What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is an iterative process to prototype and test something. This can be a challenge, assumptions, to redefine problems, create innovative solutions or understand users. Use for design thinking the five phases to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.
The five phases:
Design thinking has five stages during the process. It’s a non-linear process, so the phases are not always sequential. The five phases are 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.
The first phase is empathizing. In this phase, you need to research your users’ needs. Gain an empathetic understanding of the problem. Set aside your assumptions about the world. Gain real insight into users and their needs.
The second phase is defining. Mention your users’ needs and problems. Accumulated the information from the empathize stage. Analyze and synthesize the observations. Define after this the core problems that are identified. Create personas to get a better idea of the audience and keep it human-centered.
The third stage is ideating. Generate ideas and challenge assumptions. After gaining information start brainstorming. Think of alternative ways to view the problem.
The fourth phase is prototyping, which starts with creating solutions. Identify the best possible solution. This is the experimental phase, create some inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product or service. This could be a paper prototype, for example.
The last phase is testing, try out the solutions or prototypes. Use the results to redefine some last problems. Because of the iterative process, it is possible to return to earlier stages to make alterations and refinements. Find or rule out alternative solutions.
In conclusion, to understand and address rapid changes in users’ environments and behaviors it’s crucial to develop and refine skills. To address human needs in the modern age, this highly creative process has been further developed.
Design thinking is a valuable tool to solve problems for the users of their products and services. By using design thinking you can focus on what’s most important for users and tackle unidentifiable problems. It’s a new way to meet users’ needs.