How Design Thinking Will Change the Way You Work (and think…and live…)
Design Thinking is a buzzword. Everyone is doing it, talking about it and writing about it. Organizations claim to be powered by it. But what exactly is it?
What is it?
Let’s begin by saying what it’s not. Design thinking is not about design. Well, not in the way that you’re used to. It’s not just about how something looks, and it’s not exclusive to black turtlenecks and cool glasses.
When we use Design in this context, we’re really talking about designing experiences. A product is an experience, just as much as a service is. Design thinking is the art creative problem solving with a heavy focus on empathy. That’s it. It’s really that simple.
The methodology can become more complex, but it doesn’t need to be. Design thinking workshops and activities always feel a bit like a kindergarten project, and that is intentional. When were you at your most creative? When did you believe anything was possible?
Start with Why? (And why? and why?)
We become cynical over time, especially in our jobs. We are told No so often that we begin to say it to everything, too. It’s easier that way. We lose the fight. We don’t ask why, and we don’t challenge anything. But (I repeat this constantly) if nothing ever changes, then nothing ever changes. How can you expect to be truly innovative if you can’t actually change anything?
Design thinking is about throwing out all the rules, boundaries and conventions. It’s about asking why, and letting anything be possible in the first creative stages. Think again of being in kindergarten. An answer one layer deep just doesn’t satisfy. Ask why. Then ask why, again. And again. (This is called the 5 Why’s, btw).
Broaden the problem for a more innovative solution
Design thinking is also about forming broader questions. Traditional problem solving narrows and narrows our framing a problem so that the solution is the only possible option. But by broadening the question, we leave more room for more innovative solutions. For example: if the problem is that people hate waiting to see a doctor, instead of asking “How can we make people happier while waiting to see a doctor?” we instead would ask “How might we change the experience of visiting a doctor?” Even in this example you see the possibility of bigger and better ideas.
Empathy in Everything
I came to design thinking through my work with startups. I have always felt that forcing user personas from raw data — using market research and assumptions to identify a customer’s behavior or needs — seemed a little insincere. So often these assumptions were invalidated upon product launch. People didn’t buy, or use, or interact the way the numbers suggested they would.
So I began conducting studies that were more ethnographic in nature: studying the customer intimately in an effort to spot patterns, behaviors and struggles first-hand. In doing this, interesting data sets began to emerge, and my clients and I learned so much more beyond the market research through these observations that we were able to apply to the initial product design. This made for more targeted, user-focused design opportunities that ultimately resulted in better designed services and because of that, more successful adoption rates.
It was after participating in a workshop at a conference with the Stanford d.School that I realized what I had been doing had a name: Human Centered Design, or Design Thinking. I instantly devoured everything IDEO and it’s founder David Kelley (considered the patron saint of design thinking) had ever published, growing more and more confident in the power of empathy in service design.
Seeing firsthand how great of an impact a minimal investment in empathetic research could have, I began including this in my offerings to clients and teaching workshops based on this methodology to people in such varied industries. I have received so many incredible testimonials that speak to the power of understanding a customer (or an employee, or a student, or a userbase) and I am always thrilled when that little lightbulb clicks on behind the eyes of someone in my workshop or talk.
Empathetic design is something I am incredibly passionate about (in case you couldn’t tell), and solving problems using empathy always gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Knowing you have delivered a solution so customized to a specific need and pain-point always feels amazing.
