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Design Thinking is a kind of thinking based on three key cognition theories

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Design Thinking is a kind of thinking based on three key cognition theories

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When I first heard about Design Thinking, I thought it was a clever rebranding effort by IDEO to charge twice as much for user-centered design. What can I say, I'm an old fart of a designer, and when I read about design thinking, I didn't really see the big whup. And I wasn't alone.

But over time I've discovered that the oft-parodied approach to Design Thinking - a lot of post-its and a lot of prototyping - works better than nearly any other approach to product and service innovation.

Distributed Cognition

Expertise Thinking

Iterative World Modeling

Why?

Do designers truly think in a different way?

The key is the word "thinking." I want to make an argument that Design Thinking is a kind of thinking based on three key cognition theories:

Let me break each of these ideas down:

Distributed Cognition

Distributed Cognition (or embodied cognition) is the most current understanding of how cognition works. It states that rather than thinking only with our brains, we think with our environments.

For example, imagine you are playing scrabble.

Making information modular so it can be manipulated (tl;dr put data on post-its so you can rearrange it)

Modeling existing and proposed systems via sketching. Mindmaps and storyboards are two examples.

Prototyping potential solutions for understanding and evaluation. This can be as simple as bodystorming or as complex as 3D printing.

Move memory out of your head into the world, freeing up processing power.

Allow you to see connections and relationships you can't easily visualize in your head.

Create a shared understanding for teams. Now your team can be part of that distributed world you think with.

What if you couldn't rearrange the tiles? Would this slow you down? Would you make lower scoring words?

Any scrabble player would tell you yes. Any poker or bridge player would tell you they always arrange the cards in their hands to support their strategy. Anyone doing long division would prefer to do it with a pencil and paper than in their head. A designer trying to understand how to organize content would prefer to do it with post-its. (or index cards. As long as it's modular.)

When you see a workshop teaching Design Thinking, it usually leverages three easy-to-learn distributed cognition tools:

All of these Design Thinking techniques are distributed cognition techniques that:

Distributed cognition is a very simple idea: Thinking with your brain and objects in the world is not a better way to think; it's natural. Humans aren't just tool users. We are tool thinkers.

Distributed cognition helps everyone think better. Agile Practitioners use kanban boards as a combination memory enhancer and strategy accelerator. My financial planner just had me create a mindmap to see where my money is and where it goes. Getting Things Done demands you move your task lists out of your head and onto paper so you can think through harder problems. These are all distributed cognition strategies.

Knifework. If you take a knife skills class, you begin to understand that knives cut, but they also saw, slice, smash, poke and more. The knife becomes an extension of your body (called a transparent instrument in the literature.)

Managing Fire. Sure you can put a pan on the fire, but you can also make it into a steamer, a oven, or even offset it to create hot spots and cool.

Ingredients. A chef knows how to make poor ingredients taste nice, how to show off great ingredients, and how to combine ingredients into flavor profiles that evoke Japan, Mexico or Italy.

So if everyone uses distributed cognition, what makes Design Thinking Design Thinking?

Context analysis: Interviews, empathy, contextual inquiry, listening sessions, diary studies as all tools for getting a fresh understanding of the context in which one will be designing. And there are way more.

Sensemaking: When you have too many ideas, too much information, how do you find insights? Well, there are always Post-its. See Needfinding for Disruptive Innovation.

Idea generation. Mature designers know that even if your first idea is brilliant, you'll never know unless you come up with 20 more. Sprints and Charettes are techniques for finding and refining potential solutions.

Product definition: Conceptual models, sitemaps, flowcharts, wireflows, use cases, user stories... so many ways to ask engineers to "build this."

Idea Validation. Part of thinking with the world is working with the world of users. From participatory design to usability testing, effective designers find ways to evaluate the quality of their thinking with the people who really pay the bills: customers

Design Thinking as Expertise Thinking

We all use the world as an extension of our mind. As we do so, we get better at it. We discover tools and develop techniques, and we get higher and higher returns as we get better at these tools. Different professions use different approaches, and thus develop different ways to think about a given problem.

For example, let's call the way that chefs work, Chef Thinking( TM). Chefs have a class of problems (preparing food) and a body of skills to combine into a set of solutions. Three of the key ones:

Chefs also have standard methodologies, like mise en place or the brigade. Over time, a chef does not have to look up what spice to use, or how to bone a fish. She is only thinking about how to use the salmon before it goes bad, and the techniques to do so are invisible to her conscious mind. After I went to culinary school, knife and fire became extensions of myself. I can open any fridge and cook something. Hunger is a problem I solve with Chef Thinking(TM).

Let's return to design thinking. Over time designers have built up their own body of approaches to solving classes of problems. While architecture and graphic design are almost as old as cooking, interactive product design is emergent and thus pretty untidy. But here are a few classes of problems and collections of how designers solve them:

Look closely at my list and you'll see it maps to the d.School's definition of Design Thinking (more or less.) The diagram looks facile, but each hexagon represents huge bodies of experiential learning.

For example, a non-designer "ideates" by thinking up an idea.

1. Modeling the world as it is.

2. Modeling the world as it could be.

A designer thinks up dozens, exploring the good, the bad and the weird, sketches them, combines them, critiques them, refines them, develops them, remixes them and only then moves on to prototyping them. It's the same for Define or Test. Each one of those hexes represents a dozen techniques and years of practice.

Young designers fresh from school are equipped with a subset of these tools, but it takes time to gain mastery. As you can see by the list above, there are a LOT of ways to solve problems, and part of being an expert is knowing which tools to use when to get the best result.

Sure you can take a weekend workshop on design thinking or knifeskills, and it will help you be better at what you are trying to accomplish. But only practice turns those skills into a habit, then a transparent instrument, and finally give you the mastery you need to solve wicked problems.

Iterative World Modeling

A long time ago, when I was a manager of a team of 80 designers at Yahoo!, I wondered, "what is design's unique capability?" What did design do for the business that product management, research, marketing and engineer couldn't? I decided it was

"Design makes ideas tangible so that they can be understood and evaluated before committing them to reality."

Design work is two kinds of world modeling work:

Designers create mental models and system models to document the current state of their corner of the world. Designers model both the object of the design challenge and the ecosystem it resides in. Design Thinking is Systems Thinking. Then designers make concept models, site maps, flow diagrams and more to model the future desired state. (I've written a lot on working with models.)

Designers don't necessarily build that new version of the world - engineers, contractors, printers and many others play their parts - but they do show the path forward for change. This is more powerful than most realize. I have seen a executive look at a mock and suddenly see a path forward for his company. I've seen an engineer say, "that's not feasible," and the exec reply, "But it's right there." The exec saw it, and now must have it. And it gets made.

