Design thinking is a powerful tool to find solutions to complex problems. Focusing on trying to deeply understand the people affected by a challenge, design thinking uses a multi-perspective, collaborative, and iterative approach to do things better. Due to its effort to eliminate bias and explore new ideas, design thinking can lead to unexpected solutions significantly different from what was expected at the beginning of the problem analysis process. After providing an overview of design thinking and its key steps, this article sets forth some design thinking success stories.
Overview of Design Thinking
The concept of design thinking emerged in the 1970s as a way to solve particularly complex problems that resisted traditional problem-solving approaches. Problems targeted by design thinking are those that were difficult to define precisely, had multiple and interrelated causes, and lacked a clear consensus regarding how they could or should be solved.
Design thinking emerged as a way to solve difficult problems that resisted traditional problem-solving approaches.
Design thinking begins with the assumption that complex problems often contain many unknowns. To address this, design thinking uses a structured approach to gather data, convert a challenge into a frameable problem, explore possible solutions, and then test those solutions in practice. The process is deliberately set up to avoid defining problems in terms of preferred solutions, self-serving solution pathways, and other types of bias.
Design thinking is well-suited for business application because many business problems are complex and multi-faceted and resist easy answers. How to motivate customers to purchase more of a company’s product? How to improve employee work performance? What is the best way to design a go-to-market strategy in a new country? These are questions that depend on multiple, interrelated, and often poorly known or unknown factors. If we rush to apply a pre-conceived solution before understanding the often convoluted roots of a challenge, the probability is high that we will simply end up right where we started.
Design thinking has five key steps.
Stage 1 – Understanding the User Through Empathy
The first component of design thinking, which is at the core of its strength as a problem-solving approach, is empathy. This is key because problem definitions are often highly subjective and miss the real problem. This means not viewing the problem through the lens of how we are inclined to see it, and less yet through the lens of the types of services we provide but understanding the whole nature of the issue from the target person’s or group’s perspective.
To obtain this type of perspective, it is necessary to contact a representative sample of people, conduct interviews with them, and search for issues that may be articulated, as well as hidden frustrations and roadblocks that are not said. What is crucial at this part of the process is trying to avoid biases and obtain as much data as possible that is representative of the targeted group.
One approach that can be useful to understand that problem from a user’s perspective is to build maps that track the user’s experience over the full problem or challenge cycle. For example, a gym may find that many people sign up for gym memberships but cancel memberships after a short period. It might be assumed that people give up due to a lack of motivation. However, the actual reason people give up may have much more to do with other issues, including the gym’s location, how the facilities are set up, how gym members interact with trainers, how progress is recorded and tracked, and available food and beverages.
Stage 2 – Analyzing Data to Define the Problem
The next element of design thinking is trying to make sense of data that has been obtained and define what the problem is. Data science techniques are useful during this stage of design thinking.
Thematic analysis and text mining. The first data science technique that can be used is mining interviews and information for themes that are based on common patterns and text mining for words and phrases that are systematically repeated. This can also be used to group similar words and phrases. For example, if people are questioned about why they quit their gym membership, words and concepts like “location”, “hard to get to”, “out of the way”, “too far” are all variants of the same concept.
Affinity diagramming. Another step that can be taken to make sense of the data is affinity diagramming. In this step, pieces of interviews can be broken down and organized into patterns. For example, instead of treating as a piece of information an interview that contains discussions of three separate issues related to gym membership, these issues can be broken out separately and grouped under different themes.
The next step in the design thinking process is to create a Point of View Statement. This contains three key components.
The end result of the problem definition phase of the design thinking process is to create a Point of View Statement.
Statement of the user. This clearly defines who the user is and their background, behaviors, and any specific characteristics relevant to the problem.
Statement of the need. This describes the user’s critical needs in relation to the problem that is trying to be solved. Needs should be human-centered and expressed as verbs, focusing on actions the user wants to perform rather than specific solutions.
Definition of the insight. This contains a key observation about the user’s situation. The insight should explain why the need is important or what unique, underlying motivation or challenge drives it.
For the gym example, a POV statement could be “A busy gym member needs accessible, supportive, and knowledgeable trainers who understand their unique health and fitness goals so they can feel confident and motivated to maintain their membership and make consistent progress.”
Stage 3 – From the Problem Statement to Possible Solutions
The next part of the design thinking process is the ideation stage. This is where different types of solutions to the defined problem are explored. At this point, a broad set of perspectives should be considered to analyze the problem from different and even counterintuitive directions.
Diverse and even counter-intuitive solutions should be explored during the ideation stage.
One tool that can be used during the ideation stage is “how might we” questions, which are designed to trigger creative ideas about how a problem might be solved. Using the gym member’s challenge as an example, one approach could be for gym members to have a scheduled meeting once a month at the gym café to discuss the person’s progress, satisfaction with the training, and potential changes to the workout program.
