Originally posted 2020-10-05 16:01:11.
Before moving on ahead onto the description process first we must explore this field a little much where it is used.
Design thinking is not a particular field that’s related to only design. Well that’s bummer, it completely changes your definition of design thinking doesn’t it. Design thinking is the most crucial part of every field out there. If not implemented correctly, many blunder mistakes can happen and I don’t want you to make this mistake.
Design Thinking is implemented by architectures, Interior Designers, Engineers, Brand Strategist, Artist, and most of the businesses do invest a lot in it.
So now that we’re on the same page let’s define Design thinking.
What Is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is the process of iteration within which we try to grasp the user point of view, future and design challenges. After that we develop a set techniques or processes that help in extraction of knowledge and then implementing it in solving a problem with a more logical and innovative approach.
Design thinking is the backbone of any design process and is not centred around designers. Engineers, artists and curators of other fields also use design thinking for their ease as I have already mentioned above.
Why You Should Adopt Design Thinking?
Design thinking has become so popular that top companies of the world such as Apple, Microsoft, Google etc. are using this technique and creating extraordinary devices and generating amazing services as well.
As of now various design schools throughout the world are opting Design Thinking Procedure as a mandatory requirement in the Design curriculum.
There are various design thinking courses available at very reputed Universities too where students can learn and grow their skills.
Even Stanford University Offers Design Thinking Courses.
Isn’t this so fascinating!
If big companies, Universities, Branding Agencies, people from various fields are paying so much attention to design thinking process and getting results. You should at least try and check yourself and adopt it to improve.
Design Vs. Design Thinking
Design is a mixture of theoretical knowledge and practical implementation. If you start gaining the knowledge about the fundamentals of design, you will implement them on daily basis.
According to Think 360 Studio
The design is about crafting something new and shelling out a form through expertise to provide interactive solutions for complex situations.
Mainly Design Thinking is formed around the user’s perspective to form a strategy to know requirements and fulfil them as well.
Biggest benefit of design thinking is that it helps in solving the problems that are poorly defined or arise suddenly with design process progress. Design Thinking Process helps the organisation within the testing and prototyping phase.
Design thinking procedures vary from organisation to organisation there can be 3 to 7 steps or important things that need to be kept in mind while designing this process.
Here we’ll be discussing the 5 main things that are to be kept in mind while implementing this Design Thinking Process. Alright let’s get into it!
Top 5 Key Points of Design Thinking Process are:
1. Empathise
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test
Empathise
The first phase in the Design Thinking Process is where you gain the insight of the problem and define an empathy with it. In this process, the interaction with the experts is done. It’s the phase where the understanding with the human factor is established in order to gain more deeper insight into the problem.
This process helps in thinking from the user’s point of view and leaves their own perspective. Design Thinking helps in figuring out what exactly does the user want and how to make the user satisfied with your design.
Agile, lean startup, waterfall, scrum, etc. are different approaches to generate requirements in various product development methods.
One of the most effective approach is Human Centred Design Thinking Or HCD. It helps a lot in empathise users and stakeholders to address problem solutions.
With continuous research the information for future development is continuously gathered so that there will be a good development with minimal problems.
Define
In the definition phase the information from the Empathise phase is stacked and researched. This is done in order to define the problems that will arise or that the designer might be facing in the process. In this phase you define problems so that you can help design problems for clients/users and avoid them in the future process. This helps the designers in designing various important features for the users.
For example:
“You need to increase some budget on a product by 10% so you define the paperwork for what you need extra budget for? This is the defining stage and you need to explore the possibilities from all perspectives to benefit and solve this problem.
Ideate
The third stage is somewhat crucial for the whole design thinking process. After you’ve gathered all the information and stacked it together to define the problem then comes the idea formation process.
Here the designers after grasping what they have to do can generate some ideas to tackle the problems. The following process involves various ideation techniques such as brainstorming, Possible ideas etc. These processes mainly encourage free thinking and generating some random ideas that are moderated in the future for development.
Prototype
It is the phase where the ideas that are selected from the previous process are made by keeping the image of the real user end product.
The prototype phase mainly helps in analysing how well the idea that is selected will perform with the user when it is finally developed. The main aim of this phase is analysis and the best possible idea for the development is selected and mends to the previous one’s done.
Prototype Implementation In Website
The main reason why this phase is important is because it gives the designers a clear idea of what they have to make. It’s not that only one prototype is made, multiple prototypes are made, then tested and later a concise all of them and the final product is created.
You can relate this to building a website. First sketches are made, then wireframes and then a prototype is made where everything is checked before developing it. Multiple iterations are made before finalising everything. This is a very important phase which can’t be neglected especially while developing websites for your clients.
We did this when we re-designed our own Mount Woods Studio website. It’s a time taking process but totally worth it. Here’s a short video which will help you understand what we have achieved:
Test
The final phase of design thinking is the test phase. In this phase the product that is created by using these multiple ideas and then put out to test within the market.
Currently we are still testing this and so far results are good. There are always minor iterations that needs to be made but that’s a part of process.
Let’s take one Example to have more clarity
You see various places offering try outs of various cars to test drive or to get the information: What feature the user loved about the most in the car?
This is exactly the same phase in this phase: you’re putting the live product in front of the people and waiting for their response how they like it. What were those features that they really loved? What excited them most? Which feature was not appreciated? All these things are noted and corrected.
This phase is the final stage but you can say it’s iterative i.e it can be subsidised to change and thus providing more finished product in the end. During development of this final phase various iterations are also made adding some new features that users might like and then change further according to the results.
To clear more about the Test phase, let me give you another example from AJ & Smart Company.
Once they did a design sprint for their client and a video was there on youtube which i have seen. I really loved how they have pulled everything out.
They were working on a diet app which helped users track their diet and stay fit. Whenever a new feature was rolled out, they picked the users and called them to check which feature they like or what they want to change.
Here is the video from where you can get an idea What Design Sprint Is? How to Implement it ?
Once enough data was collected, they made the necessary changes which helped improve the app a lot. You can also go through the same process of design sprint and see how it works for you.
So basically these are the 5 key points that form a backbone of any Design Thinking process. Without these step by step processes, the designing process is a tea without the leaves.
Without the Design Thinking a designer is unable to relate to the user to design something extraordinary and relatable.
In the end all i’m gonna say is that the design thinking process provides you with the knowledge to put your views through your creativity and helps establish a connection between you and the rest of the world which will last long.
Anyone can become a designer but in order to become a good designer you have to keep patience, be a good listener, communicate with your design. I would also like to know how you implement the design thinking process in your projects and what you did when you were stuck. What points would you like to share with people that helped you a lot.
Your insights can help someone and we would like to share that knowledge with our community.
