Design thinking, or keep calm & Design Thinking

28-09-2023

Do you know what the biblical creation of the world, the discovery of America and the house you live in have in common?

Each was a project – a time-bound, unique and ongoing process that had a clear goal

From darkness and chaos to a paradise land of eternal happiness with perfect beings in six days… No, in this project not everything went according to plan 😊 Just like in Columbus’ famous expedition, because without a GPS it is easy to lose your way even to Trzcianka, let alone to India And although these minor design shortcomings still have far-reaching consequences for humanity today, we would like to look at them as a process. Because in design thinking, it is the path that counts, even if in the so-called in-between time the goal is modified a little.

The essence of a project is that you don’t know the end result, because the challenges you will encounter during the course of the project are much more complicated than you might have thought at the start.

How do you put it together?

There is a method for this that has been getting extremely trendy in the business community and beyond for some time now. We are talking about Design Thinking, a methodology for carrying out solution design processes, where the focus is on the human being, i.e. the user, viewer or customer. It is versatile enough that it will work whether there is a new hoover technology launch to work out, a cat food launch, a travel blog or a handmade scarf shop.

The goal is always to solve a specific user problem.

Aim smart, or be SMART

When it comes to setting a goal, it turns out that it’s not always so simple and obvious, so when defining it, it’s worth using the good old fashioned method from the marketing textbooks, or SMART.

It involves breaking down the objective into its constituent parts according to the acronym:

S - specific & simple. The objective must be specific, but also simple and understandable, the more, the better.
M – measurable. The results you are supposed to achieve must be measurable, otherwise you will not be able to see progress.
A – achievable. It's good to set the bar high, but not so high that you can't reach it, so make the goal realistic so that it is definitely achievable.
R – relevant. The goal should be relevant to you and your audience so that it makes sense to work on it.
T – timely defined. It should be time-bound to help you plan the various stages.

Example

this is what a SMART goal might look like if you want to start making money from your passion for travel:

S – I start a blog where I will publish memories of my travels, photographs and advice for other travellers.
M – I publish at least 4 posts each month and gather a community of at least 300 active blog users.
A – I establish a partnership with at least one sponsor - a publishing house, travel agency or travel equipment manufacturer.
R - it's important to me because I'm pursuing my passion, but I'm also helping others develop their interests and building value that will bring me financial success in the future.
T - I give myself 12 months from launch to get 300 users and my first sponsor.

Ok and what's next?

There are probably questions swirling around in your head right now: how do I know what content on my blog will be of interest, who is likely to become my audience, what language should I speak to them and how do I make money from all this? And this is where Design Thinking comes to your aid.

We have already written about the power of interdisciplinary design teams. If you haven’t read it, be sure to take a look here: On connecting the dots and finding new horizons

Know that both large corporations and small ventures can successfully use the effectiveness of teamwork in Design Thinking processes, especially how they skillfully conduct them and select team members to collide different perspectives, experiences and skills. Even if you don’t have a robust team for a project, you can ask people from your nearest area – family, friends or even neighbours. Every opinion will be valuable to you

What is Design Thinking?

he workflow according to this methodology is structured and can be described in several stages:

Empathisation, or in short, stepping into the shoes of our recipient. We need to feel them well in order to understand what problems they have, what makes them happy and what worries them, what they need, what will make their life more comfortable, and so on. The more thoroughly we work through our persona or personae, the easier it will be to move on to the next stages. All the data we can collect or analyse from questionnaires, interviews, observations, available reports also help here. It is important to remember a very important principle - we all have our own beliefs, and your audience may think in a completely different way to you.
Defining the problem, i.e. we move to the concrete. We draw conclusions from our analyses, conversations with our audiences and determine which direction we should go, what solutions we need and what is most important to our audience. If we conclude that they are looking for the cheapest accommodation options during their travels then pictures of the Hilton hotel in Paris will only annoy them 😊
The most creative one, as it is the generation of ideas, coming up with ideas, searching for ideas, or what is popularly known as brainstorming. What we always emphasise during brainstorming - there are no bad ideas, even from the most bizarre sometimes interesting solutions are created. And no worries - the more, the better. At this stage we go for the number of ideas, which we will then sort through and select the best ones for prototyping.
Prototyping, that means creating a model of the solution to the problem that we can test. You can prototype from anything and in any way possible - a model made of Lego bricks, plasticine, using 3D printers or a board with the navigation of the website outlined.
Testing, which is the stage of seeing how what we have set out for ourselves works. We build more or less advanced prototypes and check with the target audience how they perceive our solution. And whether it is worth implementing.

When reaching a solution, we should always go through these five stages, but not always in a straight line. If we see at the testing stage that the user is confused or does not see the point of the solution, we can always go back to an earlier stage and rework the assumptions or ideas. It may happen, however, that we have not understood the recipient and we need to start again from stage one.

An example from the big world?

Many companies use Design Thinking to develop effective solutions to their product users’ problems, it is important to see what they really are.

Oral B wanted to expand its electric toothbrush model with more features, such as tracking brushing frequency, watching gum sensitivity and playing music.

However, the designers pointed out that brushing teeth is a neurotic activity for many people. Users did not want additional features and, in many cases, felt that they could potentially cause more stress. Instead, they recommended two solutions that could improve the user experience without adding unnecessary gadgets.

The first was to make it easier to charge a toothbrush on the go. The second was to allow toothbrushes to connect to phones and send notifications reminding users to order replacement heads. Both solutions were successful because they focused on what users wanted, rather than what the company wanted to introduce.