How Design Thinking Works

1. Discover insights into the problem

The process begins with a trigger: a problem, opportunity, observation, a change in the market place, among many others.

Whereas the Old Model of Business would immediately develop a plan to fix the symptom (not necessarily the problem itself), the team in the Discover stage takes a step back to look holistically and with a fresh eye at the ‘mystery‘ (something we can’t explain) to determine where the business is now, understand the current situation, and decide what area(s) to pursue.

This is where Empathy is necessary to seek information from the end user and to interpret how it affects or shaped their behaviour without bias. This observation is done in their natural environment (as opposed to an artificial environment like a focus group or responding to online surveys). They do this by going physically goes to the end user: to their home, office or other relevant situation.  Communications exchange is both verbal and non-verbal. As shown in the diagram, the mindset should be focused on divergent (expanding information to seek many answers) and on analysis (breaking down the whole  into parts).

In addition to searching for the what we (may) know about the mystery, some businesses/designers may begin to consider the:

• Why – the intent, objective or a rough statement which eventually will become the design challenge or point-of-view,
• Who – the potential team necessary to move the process forward,
• How – the criteria will be used to judge a successful outcome,
• Where – the creative space that the team will need to develop the campaign,
• When – the potential time frame for the program.

Be careful!  Setting the intent too narrowly at the beginning may limit the creative potential later on. That said, the next phases should correct this “narrowness” if the lead designer and their team keep an open mind.

2. Define the area or problem to focus on

The second stage of the process comes from a place of growing understanding, where the team – flush with information from their interviews – attempts to extract insights. In other words, What does all this mean? What matters most? What should be our priority? What may be feasible?

The goal of this stage is to formalise the brief (the design challenge, its point of view, the audience, the strategy) so a business plan can be created soon. (‘Soon’ is the operative word as all these elements will continue to change as the team synthesises the information.) The mindset should be focused on convergent (reducing information down to a single answer) and on synthesis (combining individual parts to create a whole).

In an ideal world, the insights and themes come out naturally, but it’s more likely that the team will return to the beginning, to learn more, seek validation, check vagueness. That’s what iterative processes are: repeating key steps as needed to extract solutions, sometimes in tandem with other steps … as opposed to linear processes which doesn’t allow a user to move to the next step until the previous one is finished.

3. Develop potential solutions

The third stage begins with creativity and imagination. Because the design brief outlines the clear opportunity, the team begins creating solutions and concepts. Inside the creative space, the goal is volume of ideas. The details and specifications are irrelevant at this stage. It’s not just throwing out ideas, it’s physically making the ideas. This forces the team to think visually (as a designer), because by using your hands you have a better sense intuitively if your ideas is right or wrong, and how to improve it. Oftentimes you work directly with the end user to create and build the ideas. Returning to a period of divergency and analysis, the team builds rough prototypes (also known as low-res or low-fidelity), seeks feedback from users, and continues to refine the ideas into clear options.

By this stage, businesses are often impatient. The Old School mindset sees CHAOS and MESS when it wants answers. That’s why it’s critical that senior management is actively involved with this section – and another reason why visualisation is vital. The more that people can see, experience the prototypes, and hear directly from users allows everyone on the team to feel that they’re going in the right direction.

4. Delivery solutions that work

The fourth stage moves from exploration to engineering through prototyping. In this phase, it’s important to keep a mindset of “fail early, fix quickly.” Lo-res/low fidelity prototypes are moved to test phase, some may even be launched as a pilot or offered for a limited time to test their impact in the marketplace so feedback can be sought and the business’ understanding deepens. In turn, this realisation influences the business plan and strategy.

An ideal Design Thinking process doesn’t end. The most innovative companies are constantly seeking to set the bar higher each time, if not re-organise the business so that the traditional silos of departments are restructured so that interdisciplinary groups can continuously support the Design Thinking cycle.

Which models of Design Thinking do you use or prefer? What are you experiences using Design Thinking?  Please add your comments and thoughts below.

The Double Diamond Design Process is owned by the Design Council (2005).