, strategic plan need to be evaluated and update the policies according to the new market trends. This evaluation and update should be done periodically. The market situations are regularly changing according to the macro-environmental factors.

Trend Mapping

A trend mapping is a visualization of important trends that can have an influence on organization. With the help of a trend map template, then illustrate what are the key external factors that affect business now and in the future. A trend map can be done for a specific product, for a business segment, for a country or for global operations and can help to understand shifts in social norms, as well as technological developments.

Trend Mapping has 3 steps:

• Continue to iterate: Trend mapping is a very flexible tool: it can be used to talk about a broad issue, or something specific and narrow. So, it is recommended to have some follow-up sessions on issue and dig deeper into the high-level trends that came out in the first mapping session.
• Display the map: It’s really interesting to think about the map as a living document and a visual learning agenda. Throughout the iteration process, it is better to put up the map on the wall so people could see it and observe how it is evolving as it is dug deeper into specific parts of it. Having the map posted in a public place lets staff reference it and use it to help them look at their work from different angles. Looking at what can come out of the process of learning together as an organization, it will be easier to connect those dots.
• Take photos of the map at every stage: It is encouraged to take pictures of the process—it’s pretty neat to see the map evolve as team connects with topics and move things around.

5.0??????Industry Use Cases

Take a look at this list of industries that have been uplifted by the implementation of design thinking and are now bringing extraordinary results to the table:

PepsiCo

Indra Nooyi’s had created great impact on the development of PepsiCo when she implemented design thinking at the core of creating every product and service related to the brand. Before she came along, the company was perceived as a sinking ship that couldn’t retain its investors or sales. PepsiCo tried to capture what appealed to their target customers and use that data to renovate their products. Sales grew up to 80 percent during the 12 years Nooyi served as CEO. Now the company has not only reclaimed its position on the market but has also inspired other brands to create personalized customer experiences via design thinking.

Starbucks

The F&B industry was struggling with dropping sales and poor margins, particularly around the crisis of 2007. The method plays an essential part of Starbucks’ success as well. In 2008 they had to close more than 600 shops after the economic collapse and the shift in senior leadership. Starbucks interviewed hundreds of coffee drinkers, seeking what it was that they wanted from a coffee shop. The overwhelming consensus actually had nothing to do with coffee; what consumers sought was a place of relaxation, a place of belonging. They sought an atmosphere. The round tables in a Starbucks store were strategically created in an effort to protect self-esteem for those coffee-drinkers flying solo. Service counters are built out of natural materials like warm woods and stone, rather than plastics and metals, to create a homier atmosphere. They also realized they needed their stores to better reflect their local environments. This posed a problem considering their designers were all based at their Seattle headquarters. Now the company has designers all over the world and has launched a series of impressive design studios. Starbucks has created an experience that has changed the F&B industry. It is what makes us spend $4 for a cup of coffee!

Ikea

The industry had many opportunities right from improving customer experience, to retail store design to managing the supply chain and delivery. IKEA initiated “Democratic Design.” This design strategy is based on a number of factors at the intersection of delivering a product that meets consumer expectations of quality and functionality at a low price on one side and the sustainability strategy on another.?Impact - IKEA pioneered many ideas such as distributed suppliers, just-in-time inventory, self-pick-up and self-assembly. They redefined their sector and deeply influenced other sectors through their innovative drive and design to constraints discipline.

Capital One & JP Morgan

The financial sector isn’t always associated with progressive problem-solving, but in recent years the world’s biggest banks have seen the benefits of implementing design thinking. Capital One contacted design firms Adaptive Path and Monsoon and focused on empathy and user-centricity in order to create a series of new digital features, including an emoji-enabled chatbot and GPS-tracked transaction histories. Two years ago the company launched a 42,000-square-foot Innovation Center. On the other hand, investment company JPMorgan Chase hired former Yahoo design executive Tim Parsey. Soon after that, they updated its app with features meant to improve the mobile banking experience by weaving in local images. They wanted to create an experience that started with emotion and thrived to humanize the user experience.