Seeing really is believing.

Because models work to well for both understanding and planning, senior designers, such as Dave Gray, often use them to design organizations as well as products. Business strategists such as Alex Osterwalder and lean startup coaches such as David Bland create models in order to create understanding and lead change.

A prototype (see the hexes) is just a higher fidelity model. It is still a cheaper-than-making-the-real-thing way to understand and evaluate. A prototype is a way to see the future and judge if it's worth building.

When designers model the world as it is, they create understanding.

When they model the world as it could be, they create inspiration.

To think like a designer is to see the world as it is, and find a path forward to what it could be.

Design Thinking as a Way

As tech matures, approaches to creating digital product and services are emerging. Agile helps engineers build the right things at the right time. Lean Startup helps business owners build the right things at the right time. These techniques are not only successful, but transferable. People do stand-up with their families, they publish books using lean, even approach Thanksgiving dinner as if it were an engineering project. Agile and Lean Startup aren't just methodologies; they are a way to work through complex systems toward a desired result.

Design Thinking has recently been adopted by the Lean and Agile communities as another way to build the right thing at the right time. There has been some anxiety from old fart designers (ok, like me) that product managers and business owners will take a design thinking class and think they are designers. I haven't seen that. What I've seen is a greater desire for design literacy - including learning how to use Design Thinking - and that leads to a greater desire to hire designers. (Your mileage may vary. I'm sure there will be plenty of responses to the contrary.)
Sign up to be notified when my new book on Design and Visual Thinking comes out. Thanks to Karl Fast who had many many conversations with me on this topic. Watch his talk (embodied cognition and distributed cognition are closely related. Or possibly the same. It's unclear.)
Design Thinking is not design, no more than Agile is engineering or Lean is business management.
Design All The Things
Everyone should learn Agile, but engineers still write the code.

Everyone should learn Lean, but business people and product managers still design the business model (and solve pricing, and do customer acquisition, and sales, and watch metrics, etc etc. I know you're tired.).

Everyone should learn Design Thinking. But also remember that a mature designer has the mastery - the expertise - to effectively envision the world as it could be, and make a plan for how to get there.

As Design Thinking gains greater acceptance as a powerful tool for innovation, I think we'll see more people who are design literate. They will understand both Design Thinking and Design Doing: what it takes to design something great. And they'll realize it's hard, and takes training and practice.

When companies become design literate, they'll use design thinking to solve problems such as improving team dynamics or coming up with a product line extension. Design Thinking is a terrific approach for coming up with viable ideas for innovative improvement. But design itself is much more.

Design is the art of the making the complex clear, the disordered ordered, the unusable usable. So when companies run into a truly intractable challenge such as a complex tool menu that needs sorting out, or integrating an algorithm that doesn't make sense to users, or finding a market application for a crazy bit of new technology... the first they'll want to do is a hire a good designer.

Also, here is my talk on what Design Thinking is, and why we should use it on harder problems than just product design.

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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Design Thinking

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In recent years, design thinking has becoming an increasingly common buzzword in many different sectors, including education. Over the past few months we have been working to refine a design thinking model for educators to use in the classroom. We did this because we believe design thinking is a powerful way to build students' skills. Here's three reasons why:

At its heart, design thinking is about creativity and critical thinking. That's two of the four key learning skills identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning. If students work on problems in groups, this brings in communication and collaboration too.

The type of the exercises students do in design thinking let teachers stretch them beyond what they would normally do in the classroom - into Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.

Working on real problems using authentic tools to arrive at meaningful solutions casts students in the role of 'little scientists', 'little engineers', and so on. By encouraging them to take on these roles, design thinking deepens their engagement and accelerates their learning.

Tim Brown is the CEO and president of IDEO, an innovation consultancy which has been evangelising design thinking for years. He describes it as "a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for ... success." Importantly, design thinking is just as concerned with 'problem finding' as it is with 'problem solving'.

Brown and his colleagues at IDEO have not only built a robust model for design thinking over the years, they have also retooled it for educators wanting to innovate. At the same time, the Institute of Design at Stanford University (better known as d.school) has also developed a range of open source design thinking tools and their own initiative to foster innovation in education.

If you search for diagrams of the design thinking process online you'll find plenty. Most are made up of about five stages. Some emphasise the blend of divergent and convergent thinking, others the iterative nature of the process. Invariably they will highlight the need to understand and empathise with the audience you are designing for, and the importance of building and testing prototypes as part of the design process.

As a human-centred, solutions-focused approach to creativity and innovation, design thinking has much to offer the primary of secondary classroom. However, the process as described by IDEO and d.school doesn't necessarily feel like a good fit in several ways. Firstly, it's relatively complex, particularly for younger kids. It also involves lengths of time that may not be feasible. It asks for a deep engagement with the real world that isn't always be possible. It relies heavily on written content, making it hard for students still building literacy skills to focus on the challenge. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, some of the key parts of design thinking come naturally to kids. Working with adults, facilitators will often encourage them to 'think like children', letting go of unnecessary constraints and inhibitions.

Given all of this, we wanted to create a process for design thinking specifically tailored to school students. A process that simplified the design thinking model, and focused on the elements that kids could learn the most from. We wanted to emphasise the 'what if' aspect of innovation, and the pragmatism of solution-focused thinking. We wanted to encourage students to be comfortable outside their comfort zone, and to experience the 'learning through failure' that comes from prototyping. We wanted to scaffold 'researching for empathy', and to challenge kids to see beyond their first attempt through multiple iterations of a solution. Our belief is that design thinking can provide an approach that does all of this.

The heart of our design thinking model for kids is a three-stage process: LEARN, IMAGINE, MAKE. At the beginning of a project, only the general area to be explored is defined. By the end of the LEARN stage a clear problem is identified, phrased as 'how can we...?' By the end of the IMAGINE stage a solution has been identified, and the MAKE stage uses prototyping and testing to refine that solution.

Students might work through all three stages in one session, or each stage might be tackled as an individual lesson. There are numerous different exercises that can be used in each stage, depending on the nature of the project and the available resources. The process map we created for high school students explicitly discusses the different stages, and gives examples of some of the exercises.

For younger students we wanted something simpler, more immediately engaging, and less reliant on conceptual language. The reverse of the process map provides a simpler narrative - while it has more 'steps', each is made up of a single, straightforward exercise. Obviously, once familiar with the process, teachers may which to drop in different exercises with younger students too.

