Design Thinking

Design is about finding and solving problems, during that process is where the brightest and not so inspiring ideas come from. There are several approaches on how to tackle a problem and it also depends on the problem’s complexity.

Design Thinking is an iterative, non-linear methodology that allows to approach a problem with a different perspective.
It’s generally divided into 5 steps:
- Empathize
- Define
- Idealize
- Prototype
- Test

What is exactly Design Thinking?

It’s a process that seeks to gather more information to discover a more appropriate solution to a problem.

It starts by gathering information about the users, define the problems according to the information gathered, idealize solutions, prototype those solutions and later test them, to gather feedback.

It’s also non-linear, which means that you don’t need to follow a strict formula. If you test something that doesn’t work, you could use that information to prototype a new tool or define a new found problem. It all depends on the information gathered. The information is what dictates the process flow.

By using this process, you’ll identify new alternative solutions that were not initially apparent. Your understanding about the problem will be much more profound.

Don’t forget that this process can be done by one person, or a team of several, which means that the information you gather and share, should be well organized, and written in a clear and precise way. Language sometimes can be a very complex obstacle. This is not supposed to be an academic thesis or a scientific paper. Keep it simple, concise and human friendly.

Be empathic

Remember that empathy is crucial for UX and the best of all, it’s free and will help you with your personal life.

Human beings have different backgrounds, being genetically or cultural different, we feel and interpret feelings in a different manner. Being empathic, is having the ability to ‘see the world through other people’s eyes’. Even if we don’t fully comprehend each other’s, we can still put aside our preconceived ideas and understand that there are differences we cannot understand, but they’re still there. Recognize and respect the differences.

Empathy allows you to understand people’s difficulties, desires and behaviors, to better translate what they mean.

As a designer, you need to gain deeper understand of the people you design for, as well as their environments. You’re not there to judge, you’re there to understand.

You’ll get a different perspective and that will change your view on the whole designing process. Be polite and don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you think you know the answer, you might find something interesting the way the user articulate her answer.

How to tackle a problem?

Problems can be very deceived and complex. A “solution” might not be the right solution, but only a temporary aid. How do we find out which solutions are the best and what is really the problem(s)?

First of all, we must understand the problem and what the real causes behind it are. Also, complex problems tend to be composed by several little problems. Divide and conquer, is a great strategy when facing complex problems (wicked problems).

There are some methods and techniques that can help us out, such as:
- Muddle trough
- Don’t try to tackle the whole problem
- Feedback loop
- Root cause problem ( 5 Whys method)

Now we’ll see how Design Thinking can help us achieve a solution.

Empathize phase

The main goal of the Empathize phase is to better understand your users and set aside your assumptions. You’ll be able to understand their perspectives and needs. Remember that the solutions you’re developing are according to the people that actually use the product / service, not according to what you think how it should be done.

This phase is focused on gathering information about the users by using several different methods.

Here’s a list of common methods used while doing user research:

User Research
- Research Ethics
- Research Biases
- Quantitative Research
- Ethnographic Research (Qualitative Research)
 - 5 Whys Method
 - Field studies
 - Direct observation
 - Contextual inquiry
 - Affinity diagrams
 - User interviews
 - Semi-structured interviews
 - Open-ended questions
 - Conduct interview with empathy
 - Empathy map
 - Thematic Analysis
 - Cultural probes
 - Diary studies
 - Focus groups
 - Survey

After gathering the information, it’s time to make sense of it. One way to make sure you’re developing the idea to the right people, is through the use of Personas.

Define phase

During this phase, you’ll analyze and synthesize the information you gathered during the Empathize phase, in order to define what are the core problems. The problem statement should be made according to the users / personas point of view (POV), in a human manner, so it can be clearly understood through the whole process. Avoid formulating problems according to your own or the company’s perspective. The problem should be formulated according to the user’s needs.

For example:
“We need to get more hosts in our accommodation that are concerned with sustainability.” This phrase, should be reformulated into the user’s perspective, such as:
“Hosts focused on sustainability are concerned with transparent / fair policies, local products / projects, recyclable materials and management of resources.”
By formulating according to the user, you’ll get a much more precise and clear point of view on what are the problems you need to tackle.

During the analysis, breaking down complex concepts or problems into smaller ones, will make it easier to understand each part. You’ll find correlations between data that is important to trace.

Here’s a list of methods used for defining a problem:
- Storyboarding
- User stories
- Reframing
- 2X2 Diagrams
- Customer journey maps
- Card sorting
- Value proposition canvas
- Problem statement POV
- ‘How might we?’ questions
- Stakeholders map
- Competitive analyses
- A/B Testing
- Services blueprint
- Experience maps

Ideate phase

After having a better understand of your users, their needs and the problems that they struggle with, it’s time to generate ideas on how to solve those problems.

This phase is about generating ideas, doesn’t matter if they’re good or not. Those ideas will be putted to the test and their feedback will be important to point out if you’re on the right path of solving the problem. It’s a great time to generate innovative solutions and think for different alternatives. Don’t be judgmental, let the ideas flow, even if they seem crazy at first! Sometimes you can gain more insight from a ‘bad’ idea than actually a logical one.

The process is about generating ideas and then later validate them. This process will grow your understanding of the whole project and you might find alternative solutions that were hard to discovery without such approach.

There are methods for ideation and methods for selecting the best ideas.

