This post is a very short description of the Design Thinking approach, that I found very useful for solutions to complex problems. I will give a short definition, then describe the process, provide best practices about when and how to use the method, and conclude with links for those who want to know more about it.
What is it?
Design Thinking is a method for innovation and problem solving. It is particularly useful for complex situations, or for developing a product when the specific requirements are still unknown.
A key feature of the process is it’s users-centricity: a new idea needs to be wanted by users in order to be successful.
Why do I include Design Thinking in this blog?
Automation and AI adoption is not only about technology and business - in most cases we want to change the way how people work. The user-centric approach of Design Thinking can support the change process that companies will have to go through. It ensures that the use perspective is accounted for in the very beginning and that automation and digitalisation are developed in such a way that the users find the new processes desirable.
The iterative process
The method consists of two phases, each consisting of diverging and converging steps. We create new options in diverging steps, while in converging steps, we make decisions. The first phase is about finding the right problem, the second phase is about finding the right solution. It is an iterative process: iterative refinement and jumping back and forth between the phases may be needed. The process as interpreted by the HPI consists of six phases:
Understand: This phase is about developing a common understanding of the problem: who are the users, what are our assumptions, what do we know, what not?
Observe: This phase is about establishing empathy for the user’s situation. Typical methods are observation, interviews or immersion. The objective is to find pain points, emotions, workarounds, or conflicts, all of which can be a source of insparation.
Define point of view: This phase is about evaluation of the research and observation results and about re-formulating the design challenge into an actionable problem statement that is based on actual user needs.
Ideate: This phase is about generating lots of ideas, typically using brainstorming techniques. After generating many ideas we need to filter them and select the really good ones.
Build prototypes: In this phase we built prototypes that the users can interact with. These should be simple, like paper models or role plays.
Test: In this phase we want to receive feedback from the users. We want to learn from the way how the users interact with the prototypes. Based on these observations, we may decide to make another design thinking iteration, or start actual product development, or discard the whole idea.
Phases one to three are about finding the right problem, while phases four to six are about finding the right solution. Both in the problem and in the solution space there are diverging phases and converging phases: We open the problem space by collecting information, making interviews etc, then converge on one specific problem for a specific user. In the solution space, we start with creating many ideas, then we discard most of them and focus on the best one.
For each phase, there are suitable tools and methods - brainstorming is an obvious choice in the ideation phase.
Best Practices
When to use, when not: Design Thinking is useful when product quality is still low, and when the focus is on exploration. For later phases, when product quality increases and the focus shifts to optimisation and operational excellence, other approaches (Scrum, Systems Engineering, …) are better suited.
Success factors: Have a very diverse team, in terms of professional or cultural backgrounds, personality etc. Have a room that fosters creativity, that can be adapted to the team’s need. Visualise a lot. Focus on users. Explore the problems and experiment a lot.
Summary
This short article can only scratch at the surface of what Design Thinking is. I’ve briefly described the situations where is can be used, how the typical process looks like, and how it distinguished itself from other methods by it’s strong focus on the user.
To learn more, try the English or German wikipedia pages on Design Thinking, the HPI Academy website, or the open courses on OpenHPI.
Footnotes
Illustration by the author, based on material from the HPI Academy↩︎
Illustration by the author, based on Valerie Schandl für WMDE, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Design_Thinking_Workshop_WMDE.png↩︎
Illustration by the author, based on material from the HPI Academy↩︎