There are two ways we envisage teachers running design thinking projects in their classroom. The first is individually, where each student pursues their own research and develops their own inventions - though there will be many opportunities to share with classmates throughout the process, such as testing each other's inventions. The second way is in groups of three to six students, where each group collaboratively identifies a problem, then a solution, finally building and testing a shared prototype.

Regardless of which approach is taken, the teacher will guide the class through the three stags of LEARN, IMAGINE and MAKE. The remainder of this article touches on some of the exercises that make up each stage.

The first stage is all about finding a problem. Most of the time students are given very specific problems to solve, so for many this can be quite a challenging - but hopefully liberating - stage. The key to design thinking is designing 'for' an audience - understanding the behaviours and needs of another group, empathising with them, and developing a solution that they will benefit from.

The most obvious way to get an understanding of the world from someone else's perspective is through observation. Sometimes you might be able to go and look at a real environment, other times you may need to engineer things to observe. The key with observation is to really take the time to look, and make note of what you see.

Drawing is an excellent way of documenting observations, particularly for younger children who are more comfortable drawing and perhaps annotating than simply writing. They might draw a scene, or an object. Perhaps a process might be better captured in a storyboard or a flowchart. Spatial observations might be represented best on a map of some sort, and so on. There is no reason to be limited to one type of drawing. A visit to the zoo may produce sketches, maps, process flows and much more.

Creating a persona is a great way to encourage children to think explicitly about the intended audience. A persona can be as simple as a sketch of a typical 'user' of the solution accompanied by some notes about them and about their relationship with the topic area.

Conducting interviews is a fun way to inform a persona, or just to capture interesting insights about a topic. It can be very powerful to actually interview someone you want to design a solution for. If that's not possible, kids can interview friends or classmates who are playing the role of a typical 'user'. Even with relatively little preparation it's amazing how many useful observations can come from a role-play interview.

Design thinking places lots of emphasis on gaining insights from real world exploration. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with doing some ' desk research ' too.

Personal experience can also be one of the most powerful tools in gaining an understanding of an area and uncovering useful insights. While there might not always be the opportunity to ' get hands on ', if there is it's always a catalyst for a deeper level of thinking.

There are a number of techniques by which information gathered in these ways can be captured and shared. A mindmap is a simple, useful tool for capturing thoughts about a topic, and helping kids to explore associated ideas. Make a pros and cons list of all the 'best' and 'worst' parts of an experience, environment, product or topic helps students appreciate the perspective of the audience they are focusing on.

To create possible challenges, students review the most interesting and provocative learnings that have been uncovered. They think about the biggest pain points - where is there a demand for better solutions? We want them to capture a challenge clearly and succinctly, which they do by writing it as a question in the form "How can we...?"

Having clearly articulated their challenge, students move on to the IMAGINE stage. This is the part most usually associated with invention and innovation. There are some simple tools and exercises that can help us come up with ideas - from the straightforward to the totally unexpected.

One of the simplest exercises is ' first idea' which encourages kids to write down the first solution that comes into their head, no matter how straight-forward, expected, boring, or impractical it is. Another is ' crazy idea ' where they come up with ideas that are ridiculous, extreme, foolish, inappropriate, irresponsible. Neither of these usually produce final solutions, but they are useful provocations. Using a crazy idea as a starting point, students might evolve it to be more sensible, for example.

Perspective exercises encourage kids to come up with ideas by pretending to be someone different, with a different point of view. Analogy exercises draw inspiration from how similar problems have been addressed in other contexts.

A quick draw gets kids to draw lots of solutions in a short space of time. It's a great way of avoiding some of the natural over-thinking we do.

As a result of these types of creative thinking exercises, students develop a range of possible solutions. They then need to look at them critically and identify the one they thing has the most potential. There are lots of wonderful resources for more creative thinking tools, including Edward De Bono's 'Serious Creativity' and Michael Michalko's 'Thinkertoys'.

Having captured an idea on a piece of paper, it's time for the MAKE stage. Making is an important part of the process for two reasons. Firstly, actually building a prototype of the solution can be a powerful way of further refining the idea, bringing up new questions and possibilities. Secondly, finding ways to test the prototype can provide invaluable feedback to improve the idea.

Prototyping can be done using anything, from simple cardboard boxes to interactive electronic components. The key is to create a prototype that allows people to experience what it might be like to use the solution.

Not all ideas can be easily built as physical objects. Some ideas are better explored, tested and refined through ' paper prototypes '. This is particularly true of processes and digital interfaces.

Getting real people (actual 'users') to test a solution is a great way to get real feedback that can help kids assess and improve their ideas. Where this is not possible, friends or classmates can roleplay and still provide surprisingly insightful learnings.

Many kids will get to the the end of making their solution and be ready to move onto the next thing. One of the biggest possible benefits of design thinking is developing sustained focus and resilience. Encourage kids to learn from the process of prototyping and testing, and to work at improving their idea.

Many of the tricks to running a great design thinking project will come with practice and experience. Having said that, here are a few useful tips to keep in mind.

Stuff inspires. Having interesting stimulus around can be enormously helpful in all stages. This can be anything from from multimodal research material to eclectic craft materials for prototyping.

While it's important to let kids do their own research and develop their own ideas, don't be afraid to lend your own experience and collaborate with them.

Be explicit. Share the process with the kids, and help them understand the way they are moving through it. This gives them greater insight into their own working practice and helps them evolve good work habits.

We hope that you find the idea of design thinking in the classroom as exciting as we do. If you're interested in implementing the process described here you are welcome to download PDFs of our process maps for primary and secondary, and facilitator's guide.

You can purchase a lovely printed copy of guide along with two process maps for a very reasonable AU$20 plus postage. We'd love to hear your thoughts about the approach, or perhaps answer any questions you have, so drop me an email or start a conversation below.

Brett is the executive director of The Schoolhouse Centre for Progressive Education. He was executive producer of TEDxYouth@Sydney, and last year was recognised as one of four global winners of the prestigious Cannes Chimera award for creativity in the service of social endeavour. Brett holds a Masters in Teaching (Primary) and a Masters in Public Communication.

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In recent years, design thinking has becoming an increasingly common buzzword in many different sectors, including education. Over the past few months we have been working to refine a design thinking model for educators to use in the classroom. We did this because we believe design thinking is a powerful way to build students' skills.

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STEAM BY DESIGN: HOW MIGHT WE USE DESIGN THINKING TO NURTURE CREATIVE CONFIDENCE IN A MAKERSPACE?

