What is design thinking?

Design is a way of solving problems

Look around you. Take a chair, for example. This seemingly simple everyday object is the result of a great many careful decisions. The height of the seat was chosen so that your feet rest comfortably on the floor. The backrest is tilted at an angle that supports the natural curve of the spine. Every detail serves one purpose: comfortable sitting.

All of this, from a simple chair to complex social systems, came about through deliberate design decisions. It is meant to meet accepted standards and satisfy specific needs. As Nobel laureate Herbert Simon put it, everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. Design therefore goes far beyond the aesthetics, form and styling commonly associated with it. It is a way of solving problems.

When design fails

Paradoxically, the best design often stays invisible: we only notice it when something does not work. Remember that frustrating moment when you stand in front of a door, confidently grab the handle and pull, and the door does not budge. Then you notice the sign: “PUSH”. Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist, an expert in user-centred design and the author of The Design of Everyday Things, made this situation a symbol of design errors. As he stresses, in such a case the mistake is the door’s, because it was badly designed. An object should communicate how to use it through its form alone, with no need for extra signs or labels.

People at the centre

Design thinking grew out of such everyday frustrations: an approach that puts people at the centre of the design process. It is a mindset more than a set of rigid rules (which is exactly why design is followed by thinking). The whole process starts with a simple yet revolutionary question: what does this person really need? Design thinking encourages us to set aside our own assumptions and see the world through someone else’s eyes, noticing obvious needs as well as deeply hidden desires, fears and constraints.

When we design with this awareness, whether it is a waste sorting system, an app that motivates people to exercise or a university class, we create solutions that fit naturally into the way people think and act. Well-designed objects and systems need no manual and no training. They are intuitive and let us focus on the goal instead of the tool. They simply work.

The stages of design thinking

Design thinking starts with a careful study of people’s needs and ends with tested solutions that respond to them. All of this is gathered into an ordered framework of five main stages: discover, define, ideate, prototype and test.

These stages are often shown as the double diamond model, an alternating cycle of divergent and convergent thinking:

• Divergent thinking – looking for many possible ways to solve a problem and looking at the problem from different perspectives. It requires creativity, openness and flexibility. We gather as much information and as many ideas as we can.
• Convergent thinking – looking for the best solution. It requires focus, a methodical approach and attention to detail. We squeeze the most important and the best out of the information and ideas we have gathered.

We begin the first stage of design thinking by widening our perspective. This calls for divergent thinking and curiosity. It is the time, crucial for the whole design process, to discover, explore and understand deeply. Then, in the define stage, we analyse and organise the information gathered so far. By narrowing down and thinking convergently, we name the problem precisely. Equipped with this knowledge, now well organised, we enter the third stage, in which we ideate: we look for ideas that answer a well-defined problem, generating as many as possible and returning to creative, divergent thinking. The next stage narrows our focus once again to a single, best solution. Our aim is to build a prototype that gives the idea a concrete, tangible form, and then to test it to see how the solution works (or could work) in reality. This is the stage in which the creators’ vision is checked by potential users. The design thinking process ends with implementation, that is, putting the solution into practice.

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DiscoverAt this stage we widen our perspective to understand the context and the users’ needs as deeply as possible. This is the time for divergent thinking: gathering information and asking questions instead of looking for immediate answers. The aim is to collect as much data as possible so that we can look at the problem from different angles.

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NeedThe starting point for the whole process is a real need or problem that we want to solve. The key is to set aside our own assumptions and understand what the person whose life we want to affect really needs.

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DefineOnce the data has been gathered, it is time to analyse, synthesise and organise it. At this stage, through convergent thinking, we precisely name the key problem we are going to solve. An accurate diagnosis is the foundation for creating effective solutions

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IdeateIn this phase we return to divergent thinking to generate as many varied ideas as possible for solving the defined problem. At this stage there are no bad ideas, and the aim is to build a broad base of concepts from which we will choose the most promising one.

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PrototypeWe turn the chosen idea into a tangible, simplified form that can be shown and tested. A prototype lets us visualise the solution, give it a concrete shape and gather opinions before we invest time in implementing it fully.

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TestThis is the moment when the prototype meets reality and its potential users. Testing lets us verify assumptions, discover mistakes and gather valuable feedback that will be used to improve the solution in the next iterations.

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SolutionThis is the final result of the whole design process, one that responds to the diagnosed need and has been verified in tests. Implementing the solution is the goal we aim for, turning an idea into a real and valuable change

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IterationThe arrows symbolise the iterative, non-linear nature of the whole process. The stages are loops of corrections and continuous improvement of the solution, more than boxes to tick once. This flexibility lets us return to earlier phases at any moment, for example to generate ideas again after testing, or even to start all over again if we discover that we were solving the wrong problem.

Why does this structure work?

Each stage builds on the previous one. Without discovery, sometimes called “empathy” in the literature, we diagnose the wrong problems. Without defining, we generate ideas that miss the most important needs, pains and gains of the users. Without the ideation stage we build a solution on the first concept that came to mind. Without prototyping we test half-baked, abstract ideas. And without testing we create solutions that will most likely fail to work and fail to solve the problem.

This alternating rhythm of thinking has a clear purpose: it protects us from jumping to solutions too early and keeps us from getting stuck in endless analysis. It echoes the philosophy of fail fast, fail often.

An important feature of design thinking is its iterative, non-linear nature. The five stages are loops of corrections and continuous improvement, more than items on a list to be ticked off once. In a traditional approach, changing direction late in the process means failure and loss. In design thinking it is proof that the process works: that we really listen to users and respond to what they tell us.

An example: Doug Dietz and the MRI scanner

Doug Dietz of General Electric led the team that designed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. After two years of intensive work, once the machine reached hospitals, Dietz wanted to see how it performed in everyday medical practice. The problem showed up almost at once. Dietz noticed a terrified little girl clinging to her parents and soon bursting into tears. After several failed attempts to persuade her to have the scan, the staff called an anaesthetist. Sedating children before an MRI, it turned out, was very common.

Dietz began by getting to know the perspective of his young patients. He met children and paediatricians and listened to their needs. The result? He designed new versions of the scanners that turned the children’s attention away from the examination and towards a wonderful adventure: sailing a pirate ship or flying a space mission. Patient satisfaction rose by 90%. Yet what pleased Dietz most was not the statistics. It was a question one of the girls asked after her scan: “Can we come back tomorrow?”

Design thinking democratises innovation

Design thinking turns out to be a method that, to some extent, democratises innovation. It works without access to costly research laboratories or million-dollar budgets. What it does require is:

• readiness to listen to and observe other people,
• humility about your own assumptions,
• courage to test ideas again and again,
• learning from users.

Wicked problems

Design thinking is especially valuable for so-called wicked problems: problems with no single obvious solution and no fixed boundaries. The method is used in a wide range of fields, from designing technology products and solving business challenges to social issues. The more multidimensional and unpredictable a problem is, the more valuable an approach that puts people at the centre and allows solutions to be improved step by step.

What next?

Anyone can create innovation. At the Design Thinking Lab we support those who want to see it for themselves. Explore our materials.

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Sources
M. Gołębiowska, G. Kwiatkowski, M. Bielicki, Laboratorium Design Thinking. Przewodnik metodyczny dla nauczycieli akademickich (in Polish). H.A. Simon (1969), The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press. D. Norman (2013), The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books. T. Kelley, D. Kelley (2013), Creative Confidence, Crown Business. H. Rittel, M. Webber (1973), Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, “Policy Sciences”, no. 4.