For those new to design thinking, it may surprise you how simple yet impactful this methodology truly is. Design thinking gets its value from its focus on innovation, collaboration, and user-centric solutions. According to experts at Fast Company, “Design thinking describes a repeatable process employing unique and creative techniques which yield guaranteed results — usually results that exceed initial expectations.” This process follows 5 steps that act as a roadmap for whatever type of problem-solving is occurring. Going into this, it is important to understand how much of an impact how you design has on what you design. Fast Company writes, “Although Design is most often used to describe an object or end result, Design in its most effective form is a process, an action, a verb not a noun.” Fast Company

The 5 Steps of Design Thinking

Empathize: At the beginning, the focus is on understanding the user’s needs, emotions, and experiences by observing or asking questions. This deepens the designer’s insight into the problem from the user’s perspective rather than relying on their own intuition. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, “The main aim of the Empathize stage is to develop the best possible understanding of your users, their needs and the problems that underlie the development of the product or service you want to create.” In other words, this is a time for research, reflection, and adding understanding many perspectives as possible with the time given.

Define: The information gathered during the empathy phase is used to discover/articulate the core problem that the design will solve. This will be called the ‘problem statement’. This stage sets the foundation for the product to come to life. 

Ideate: Using the knowledge and perspectives gained from the empathize and define steps, possible solutions to the problem statement are brainstormed. It is important to cast a wide net of solutions during this process. It is important to record every idea, so the best elements can be incorporated into the next step.

Prototype: The best ideas are taken from the ideate period and put in place to create a solution to the problem statement. The concept here is that it is much easier to develop a product that is in a testable state. Prototypes should be low-cost and act as a facade to the real product. It should be the goal to make the prototype as real as possible without sacrificing a large amount of time. 

Test: Prototypes are tested with users to gain feedback and insights. This will not only help refine the product but help ensure that it addresses the problem it is aiming to solve. Although the prototype may be developed in a short period, the users’ experience with the prototype should be taken very seriously and inform further testing.