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STEAM BY DESIGN: HOW MIGHT WE USE DESIGN THINKING TO NURTURE CREATIVE CONFIDENCE IN A MAKERSPACE?

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'Creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status' - Sir Ken Robinson

As the Maker Movement continues to gain momentum there has been an increase in the development of Maker communities both online and in the physical world. Community-orientated Maker Hubs, TechShops, Fab Labs and Maker Faires have popped up in cities and suburbs all over Australia to provide tech enthusiasts, tinkerers and urban creatives innovative places to connect with like-minded people, to share and explore mechanical tools, electronic hardware and programming techniques. It is in these places that Makers are developing innovative, creative and entrepreneurial skills that will serve them well in the workforce and beyond such as developing start-up accelerators and tech incubators.

Motivated by the potential of the Maker Movement to develop creativity and innovation, schools have embraced the best learning principles of the Maker Culture to design collaborative learning spaces called Makerspaces. A Makerspace is a virtual and physical space that serves as a community hub for the Maker Movement in education. It is a flexible learning environment where learners can connect, create, collaborate, communicate and potentially explore the elements of a newly integrated discipline, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and maths) through experiential play. A unique feature of a Makerspace is the potential for accessibility to tools and technology such as 3D printing, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computing, programming languages and networks of experts that may otherwise be unavailable in a traditional classroom.

A significant point to consider here is that STEAM is not a mandated key learning area or a program but rather a new discipline where content knowledge, skills and values from a range of key learning areas are interwoven and multilayered in a way to reflect the nature of real world, interdisciplinary problems. It is through a new discipline like STEAM that students are able to develop the capacity to think creatively, innovate solve problems and acquire entrepreneurial skills that are immediately applicable in the real world. Industry experts driving the National Innovation Agenda believe this new way of teaching and learning will also help Australia stay competitive by cultivating creativity and experimentation among future Australian entrepreneurs whose innovative products will give the country an edge in the global economy.

In his book 'The Global Achievement Gap', Dr Tony Wagner identified seven essential skills required by students for careers, continuous learning and citizenship in the global economy. These included critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks, initiative and entrepreneurship, agility and adaptability, effective communication skills, the ability to access and analyse information and more importantly curiosity and imagination. He stated that curiosity and imagination are undoubtedly wellsprings of innovation and without these innovation is limited if not impossible. During his time researching what is required to be an Innovator for his latest book, 'Creating Innovators', Wagner further identified essential qualities of innovators such as perseverance, a willingness to experiment, take calculated risks, tolerate failure and the capacity for 'design thinking', in addition to critical thinking.

Tom & David Kelley (The Kelley Brothers) from IDEO and the d.school Stanford describe design thinking as a way of finding human needs and creating new solutions using the tools and mindsets of designers. According to IDEO, Design thinking relies on the natural- and coachable- human ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional. This methodology is used in the d.school Stanford where seven hundred students attend courses each year to develop confidence in their creative abilities. Project-based classes are team taught with the help of industry practitioners in flexible learning spaces and students learn by solving real-world challenges usually in multidisciplinary teams.

Drawing from their experiences at IDEO and the d.school the Kelley Brothers in their new book 'Creative Confidence' share ways they innovate routinely with design thinking in order to unleash creative confidence. According to the Kelley Brothers, creative confidence is a way of experiencing the world that generates new approaches and solutions. They claim people who possess creative confidence have a greater impact on the world around them because they make a choice to be creative and practice creativity often. Psychologist Robert Sternberg who researches creativity and leadership confirms that creative people do this by redefining problems in new ways to seek out solutions, take sensible risks and accept failure as part of the learning process, confront obstacles when challenging the status quo, tolerate ambiguity when they are unsure and continue to seek new ways of knowing. A prerequisite for achieving creative confidence is the belief that your innovation skills and capabilities are not set in stone. In essence, people with creative confidence possess what Carol Dweck calls 'a growth mindset'.

Design thinking in the Australian Curriculum: Technologies, involves the use of strategies for understanding design needs and opportunities, visualising and generating creative and innovative ideas, planning, and analysing and evaluating those ideas that best meet the criteria for success. Design processes require students to identify and investigate a need or opportunity; generate, plan and realise designed solutions; and evaluate products and processes.

As a response to the call for creativity and innovation in education, schools are tinkering with Makerspaces to facilitate non-traditional interdisciplinary learning experiences that inspire creative confidence in their students. In a time of high accountability, new curriculum and sophisticated learning expectations for students, there is a need to deepen learning in a Makerspace to ensure the rigour and authenticity of the academic process.

There are a number of ways you can use the Design thinking method to structure meaningful STEAM learning experiences in your Makerspace projects. A simple method developed by IDEO for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is called 'Design Thinking for a Day' which was developed primarily for libraries as a mindset and method to innovate their learning spaces and experiences This design thinking model has three sequential phases: Inspiration, Ideation and Iteration; it is a simple way to spark creative confidence as a beginning design thinker.

Inspiration is about framing a design challenge and discovering new perspectives on the opportunity through listening, observing and being open to the unexpected. I have a challenge. How do I approach it? As the first phase of design thinking, it is important to frame design challenges as questions. Phrasing projects in "How Might We" questions puts students in the mindset of arriving at impactful solutions, it also helps them generate as many ideas as possible along the way. Be mindful of not asking questions that are too broad or too narrow. It is during this time that students will define the challenge, identify a user group and a problem that needs to be solved. If you want students to create new and innovative solutions, you need to find new ways to inspire them. Some activities which may evoke interest and empathy include immersion in different environments or content material, conducting interviews, surveys, observational videos, sketching and sharing of these experiences. Giving students time to reflect on their learning here is key. Questions to consider may include; What surprised you, and what was unexpected? What or who inspired you? Did you see any interesting patterns? Have students write down or sketchnote takeaways and themes from what they saw in the world.

Ideation is about generating ideas and making them tangible. I've learnt something. How do I interpret it and express my ideas? This is the next phase of design thinking, when you use Brainstorming to generate a lot of new ideas in order to create a design solution. Brainstorming rules are important because they allow everyone in the group to have creative freedom. Effective brainstorm rules include; defer judgement of good/bad ideas, encourage wild ideas, build on the ideas of others, stay focused on the topic, hold one conversation at a time, be visual by sketching ideas on post it notes and aim for quantity.The best way to find one good idea is to come up with lots of ideas. Have your students come up with 50 ideas in 10 minutes. Once students select their favourite idea they can bring this idea to life by building a prototype. The purpose of a prototype is get an idea out of their head and into the world, so that other students and collaborators can react to it and start a learning conversation. Ways of prototyping may include building a model using a range of everyday art and craft materials found in your makerspace; designing a digital mock up; role play or a change in the physical environment.

