JUDITH
ENDERS
The definition of design thinking as a 'way of thinking' first emerged at the end of the 60s and was further developed through Stanford courses on the matter in the 80s and 90s. First employed by architects and urban planners it soon expanded into the realm of business. The term 'design thinking' was made widely popular by IDEO, an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow.
Companies that embrace the principles of design thinking in their innovation processes strive to cultivate a more creative and human-centred company culture. While there exist as many ways of structing the design thinking process as their are designers, all often share a common mindset, embracing certain approaches and values:
What is Design Thinking?
#1 Solution-focussed thinking
Design thinking is a form of solution-based approach that envisions an improved future result. Hence it starts from what is desired in the future rather than the problem. Designers will then look at the present and future to define the parameters and solution as opposed to the scientific approach that first defines all parameters of the problem and then defines the solution. For design thinkers the starting point is the solution.
#2 User-centered approach
At the heart of design thinking are understanding the the needs and wants of the user. Before the emergence of user-centered thinking too many products and services were created without the end-user in mind and hence failed. Design thinkers aim to thoroughly comprehend the user and his context. This can be achieved trough user interviews, repeatedly asking why-questions and creating user profiles.
#3 Fail often and quickly
Thanks to rapid prototyping, bad ideas can be detected soon to avoid losing time and money building a product or service that no one wants. As the design thinking process encourages producing a multitude of producing during the ideation process it is paramount to narrow down and select those ideas that are useful for the user. Through building rough prototypes early on (also called pretotyping) we can detect faults with the idea faster and cheaper. What is pretotyping? Watch this keynote speech by Patrick Copeland at QCon about innovation at Google to learn more.
How can I help you?
I offer workshops in addressing a specific problem at your organization by using design thinking, in Spanish or English. Learn more about workshops here or contact me for more information.