The Design Thinking Process

Problem Statement

"How can I make _____ more _____?"

The IDEATE step of the Design Thinking Process

Brainstorm to generate and create ideas. "Think outside the box" to find alternative ways to view the problem and identify innovative solutions to the problem statement you've created.

Design thinking is ITERATIVE

Design thinking as a five-stage process, but these stages are not always sequential, and teams often run them in parallel, out of order, return to previous stages, and repeat them in an iterative fashion.

The Design Thinking Process

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users of an object or system, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. It involves five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

The Empathize step of the Design Thinking Process

Empathize: interview and research your user's needs to gain an understanding of the problem(s) people experience with the object or system you will redesign to help them.

UX Design job/profession

In User Experience Design, it's crucial to develop and refine skills to understand and address rapid changes in users' environments and behaviors. Users are the people who use products or systems that can be redesigned.

Empathy

It is crucial to a human-centered design process such as design thinking because it allows you to set aside your own assumptions about the world and gain real insight into users and their needs.

The PROTOTYPE step of the Design Thinking Process

Start to create possible solutions in this experimental phase by creating inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product (or specific features found within the product/system) to advance your ideas.

The DEFINE step of the Design Thinking Process

State your user's needs and problems with an object or system. Analyze your observations and synthesize them to define the core problem(s) you have identified with a "problem statement": "How can I make _____ more _____?"

Where does the Design Thinking Process come from?

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (aka the d.school)

The TEST step of the Design Thinking Process

Try out your prototype on user's of the object or system. Collect data, ask for feedback, find ways to improve upon the prototype before making a more final product. Then test out again, and again, and again!

After testing out a prototype, designers often...

Use the results from testing out prototypes to redefine one or more further problems. So, you can return to previous stages to make further iterations, alterations and refinements - to find or rule out alternative solutions.