Iteration is about continual experimentation based on user feedback. I have a prototype. How do I test it with users to and refine it? The third phase of the design thinking process is for students to present their prototype to the intended user and their peers for constructive feedback. Some questions students may ask include; What excites you about this idea and why? If you could change one thing what would you change and why? What would you like to improve about this idea? What do you not like about this idea? With these responses in mind students are given opportunities to continue prototyping different iterations of their idea or product. This cycle of feedback/feedforward can be repeated several times until the student is satisfied with the final idea.

As Maker Educators we are often seeking ways to nurture learning that is fueled by intellectual and imaginative curiosity, deep optimism, resilience to accept repeated failure and a mindset that encourages not just ideas but action in order to construct modern knowledge. Effective learning in a Makerspace must be characterised by thinking that is purposeful and productive sparked by experiential play and passion. By using Design thinking in a Makerspace environment students have the potential to become more confident and autonomous problem-solvers and creative thinkers.

design thinking education Innovation makerspace STEAM Technology

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STEAM by Design: How Might We Use Design Thinking to Nurture Creative Confidence in a Makerspace? - #aussieED

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'Creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status' - Sir Ken Robinson As the Maker Movement continues to gain momentum there has been an increase in the development of Maker communities both online and in the physical world.

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This curated column is by Author, Speaker, Organizational Designer, Jeff Gothelf

There's an unforgettable scene in my favorite movie, Goodfellas, where Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta pay a late night visit to Pesci's mom. Despite their best efforts to leave quickly she invites them to eat something.

During the late-night meal, they discuss a painting in her kitchen. The painting is of a man with two dogs:

After passing the painting around, Pesci utters one of the most memorable lines of the movie when he remarks about the painting, "One dog's going one way. One dog's going the other way. And this guy's saying, 'Hey, what do you want from me?'"

I recently had a similar, albeit less "Goodfellas", experience with a client of mine. In a conversation prepping for an upcoming workshop they said to me, "Our tech teams are learning Agile. Our product teams are learning Lean and our design teams are learning Design Thinking. Which one is right?"

The question of which one is "right" came about because the seemingly competing trainings put the various disciplines on different cadences, with different practices targeting different objectives. The collaboration, shared understanding and increased productivity they were all promised was nowhere to be found.

This is not the first company where I've come across this challenge and it's not surprising. The productization of Agile adoption along with increased interest in Lean Startup in the Enterprise and Design Thinking has led various coaches and trainers to focus narrowly on one of these ideas and then market their services to the audience they believed was most likely to buy. Well-meaning managers trained their teams within their discipline and never thought to look beyond because their new coaches never suggested it.

The net result? Confusion at best. Chaos at worst. Teams that were supposed to start building trust through cross-functional collaboration were now at odds about how to start, who does what and what their ultimate goal was. Tech teams were focused on increasing velocity. Product teams focused on reducing waste. Design teams wanted lengthy, up front research and design phases to help discover what the teams should work on. Very quickly they found themselves pulling away from each other, as opposed to collaborating more effectively.

Their managers were left like the Goodfellas painting - one team going one way, one team going another way and the manager in the middle saying, "Hey, what do you want from me? (I trained them in modern methods.)"

There are valuable components of each of the various processes teams are trying out these days. As an organization seeking to leverage the benefits of continuous improvement and a software-based service offering your job is to pick and choose the elements that work well for your teams and the brand values you're trying to convey. In my practice I've found that a few core practices are a good place to start. I recommend:

1. Working in short cycles  - take small steps, try something new and see how it works. If it fails, you've invested very little. If it succeeds, keep doing it and improving on it.

2. Hold regular retrospectives  - at the end of each cycle, review what went well, what didn't go well and vow to improve one or two key things.

3. Put the customer at the center of everything  - if you're struggling to get alignment as a team, focus on customer value. How do we know we're shipping something users care about? How do we find out? How does that affect what we prioritize? These are good questions to ask on a regular basis.

4. Go and see  - regularly walk around, talk to your teams, ask them what's working and where they're struggling. Bring those learnings back to your management meetings and share with your colleagues. Patterns that yield good outcomes should be amplified. Those that are causing problems should be remedied.

At the end of the day your customers don't care whether you're agile, lean or practice design thinking. They care about great products and services that solve meaningful problems for them in effective ways. The more you can focus your teams on these things the better their process will be.

This is a curated post. The statements, opinions and data contained in these publications are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of iamwire or its editor(s). This article was originally published by the author here.

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This curated column is by Author, Speaker, Organizational Designer, Jeff Gothelf There's an unforgettable scene in my favorite movie, Goodfellas, where Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta pay a late night visit to Pesci's mom. Despite their best efforts to leave quickly she invites them to eat something.

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10 Things That Happen When Students Engage in Design Thinking

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10 Things That Happen When Students Engage in Design Thinking

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John Spencer

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John Spencer

Posted on November 8, 2016

In a recent post, I wrote about why I want to see students become innovators:

Unfortunately, the system isn't designed for innovation. For years, schools have been stuck in a one-size-fits-all factory model, where students passively consume content. Some people will point out that this model is outdated. However, I would argue that factory education was a bad idea from the start. Because here's the thing: kids aren't widgets.

While one-size-fits-all works great for socks, it's not ideal for minds. Kids need to dream and wonder and imagine. They need to design and build and tinker. This is why I love design thinking. It's a flexible framework that guides students through specific phases in the creative process.

What happens when kids become design thinkers?

The following are some of the benefits I have noticed when kids engage in design thinking.

1. They move from engaged to empowered. Design thinking honors student agency, because they are the ones asking the questions, doing the research, generating ideas, and creating the final product. When they own the creative process, they own their learning.

2. They become problem-solvers. Real problem-solvers. The kind of problem-solvers who actually create the solutions. It's not always easy. It can take time. Sometimes they get frustrated by all the mistakes. But by the end, they view themselves as problem-solvers - and this is the kind of self-concept that continues outside of school.

3. They grow more empathetic. Design thinking begins with a place of humility. You aren't just making something. You are making something that serves an audience. This requires deep empathy. It might be a service project or a product or something you are publishing. Each approach requires a different kind of empathy. If this happens in a culturally responsive way, students can also learn cultural humility.

4. They remain curious. Design thinking begins with this sense of wonder and curiosity. It honors this natural desire to explore and to ask tons of questions. Too often, students internalize the idea that learning is all about answering questions. However, design thinking reminds us that learning begins with inquiry.