This approach has several benefits:
- it could show the gym’s and the trainer’s commitment to the gym member’s fitness journey
- meeting in the café would be a less formal environment where the trainer and the gym member could have an open conversation
- a one-on-one discussion away from the gym floor would be useful for soliciting feedback on the trainer’s approach and the gym member’s progress; and
- it would help build a sense of community in the gym
Stage 4 – Prototyping Possible Solutions
In the prototyping phase, models of possible solutions are built to explore how they would work in real life. Tools that can assist during this part of the process are:
Storyboarding. With the storyboarding process, the journey is set forth from the user’s perspective. Visually depicting each touch point between a targeted user and the solution, a detailed outline is created regarding how users will interact with the solution at each step. Storyboarding is also helpful as a reference point for people with different experiences and perspectives on the team.
In the gym example, storyboarding could go through the whole process of how the trainer would meet with the gym member, ordering healthy beverages, presenting a summary of workouts and progress, listening to gym member feedback, and planning the next steps. These plans could be sent to the gym member digitally to create a continuing record that could be referred to as the training continues.
Mockups. Mockups create tangible representations of physical or digital service components (like an app screen, a kiosk, or a waiting area design). They enable team members and project stakeholders to envision how specific service elements will appear and function, making the abstract ideas more concrete so solution touchpoints can be seen and evaluated more clearly.
Stage 5 – Solution Testing
The next step in the design thinking process is to test a product or solution with real users. At this point, crucial issues can be analyzed: do users understand how the solution works? Can they navigate the solution easily, or are there multiple points where they become stuck? Does it actually solve the problem, or does it lead to new ones? This information can help the design team rethink the solution and, if necessary, overhaul it to work better.
Several approaches can be used during the testing phase.
Usability testing. Usability testing is designed to determine how easily users can navigate and use a product or service. It often involves observing users engaging with the solution to see where sticking and pain points lie and identify possible improvement areas. It emphasizes real user interaction to identify usability issues that might not be obvious to the design team.
A/B Testing. A second approach that can be used in the testing phase is A/B testing. This approach presents two versions of a design or solution (called A and B) to user groups to see how they perform. This helps identify which solution version generates higher engagement rates.
User Feedback Loops: These are mechanisms for collecting ongoing feedback from users, often throughout multiple stages of product development. They help ensure that design decisions align with user needs and preferences over time. Continuous user feedback loops can be implemented via regular testing sessions or feedback features built into the solution.
Surveys: Surveys are structured questionnaires given to users to gather their opinions, preferences, and experiences. Surveys are valuable for collecting quantitative and qualitative data from user groups, providing insights into user satisfaction and needs, and discovering potential areas for design improvements.
Implementation and Scaling
The solution can be implemented and scaled if it works well during the prototyping phase. It is crucial to obtain feedback on the product once it scales so issues that were not identified during the prototyping phase can be discovered and addressed in future solution iterations. It is also essential to keep in mind that solutions are not launched into a world where problems remain fixed. User needs and challenges evolve, and pain points need to be continuously reevaluated to identify customer needs and product functionality gaps and propose new ways to address them.
Design Thinking Success Stories
The following are some design thinking success stories.
Apple. Apple is renowned for using design thinking in creating intuitive, user-friendly products. The iPhone, for example, was designed by deeply empathizing with users’ needs and focusing on simplicity and seamless experiences.
Airbnb. Airbnb used design thinking to create a customer-centric approach. The founders spent time with users to understand their pain points and create a trustworthy user rental experience. An overview of how Airbnb applied design thinking is here. How Airbnb Used Design Thinking To Create A Powerful Brand – The Present Pixel
IBM’s corporate transformation. IBM implemented design thinking to shift its focus from products to services and client-tailored solutions. The company trained employees in design thinking to foster a culture of creativity and innovation across departments. Today, IBM has a comprehensive design thinking framework. IBM Design IBM’s courses on design thinking are currently available for free. Design thinking courses and certifications – Enterprise Design Thinking
Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” Program. Bank of America used design thinking to create the “Keep the Change” program, which rounds up debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference into a savings account. This program was created based on the insight that people wanted to save but found it hard to start. A description of the program is here. Keep the Change® Savings Program from Bank of America
Some other examples of design thinking are found here. A podcast discussing how the Bank of Ireland applies design thinking is found here.
Key Article Points
- Design thinking is a versatile methodology that has been successfully applied across various industries to solve complex problems with elusive solutions
- Its focus on empathy, creativity, and iteration makes design thinking a powerful tool for user-centered solutions and innovation
- By following best practices such as conducting user research, soliciting multiple perspectives when defining problems, prototyping early, and creating feedback loops that extend beyond solution launches, companies can harness design thinking to create breakthrough solutions.
The photo for this article was provided by Manuel Liniger and is available on Unsplash.