Airbnb

Airbnb’s rise in the travel industry was possible by improving customer experience. Airbnb conceptualized a platform that would allow people to trust 'strangers' and rent their 'own' spaces to them (including living room, kitchen, and even their bed!). Joe Gebbia (Co-Founder Airbnb) revealed that if they could get enough reviews on 'strangers' from another set of 'strangers' - it could break the mistrust barrier. They reframed the whole business problem and redesigned the platform to get more user generated reviews, and rest as we know is history! A few years ago, the company’s sales were dropping. Although they started looking for cracks in the business strategy. It turned out that the listings had low-quality pictures attached to them. When the company replaced the amateur photos with high-quality images, their revenues doubled within a week in 2009. The company also focused on the user and provided all kinds of product details to help them make an informed buying decision, sales and revenue shot up. In fact, co-founder Joe Gebbia says that it was design thinking that helped the company grow from a struggling startup to a billion-dollar company. Airbnb has become the leader in its category (valued at over USD 40 Bn), but owns absolutely NO properties or assets. It has served 150 Mn guests and is present in over 65,000 cities.

Hyatt Hotels

Hyatt Hotels connected with the Design School at Stanford University in 2011 to explore the human-centered innovation concepts and later focused on creating caring experiences for both guests and employees. They also turned 10 of their properties into innovation labs, where they experimented with lighting, furniture, and rooms. At the same time, Crowne Plaza teamed with the design firm IDEO to improve the experience of its business travelers. The result was a free-to-use new meeting and working experience housed in Crowne Plaza lobbies that includes meeting spaces, food, and beverage options, full service, and digital features.

Vivo Mobile

Design thinking has helped the Chinese mobile brand Vivo to understand and connect with its customers in a highly competitive market. The company realized how crucial the method was and started crafting their products to target the young consumer market in China. The company built a concept store as a way to promote their brand values in a more tangible way. A research the company made revealed that young customers look for opportunities that will expose them to new experiences, enrich them personally and help them build their knowledge and skills. So Vivo created multimedia units that customers can interact with in order to improve their overall experience. Design thinking has become a pillar principle for successful tech companies worldwide.

GE

Doug Dietz, Innovation Architect and Chief Designer of GE Imaging Machines, was taken aback by the frightening experience that kids had to go through while being scanned in traditional MRI Imaging machines. (~80% of the kids had to be forcefully sedated). Dietz created CT Pirate Island Adventure, wherein, the scanner was made to look like a pirate ship, and the room decorated with their favorite Adventure Series characters. Consequently, the entire MRI experience became like ‘playtime’ for kids. Kids loved the new experience – and quite a few of them actually wanted to keep coming back! Parents were equally relieved. Sedation rate went down from 80% to 10% - so both hospitals and parents also benefited commercially.

P & G

In the late 1990s all major household hygiene brands were fighting to create a ‘more potent’ floor cleaning solution. After spending hours in the field, behavioral scientists at P&G realized that the floors actually themselves were not too dirty! Instead, consumers faced the challenge of spending hours in the process of cleaning as well as maintaining the equipment in the best possible way. So was born Swiffer – it uses the ‘razor and blades’ business model where the consumer purchases the handle assembly at low price, and refills and pads over lifetime. Instead of spending hours cleaning both the floor and the mop (cloth), now they can simply change pads through an easy mechanism. Significant reduction in cleaning time and post-cleaning maintenance, it was disruptive innovation at its best – and the brand has become a half-billion-dollar brand, spread over 15 countries.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney created Disney Park with the goal of making special moments. The key to the experience is attention to detail, a focus on immersion and the desire to constantly and incrementally improve details and elements of the experience - making sure the sound effects on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride were loud enough to rattle the riders; making sure that the Tiki Birds were able to have dozens of different gestures, not just ten. Besides, Disney innovated both filmmaking and resort experiences, creating the multi-plane camera for film and a complex series of animatronic robots for his parks. Disney’s theme parks continue their dominance, bringing in over 140 million visitors annually. The top 11 theme parks rake in roughly $50 billion of revenue and $10 billion of annual operating profit.

Nike

The 80’s was a mixed bag for Nike. Nike wasn’t known too much for R&D and was fairly confused as to what direction to take in terms of product development without hinging on just runners shoes. – After "empathizing" with consumers, Mike Parker understood that a product that could give a revolutionary performance as well as stand for street style would bring in best of both worlds – runners and sneaker enthusiasts. Working under Spartan conditions, Parker pulled off a miracle — a technology called Visible Air. The concept was simple on paper: Take the cushioning element embedded in Nike's existing Air series and cut a window in the sole so that people could actually understand the effect. After series of prototyping, the product was launched and became an instant hit. Until now, Air is the most successful line of products. Air Max line’s combination of a striking, visible Nike Air unit and forward-thinking design cues helped it earn it’s number 1 position.