5. They learn how to work collaboratively. Traditional school work requires students to be dependent on their teacher as the source of all information. Individualized learning shifts to independence. But design thinking teaches students to work interdependently, balancing the needs of the group with the need for personal expression.

6. They view themselves as makers. By sharing their product with the world, they participate in a global community of creativity. They can also share their creative journey in what Austin Kleon describes as "showing your work." In the process, they are more likely to appreciate the creativity around them.

7. They value the diversity of creative mindsets. Here students experience a bigger definition of creativity. In design thinking, students might be hacking a system, solving a problem, engineering a solution, tinkering, tweaking a process, testing ideas, gathering data or dreaming up new ideas. In the process, they learn to value the creative mindsets of everyone around them.

8. They learn the power of creative constraint. For all the talk of "thinking outside the box," this is a chance for students to learn how to "think inside the box," working with specific limitations as they prototype. Here, they learn that limitations are often the very design features for their finished work.

9. They see the value of iterations. Too often, students are punished for getting the wrong answer. They are stuck in grading systems where they get an average on their scores. With design thinking, they have an entire phase devoted to refining their work. This doesn't mean they don't need to have any deadlines, but it does mean they have the time and the permission to keep working on a product until they are ready to send it to an authentic audience.

10. They become creative risk-takers. Design thinking encourages students to engage in creative risk-taking at every stage. In the research phase, students can engage in divergent thinking, learning that every question matters. In the ideation phase, they get over the fear that their ideas might be "dumb" as they generate and combine ideas. In the creating and revising phases, they realize that the only true failure is giving in to fear of failure.

In other words, when students embrace design thinking, they develop a maker mindset. They define themselves as problem-solvers.

My Journey with Design Thinking

When I first began teaching, I knew that students would thrive in a creative environment. I wanted them to embrace the maker mindset. However, I felt crippled by fear. I was afraid that I didn't have enough resources. I was scared that their success in a creative project wouldn't translate into higher test scores. I was concerned about classroom management issues (I had mistaken being busy with being engaged).

That's why I needed a framework. This is ultimately why I embraced design thinking. My students needed a different way to think about creative work. They needed something that would provide structure but also respect student agency and choice.

It's a bit of a debate where design thinking originated. Some claim that it started in the sixties with The Sciences of the Artificial. Others point to Design Thinking, which focused more on urban planning and architecture. Still others point to Robert McKim's work in Experiences in Visual Thinking. Like all great ideas, it has been an evolution, influenced by thousands of people. My work around Design Thinking has been influenced by people like Tom and David Kelley, Tim Brown, John Maeda, Peter Rowe (as well as organizations like Stanford d.school and IDEO).

But ultimately, I found that there were tweaks and iterations I needed to make to the existing design thinking frameworks. This is ultimately why I worked with AJ Juliani on the LAUNCH Cycle, a student-friendly design thinking framework for K-12 classrooms. We added a few key elements, including a broader starting point, an explicit stage of inquiry, a media literacy component and a final phase where they launch their work to an authentic audience.

You can learn more about it in our book Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in All Students or you could check out the video below:

Design thinking prepares students for a creative life - whether that is in business, in the social or civic spaces, in the arts, or in engineering. But it does this by allowing them create things that matter to them right now. It's not some far off "grown up" thing. It's something they can engage in right now as they create things that matter to them.

So, while it's easy to complain about standardized education, we can offer strategies like design thinking and project-based learning as alternatives that empower students to be the creative thinkers we know they can be.

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10 Things That Happen When Students Engage in Design Thinking

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John Spencer Posted on November 8, 2016 In a recent post, I wrote about why I want to see students become innovators: Unfortunately, the system isn't designed for innovation. For years, schools have been stuck in a one-size-fits-all factory model, where students passively consume content. Some people will point out that this model is outdated.

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How to Develop an Empathic Approach in Design Thinking

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How to Develop an Empathic Approach in Design Thinking

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Empathy requires us to put aside our learning, culture, knowledge, opinions, and worldview purposefully in order to understand other peoples' experiences of things deeply and meaningfully. It requires a strong sense of imagination for us to be able to see through another person's eyes. It requires humility so we can seek to abandon our preconceived ideas and biases. It requires that we have a heightened awareness of other peoples' needs, wants, motivations and goals. Let's go through the traits an empathic observer should possess-and some methods you can use to gain a deep understanding of the people for whom you are designing.

Empathy is an innate quality in all people. Still, sometimes, being an empathic listener in a Design Thinking project is not as simple as it seems, because we are trained - whether consciously in our schools or workplaces, or subconsciously from our prior experiences - to form judgements and opinions about others rather than absorbing and understanding the raw data.

There are many interrelated qualities and characteristics that combine to develop a more empathic approach to engaging with others. Keeping these qualities and traits in mind, and learning to develop them, are key to forming a deep and genuine understanding of your users.

Empathy is especially important in the first stage of any Design Thinking process. The first stage in Design Thinking is often named the "empathise" stage - the following four stages are: Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. In the Empathise stage, it's your goal as a designer to gain an empathic understanding of the people you're designing for and the problem you are trying to solve. This involves empathising with, engaging and observing the people-your target audience-you intend to help.

How to be an Empathic Observer

1. Abandon Your Ego

Most of us have a tendency to assert ourselves, which results in an imposition upon others, as well as having more concern about our own situation rather than the needs and concerns of others. Often in our education or workplace, we are taught to adopt an egocentric view of things and be firm in our opinions and thoughts. However, in order to empathise deeply, we need to tame and put aside our egos. We need to become aware of the primary goal of empathy in Design Thinking, which is to understand and experience the feelings of others.

2. Adopt Humility

When we adopt humility, we naturally improve our ability to empathise, because through humility we elevate the value of others above ourselves. This is underscored in Rise of the DEO, a book by Maria Guidice, innovator and VP of Experience Design in Autodesk, and Christopher Ireland, ethnographer and CEO of design research firm Cheskin. In Rise of the DEO, Guidice and Ireland discuss the emerging role of design leadership and point out that humility is a characteristic of design-focused leaders who are willing to admit their own shortcomings as well as to abandon preconceived ideas for the good of the overall vision and goals.

3. Be a Good Listener

So as to empathise, we need to listen and listen attentively. We need to choose actively to block out our inner conflicting voices, and allow the other's voice to resonate. We need to train ourselves to control our natural tendency to formulate our own opinions and voice them before the other person has finished talking. Doing so would enable us to have a deeper kind of listening, which uncovers deeper meaning and experience.