Some methods for ideation:
- Brainstorm
- Braindump
- Brainwrite
- Brainwalk
- Challenge assumptions
- SCAMPER
- Mind map
- Sketch
- Storyboard
- Analogies
- Provocation
- Games storming
- Co-creative workshops
- Prototyping
- Worst possible idea
- Ideation sessions

Methods for selecting the best idea:
- Dot voting
- Five categories method
- Bingo selection
- Idea selection criteria
- How | Now | How Matrix
- 6 Thinking hats
- Worst possible idea

After sorting what are the best ideas, it’s time to start prototyping!

Prototype phase

Prototyping is an important phase of innovation, not only allows to test your ideas but will make sure you visualize and better understand them, creating space for alternative solutions that are hard to achieve only by active thinking.

During this phase, you’ll bring your ideas (solutions) to life by making prototypes where your users will be able to interact with.

Prototypes can be physical objects, digital or sketches, but they all serve the same purpose. Allow your users to interact (test) with them and gather information to improve the final solution. It’s usually a cyclical process of prototyping, testing and correcting. They’ll allow you to explore your ideas in a different manner and also conceive tangible presentations to stakeholders.

All of the testing should be done with real users, that were earlier recognized in the emphasize phase. From a business perspective, the feedback from your stakeholders will be valuable.

Depending on the schedule and budget, you can deliver a different prototype solution. From low fidelity prototypes to high fidelity. Both are important and have their advantages / disadvantages.
Low fidelity prototypes are great for quick and cheap testing, where it allows to quickly see if the solution is worth pursuing.
High fidelity prototypes, require time and budget, but the prototype will resemble the final product much better, which makes feedback more valuable for when real users interact with the solution.

There’s no excuse not to prototype, even a simple sketch can bring insight around a solution or even spark new ideas. It can also save you a lot of time involved on a particularly “amazing” solution. What seemed like a great solution, might be a big failure when prototyping.

Is it a feasible solution? How effectively can it be implemented? You have to consider several aspects, such as, technical, financial, legal and so on…

In the next phase, you’ll be testing your prototypes with real users! Don’t be emotionally attached to any idea / solution / prototype. It’s your users’ feelings that counts, not yours.

Here’s a list of several methods that can help you prototype a better solution:
- Low fidelity
 - Sketches
 - Paper prototypes
 - Wireframes
 - Lego prototypes
- High fidelity
 - Digital mockups
 - 3D printed models
 - Coded prototype
- User driven prototypes (to gain insight)
- Prototyping for empathy
- Prototyping to decide between ideas
- Prototyping to test
- Feasibility (technology) / Desirability (humans) / Viability (business)
- Live prototype
- Pilot prototype

Test phase

After gathering information about your users, defining the problems, generating ideas and build prototypes, it’s finally time to test your prototypes.

Trying out your solutions will increase your level of understanding of how people think, behave and feel towards the product / service. That information is so valuable that will most likely lead you to loop back to the previous stages. That’s why Design Thinking is iterative and non-linear. Every time you gather new important information / data, it’ll affect the other stages, even if you already used them. It’s similar to ‘What if today you knew what would happen tomorrow?’ That information will probably change how you perceive and live ‘today’, since you already know what’s going to happen ‘tomorrow’.

During the testing phase, you’ll be focused on gathering as much understanding of the product / service and its users. Remember that this is not an exam or any type of evaluation. Your user should feel comfortable to act naturally. You’re not testing the user, you’re simply paying attention and taking notes on how the user think, behave and feels when interacting with the solution.

Remember that you don’t need to test the whole solution, you can chose what aspect of the solution you want to test.

When doing a usability test, you should follow these steps:
- Plan the test
- Moderate the test
- Gather feedback from the prototypes (low-fi and high-fi)
 - Feedback capture grid
 - I like, I wish, What if
- Write usability test reports

There’s also several different types of tests that you can perform with real users, such as:
- Heuristic evaluations
- Quick & dirty testing
- Lab usability testing
- Contextual usability test
- Remote usability tests (unmoderated / moderated)

You don’t know everything

If you have the opportunity to work with a team, it’ll be much better, since diversity will involve different perspectives, which will end up performing better. You might be a specialist in one field, but complex problems tend to be naturally multi-disciplinary.

Remember the cave rescue that happened in Thailand in the year of 2018? A football team of young boys were trapped in a cave with their coach. When entering the cave everything seemed fine until all of the sudden heavy rainfall began and partially flooded the cave system. They were trapped and could not leave the cave due to the water level. They found a dry place and remained there, hoping someone would save them.

It was a big a rescue, that involved around 10000 people, from expert Thai navy divers, soldiers, police, logistics… Their goal was to pump as much water as possible out of the cave, so the boys could exit safely. But besides several problems such as, the boys not having food or clean water, limited time due to the lack of oxygen, the nonstop raining, there was also a bigger one. Initially the Thai government didn’t wanted any foreign help and tried to solve the problem on their own. What’s wrong with that? They even brought specialized Thai navy divers, where sadly one of them end up dying. The problem is that cave rescuing is extremely complicated, even more when diving. The Thai divers did not had experience in cave diving, which is extremely different from sea diving. It’s such an uncommon activity that there’s not much people around the world doing it, even more when specialized in rescues. What made the rescue successful was when a team of specialized cave divers (foreigns) with decades of experience joined the operation. The knowledge and experience they brought to the team was unreplaceable. They had a complete different perspective of the whole problem, since it was not something ‘new’ to them, as it was to the Thai authorities.

This proves how valuable it is to work with a multi-disciplinary team.

Gathering feedback is a crucial part of Design Thinking.