Starwood

Starwood has used design thinking as a strategy to reimagine the stay experience. One of the biggest problems they solved was designing the front-desk with empathy that can take the pain out of the hotel check-in process. They spent two years developing a new system that radically speeds up check-in at its properties, while assigning a room once required 143 key strokes on a terminal fixed behind the check-in counter, guests can now be on their way with three strokes on a tablet. Other concepts created included redesigned guest rooms, leverage social data for creating personalized experience, smart fridge etc. Recently, they have also launched Starwood’s Starlab – an innovation space to use creativity and design to build next generation experiences for travelers. Starwood has consistently won all the accolades on customer experience and loyalty. They have raised the bar time and again when it comes to using empathy as a strategy for innovation. Their revenues exceed USD 6 Bn and have one of the highest active subscribers of the loyalty program

Netflix

According to Forbes, back in 2001, Netflix founder Reed Hastings spent $10 million a year on streaming technology research. This fact alone shows how customer-centric Netflix has been from its very beginning. Netflix's design thinking can be boiled down to four rules:

• Think Big - Netflix was not afraid to destroy its existing successful DVD delivery business and follow the technological advance.
• Start small - the company did not rush headlong into the implementation of a new product, but waited for the right moment.
• Fail quickly - Early streaming attempts were abandoned.
• Scale Fast - Netflix has been able to grow rapidly by moving to the original content.

The advantages of the Netflix platform and its human-centered UX design: AI-powered recommendations (based on your view history Netflix personalize the experience for you). But Netflix's design thinking goes beyond digital design. It covers the entire process of user interaction with the system. Making the customer a top priority and continually thinking about what would be better for them helped Netflix to not only reshape the video rental industry but also let Netflix become an essential part of how to relax correctly. Currently, Netflix serves ~ 100 Mn consumers in 130+ countries and is valued at ~ USD 60 Bn.

Uber

More than 75 million people in 600 cities in 65 countries around the world use Uber, and for many, it has become the most familiar mode of transportation. The main reason for the success of this online ride-hailing taxi app is its unique business model that Uber managed to develop using a design thinking approach. Putting themselves into their customers’ shoes allowed Uber’s team to define that the most critical issue as the need to wait. That is why Uber has given a lot of attention to this issue. Let’s take a look at how with the help of a design thinking approach Uber managed to develop the user experience that helps to cope with the problem of waiting: (i) Eliminate inaction (ii) Make all operations clear and transparent. (iii) The screenshot from Uberpool shows how the app calculates arrival time (iv) Show the goal. There is no doubt that Uber's success is largely due to the fact that the company uses design thinking to improve user experience. With the help of this customer-centric approach the idea to replace cabby blokes with ordinary and trustworthy people owning their own cars resulted in a usable and convenient app we all love so much.

6.0??????Conclusion

The future of design thinking is about going beyond designing for today’s problems. Empathy and experimentation are still essentials. However, this future includes tools and methodologies coming from strategic foresight and future artifact, such as scenario planning, context maps, and trend maps. These are only scratch the surface. Experts have started associating future casting tools, systems thinking tools, human-centered design tools, business modeling, and prototyping together. This is about thinking in the third horizon while prototyping in the current context. Using principles of strategic foresight and design thinking, the businesses can embrace uncertainty, identify opportunities and options, and make small but significant bets on future options to innovate.

References

[1] Importance Of Design Thinking In Auto Industry, https://www.businessworld.in/article/Importance-Of-Design-Thinking-In-Auto-Industry/20-12-2017-135224/

[2] 11 sectors that have been revolutionized by design thinking, February 2020, https://www.fabrica360.eu/post/11-sectors-that-have-been-revolutionized-by-design-thinking

[3] Abhineet Sonkar, 15 Times Design Thinking Re-Imagined Our World!, March 2017, https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/15-times-design-thinking-re-imagined-our-world-abhineet-sonkar/,

[4] Kateryna Mayka, Design Thinking Examples: Five Real Stories, https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/design-thinking-examples-five-real-stories

[5] Graham Tuttle, What is design thinking and why is it important?, February 2021, https://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/creativity-culture/what-is-design-thinking?

[6] Robert Cserti, 20 Best Online Tools for Design Thinking, March 2019, https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/design-thinking-online-tools/

[7] Aren Wong, How To Make A Customer Journey Map In 7 Steps, May 2020, https://marketingcraft.getcraft.com/en-articles/how-to-make-a-customer-journey-map-in-7-steps

[8] Sarah Gibbons, Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking, January 2018,?https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/

[9]Amanda Athuraliya, A step by step guide to scenario planning, https://www.professionalacademy.com/blogs-and-advice/a-step-by-step-guide-to-scenario-planning