4. Hone Your Observation skills

In order to develop empathy towards our users, we need to do more than listen. We need to observe others, and have a close reading of their behaviours, subtle indications, their non-verbal expressions, body language, and environments. Only once we are able to experience the full range of sensations of others within context can we have a deeper and more meaningful empathic experience. Many times, what our users articulate is only a fraction of the full story. By honing our observation skills, we can fill many of the gaps, leading to a deeper understanding of someone else's experience.

5. Care

A genuine concern about the state of others, leading to the desire to act and assist, is required. This is one of the important drivers that allow us to overcome our own needs and wants and seek to understand others. We must build a sense of care, a deep concern and desire to want to help, nurture, and provide assistance. This requires a level of emotional insight.

"No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."
- Theodore Roosevelt

6. Be Curious

Being genuinely curious makes engaging in empathy research not only easier but also extremely rewarding as we learn to understand what motivates people. By being curious, we are naturally inclined to dig into unexpected areas, uncover new insights, and explore all aspects of people's lives. At a glance, these details might seem unimportant, but they will expose the most important information we need for problem solving.

7. Be Sincere

Nothing kills empathy more than a lack of sincerity. When we approach people with a superficial agenda, superiority complex, or any mindset that may undermine our sincere intention to understand their experience deeply, we are placing a barrier between us and those we seek to understand. Rather than approaching people with the mindset that they are in need of our help, we should realise that we stand to benefit more out of deeply understanding them. After all, the solution exists to serve their needs, and your work will not be complete unless you properly understand their needs.

Learn to Understand Body Language

We should have a keen awareness of how our body language sets the scene for trust and engagement between ourselves and the people we are observing or interviewing. On top of that, we need to read and interpret the signals that our users give off via their body language. This is a skill that comes with practice, and thus practice we must. At times, body language might be so subtle that the messages made by our very forms (eyebrows, shoulders, hands, and virtually any other part) as well as how we sound and behave are visible only to practiced readers of body language. If we want to connect with and engage our users on a deeper level, we need to study their body language, body signals, facial expressions, voice intonations, and the positive and negative signs that come from these. Here are some of the little things that you should pay attention to:

Learn to read the subtle nuances in communication, change of tone, pauses and skipping back over points.

Listen to what is not being said, to what's being avoided or covered up.

Subtly know when to encourage more expression or to lead the conversation or story in a beneficial direction.

Know what to ask and how to ask it-and when the person might be ready to be asked.

Author/Copyright holder: crew.co. Copyright terms and licence: Free to use.

Our body language often says much more about ourselves than what we say verbally. It's a great 'lie detector' in many respects.

How to Gain an Empathic Understanding of People

The most effective way you can gain empathy comes in the form of immersion: direct experience of the lives, contexts, environments, and activities of the people you would like to understand better. On top of immersing yourself in the environment to experience first-hand what it feels like to be your user, there are also a couple of methods you can engage in so as to gain a deeper understanding of people's needs and emotions. Here, we will highlight three methods, and provide a template for each that you can download and use. Remember: the key to developing empathy is to go out there and practice with real people.

What-How-Why Method

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

The What-How-Why method is a tool that you can use while observing people to help you dive into your observations and derive deeper levels of understanding. With the What-How-Why method, you start with concrete observations - the What - and from there move to higher levels of abstraction - asking How - and then finally you arrive at the Why-i.e., the emotional drivers behind people's behaviours. This method is extremely useful for you to analyse images that you might have taken while observing your users.

You should divide your observations into three sections: What, How and Why.

In What, note down the details of what is happening. What is the person doing? What is happening in the background? What is the person holding? Describe using adjectives and try to be as concrete as possible.

In How, describe how the person is doing what he or she is doing. For instance, is the person putting in a great deal of effort? Is the person frowning or smiling while doing the task? Does the person use many ad-hoc tools to make the task easier? Try to describe the emotional impact of performing the task.

Finally, in Why, try to interpret the scene. Based on the What and How observations, guess the emotional drivers behind the person you are observing. The person might be frowning while doing a task because she is concerned about hurting herself in the process - which means safety is a driver of her behaviours.

You can download and print the What-How-Why template here:

Conducting an Interview with Empathy

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

At many points in your Design Thinking project, you will be interviewing your users. During the initial stages as you build your understanding of users, and after testing prototypes with them, you are likely to ask them questions so as to probe deeper into their emotions and behaviours. To make the most out of your interviews, you should sufficiently prepare your team before each one. Make a list of questions you want to ask your users. Then, group the questions into themes or topics, and try to create a smooth flow between the topics so that your interview would flow naturally.

During the interview, you'll need to ask the question "Why?" on a constant basis- even though you might think you already know the answer. Chances are, your users are going to have their own answers that challenge your assumptions about them. Keep in mind that people tend to have gaps in what they say they do and what they actually do; it happens to all of us, and observing where these gaps form can help you gain insights about users.

You can download and print the template for conducting interviews with empathy here:

Building Empathy with Analogies

Author/Copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

An analogy is a comparison between two things-for example, a comparison of a heart to a pump. We communicate in analogies as they allow us to express our ideas or to explain complex matters in an understandable and motivating way. Analogies are a great way for us to build empathy towards users and for generating new ideas around a problem. Use analogies to gain a fresh way of looking at an environment, and in instances where direct observation is hard to achieve.

When using analogies, you should start by identifying the aspects of a situation that are most important, interesting, or problematic. For instance, if you are working on improving a supermarket experience, some of the key aspects might be containing and separating different goods in the shopping cart, making a decision when presented with many options, and handling long waiting lines. Then, find other experiences that contain some of these aspects - it will help you gain a better understanding of your users' problems, and it will also spark new ideas to improve their experiences.

You can download and print the template for building empathy with analogies here:

The Take Away

Empathy is innate in everyone, and focusing on some key traits of an empathic observer can help you unlock and augment your empathic skills so you can gain a greater understanding of the latent needs of users. At the same time, learning about what people's body language tells us (above and beyond what they say verbally) is a skill that we can hone with practice. Immersing yourself in your users' shoes is the best way to learn about them, and, on top of that, there are a couple of useful methods you can employ - the What-How-Why method, interviewing, and using analogies to build empathy - so as to gain a deep and holistic understanding of your users.

References & Where to Learn More

Maria Giudice and Christopher Ireland, Rise of the DEO - Leadership by Design, 2013: http://riseofthedeo.com/

James Borg, Body Language: 7 Easy Lessons to Master the Silent Language, 2009.

d.school Bootcamp Bootleg, 2013: http://dschool.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf

Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: : Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

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How to Develop an Empathic Approach in Design Thinking

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Empathy requires us to put aside our learning, culture, knowledge, opinions, and worldview purposefully in order to understand other peoples' experiences of things deeply and meaningfully. It requires a strong sense of imagination for us to be able to see through another person's eyes.

