Basic Knowledge, Design, Strategy

Design Thinking at the Beginning of the Road, or What is Design Thinking All About?

We hear more and more about Design Thinking, and interest in the subject is constantly growing. When you type “design thinking” into an internet search engine, you will find thousands of definitions of this methodology – on blogs, scientific publications, or in training and meetup announcements. But which one to start with?

Design Thinking is a method that has gained popularity in the business world in recent years. This, contrary to appearances, simple way of working allows for a creative approach to solving problems and developing surprising ideas and solutions.

Design Thinking – what is it?

In its simplest terms, design thinking is nothing more than creative problem-solving, the goal of which is to provide innovative solutions in the form of products or services. The key to success here is a deep understanding of users.

The basic assumptions of this methodology that are worth remembering are:

  • focusing on knowing and understanding the conscious and unconscious needs of specific target groups,
  • looking at a given issue from different perspectives thanks to an interdisciplinary team,
  • openness to experiments and changes when creating prototypes and testing them.

The design thinking approach will work wherever it is possible to create an interdisciplinary team whose activities will be based on the activities described below. Therefore, it is a great methodology dedicated to private companies, NGOs, public institutions such as schools, local government units or cultural institutions.

Design Thinking Stages

Due to the flexible and changing nature of design thinking, it is impossible to clearly define its framework. However, to describe it, you can define individual stages of work. These are appropriate indicators of the progress of the activities you are conducting. The following five phases can be distinguished:

Stage 1: Understanding.

Step 2: Defining.

Stage 3: Ideation.

Stage 4: Prototyping.

Step 5: Testing.

Stage 1: Understanding

Knowing and understanding the tasks that the company will have to face is essential to identifying the problem and finding the best solution for the organization. True understanding goes beyond guesswork and drawing on previous experiences with similar situations. Seemingly similar problems can have different causes - it is worth remembering this.

Step 2: Defining

Familiarizing yourself with the issue that is troubling you, all its details and nuances, will allow you to avoid omitting important information in the definition stage. Based on this, you can precisely determine the challenges and causes that you should face.

Stage 3: Ideation

Once you have defined the situation and identified the problem you will be working on, you can allow yourself to unleash your creativity. This is the moment of searching for answers to your questions. Ideation is the most enjoyable moment of the entire design thinking process. Be careful, however, because it carries a high risk of “getting stuck” in this phase. Often, design teams are also tempted to jump straight to this stage, skipping the previous two. This is a bad behavior that should be avoided, as it will lead to the creation of a large number of ideas that will seem great, but in reality will be far from the topic.

Step 4: Prototyping

After the ideation stage, or creative brainstorming, it is time to review what has been created so far and then make a selection. The selected ideas will be used for prototyping. The choice of ideas to work on should be well thought out, especially in terms of quantity, because a prototype must be created for each of them. The basic rule is to prototype at least 2-3 ideas. This is the moment when they will gain depth and take on a real form. This does not mean that prototypes always have a material form. Services, experiences or processes are also subject to this process.

Step 5: Testing

Testing is a moment of verification of the work in progress, which helps save money and prevent failure. It is an important and significant step, because thanks to it you can assess whether a given project is heading towards success, and thus you will avoid directing resources where it will only be a waste of time.

Design Thinking is exactly the 5 stages listed above. It is worth remembering, however, that design thinking is not a linear process that runs from point A to point B. As work progresses, it may often turn out that you should return to one of the earlier stages to revisit it. The way your work progresses depends largely on the quality of work at each moment. It is worth focusing on the current stage and not looking too far into the future. If you do this, you may miss something important and groundbreaking :)

Good luck!

Bibliography

  • B. Rudkin Ingle, Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses. The Power of Design Thinking in Everyday Work, Gliwice 2015.
  • Internet source: https://poradnikprzedsiebiorca.pl/-design-thinking-czym-jest [accessed: 05/08/2019].
  • Internet source: http://designthinking.pl/co-to-jest-design-thinking/ [accessed: 05/08/2019].

 

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