Design thinking is the approach to the ideation of several ideas or basically the generation of ideas in order to solve an existing problem. Innovative planning has no fixed framework or a rigid set of rules to solve a specific problem. It is utilized in different ways in different settings depending on the problem. This type of creative planning is a crucial soft skill to have and it is essential in the top companies for cutting edge projects.
Design thinking was created as a way of taking processes and approaches, the designers use and applying them to problems that designers don’t typically approach. Taking into account, organizational design, business & marketing issues of a company. It has actually evolved from a range of different fields — including architecture, engineering, and business. It can also be applied to any field; it doesn’t necessarily have to be design-specific. It is an approach towards solving a problem that requires thinking like a designer but does not actually fall under the umbrella of designers.
Objectives of Design Thinking
1. Immerse the participants in the world of innovation as a systematic process of struggle relevant business and/or social problems.
2. Provide a social and thought space for the recognition of innovation challenges the design of creative solutions. An innovation, new initiatives, value proposals, new products, or services.
3. Using a practical approach, this seminar will support people in the sketches, conception, and initial development of an innovation challenge, which is a critical input for the innovation course.
4. Exercise their foresight and insight looking to the problem.
Principles of Design Thinking
Design thinking is a way of seeing the problem with new eyes, it emphasizes re-framing the problems and coming up with creative ways that could put you in a good place and it comes with some of the principles which include;
1. THE HUMAN RULE: The way of thinking must be human-centric and all the innovations must be social in nature. No matter what the context is and what the problem is, design thinking must always be social.
2. THE AMBIGUITY RULE: The thinking/ approach should be open to every interpretation. One should brainstorm and experiment with the depth of their knowledge because this is the only way one could find amazing solutions.
3. THE REDESIGN RULE: Though the problems might change, the approach might change but the basic needs of humans would remain the same. We essentially only redesign the means of fulfilling these needs or reaching desired outcomes.
4. THE TANGIBILITY RULE: The ideas must also take shape which can be taken into account. Just thinking about the problems won’t help. It’s about bringing the solution to life and giving it a tangible shape. The ideas should be made into prototypes in order to make them real. It lets your ideas speak more efficiently.
Different Phases of Design Thinking
The design thinking approach consists of five phases:
1. EMPATHISE– Empathy provides the critical starting point for design thinking. The first stage of the process is spent getting to know the user, which means observing and engaging with real people in order to understand them on a psychological and emotional scale. Now, as you must be knowing, as a designer it’s essential to throw away your assumptions and focus on gathering real user insights.
2. DEFINE– Next up, we need to define the problem to gather all of your findings from the empathize phase and start to make sense of them, what difficulties and barriers are the users coming up against, what patterns you observed, what is the big user problem that you and your team need to crack. By the end of the defined phase, you’ll have a clear statement of the problem. It’s important to think in a user-centric way. Rather than stating the problem as “we need to create better commuting options” state it as if you were a user ” adults aged between 20-30 need more eco-friendly ways to commute”.
3. IDEATE-Once you formulated the problem in words, it’s time to think about solutions and ideas. This is the stage where you get creative and storm your brain while thinking about the problems and their solutions. This phase is a brainstorming session and comes up with a few angles of the solutions as possible. There are loads of ideation techniques that one can use, like mind mapping, brainstorming, and storyboarding. By the end of this phase, you’ll have a few potential solutions.
4. PROTOTYPE– Now it’s time to change your ideas into tangible products or prototypes, it is a scaled-down version of the product which tries out the potential solution that you found out. Prototypes are crucial for putting your ideas to test and highlighting any design flaws or constraints. In this phase, your ideas might be accepted, proved redesigned, or rejected completely.
5. TEST– After prototyping comes user testing, but it’s important to note that this is rarely the end of the Design Thinking process. In reality, the results of the testing phase will often lead you back to a previous step, providing the insights you need to redefine the original problem statement or to come up with new ideas you hadn’t thought of before.
Create Your Design Thinking Mindset
Most courses do not teach you to have a design thinking mindset or in short a growth mindset, however here at Labdox, we teach that it is equally important to have a growth mindset which is possible to make innovative planning more effective than a one with a fixed mindset. Design thinking is not about having the best idea, it is not about having the right tools but it is about having the need to understand the idea.
Benefits of Design Thinking
It is very much important to note the benefits of Design thinking. Here are some key highlight areas of benefits of Design Thinking.
1. Reduces the risk of failure of new ideas as it focuses on providing a prototype to the users so that the level of risk is minimum.
2. Innovative solutions and offerings as Design Thinking engage creativity through a process designed to surface truly innovative ideas and then test them quickly. The results can provide a far greater upside.
3. Faster piece of learning as everything is a prototype you can stage and test ideas quickly, allowing you to pursue further where you have traction and move on when you don’t.
Conclusion
The beauty of design thinking is that it works best under conditions of uncertainty—when you really don’t know where to start. It’s a methodology that is very messy in practice but does allow for a systematic approach to creating new opportunities.
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About Us: Labdox is a platform to help learners acquire Engineering & Entrepreneurial skills from core Engineering, Scientific Research & Emerging Technologies sectors/industries. We have also taken a step further where we can prepare learners on the entrepreneurial aspects of being enterprising. With our specialized and customized training that covers numerous engineering and technical disciplines, enables mastering new skills and building a strong core.