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A small human-centered design firm specializing in creating great design with purpose. We empower our clients to explore, innovate and challenge how they

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What is Design Thinking?

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This blogpost is the first in a series of five where I intend on exploring Design Thinking in an education context. I want to come back to the questions we have about design thinking when we're first starting out. I want to think about what design thinking is, why we might use design thinking, how...

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What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

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What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

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Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers-all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What's special about Design Thinking is that designers' work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way-in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.
Some of the world's leading brands, such as Apple, Google and Samsung, rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and leading universities around the world teach the related methodology-including Stanford, Harvard, Imperial College London and the Srishti Institute in India. Before you incorporate design thinking into your own workflows, you need to know what it is and why it's so popular. Here, we'll cut to the chase and tell you what design thinking is all about and why it's so in demand.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design thinking is an iterative process in which you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions which you can prototype and test. The overall goal is to identify alternative strategies and solutions that are not instantly apparent with your initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is more than just a process; it opens up an entirely new way to think, and it offers a collection of hands-on methods to help you apply this new mindset.

In essence, design thinking:

Revolves around a deep interest to understand the people for whom we design products and services.

Helps us observe and develop empathy with the target users.

Enhances our ability to question: in design thinking you question the problem, the assumptions and the implications.

Proves extremely useful when you tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

Involves ongoing experimentation through sketches, prototypes, testing and trials of new concepts and ideas.

In this video, Don Norman, the Grandfather of Human-Centered Design, explains how the approach and flexibility of design thinking can help us tackle major global challenges.
What Are the 5 Phases of Design Thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry these stages out in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process.

The core purpose of the process is to allow you to work in a dynamic way to develop and launch innovative ideas.

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design Thinking Makes You Think Outside the Box

Design thinking can help people do out-of-the-box or outside-the-box thinking. People who use this methodology:

Attempt to develop new ways of thinking-ways that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods.

Have the intention to improve products, services and processes. They seek to analyze and understand how users interact with products to investigate the conditions in which they operate.

Ask significant questions and challenge assumptions. One element of outside-the-box / out-of-the-box thinking is to falsify previous assumptions-i.e., make it possible to prove whether they're valid or not.

As you can see, design thinking offers us a means to think outside the box and also dig that bit deeper into problem-solving. It helps us carry out the right kind of research, create prototypes and test our products and services to uncover new ways to meet our users' needs.

The Grand Old Man of User Experience, Don Norman, who also coined the very term User Experience, explains what Design Thinking is and what's so special about it:

"...the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the "Five Whys" approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don't try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called "Design Thinking."

- Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

Design Thinking is for Everybody

How many people are involved in the design process when your organization decides to create a new product or service? Teams that build products are often composed of people from a variety of different departments. For this reason, it can be difficult to develop, categorize and organize ideas and solutions for the problems you try to solve. One way you can keep a project on track, and organize the core ideas, is to use a design thinking approach-and everybody can get involved in that!

Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, emphasizes this in his successful book Change by Design when he says design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business.

Design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers and leaders who seek to infuse it into every level of an organization. This widespread adoption of design thinking will drive the creation of alternative products and services for both business and society.

"Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems."

- Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business. You should involve colleagues from a wide range of departments to create a cross-functional team that can utilize knowledge and experience from different specialisms.

Tim Brown also shows how design thinking is not just for everybody-it's about everybody, too. The process is firmly based on how you can generate a holistic and empathic understanding of the problems people face. Design thinking involves ambiguous, and inherently subjective, concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations and drivers of behavior.

In a solely scientific approach (for example, analyzing data), people are reduced to representative numbers, devoid of emotions. Design thinking, on the other hand, considers both quantitative as well as qualitative dimensions to gain a more complete understanding of user needs. For example, you might observe people performing a task such as shopping for groceries, and you might talk to a few shoppers who feel frustrated with the checkout process at the store (qualitative data). You can also ask them how many times a week they go shopping or feel a certain way at the checkout counter (quantitative data). You can then combine these data points to paint a holistic picture of user pain points, needs and problems.

Tim Brown sums up that design thinking provides a third way to look at problems. It's essentially a problem-solving approach that has crystallized in the field of design to combine a holistic user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research-all with the goal to create innovative solutions.

"Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a 'third way.'"

- Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design Thinking Has a Scientific Side

Design thinking is both an art and a science. It combines investigations into ambiguous elements of the problem with rational and analytical research -the scientific side in other words. This magical concoction reveals previously unknown parameters and helps to uncover alternative strategies which lead to truly innovative solutions.

The scientific activities analyze how users interact with products, and investigate the conditions in which they operate. They include tasks which:

Research users' needs.

Pool experience from previous projects.

Consider present and future conditions specific to the product.

Test the parameters of the problem.

Test the practical application of alternative problem solutions.

Once you arrive at a number of potential solutions, the selection process is then underpinned by rationality. As a designer, you are encouraged to analyze and falsify these solutions to arrive at the best available option for each problem or obstacle identified during phases of the design process.

With this in mind, it may be more correct to say design thinking is not about thinking outside the box, but on its edge, its corner, its flap, and under its bar code-as Clint Runge put it.

Clint Runge is Founder and Managing Director of Archrival, a distinguished youth marketing agency, and adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Resetting Our Mental Boxes and Developing a Fresh Mindset

Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.

Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out.

The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.

Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution that fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.

A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, "Why not just let the air out of the tires?" to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.

When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge. The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.

It's often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and everyday knowledge because we rely on building patterns of thinking in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time. We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously-for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read-but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives. In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to start questioning their knowledge.

Stories Have the Power to Inspire

Why did we tell you this story about the truck and the bridge? Well, it's because stories can help us inspire opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real people and their lives and are important because they're accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us with concrete details which help us imagine solutions to particular problems.

Stories also help you develop the eye of a designer. As you walk around the world, you should try to look for the design stories that are all around you. Say to yourself "that's an example of great design" or "that's an example of really bad design " and try to figure out the reasons why.

When you come across something particularly significant, make sure you document it either through photos or video. This will prove beneficial not only to you and your design practice but also to others-your future clients, maybe.

The Take Away

Design Thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. This simply means that the design team continuously uses their results to review, question and improve their initial assumptions, understandings and results. Results from the final stage of the initial work process inform our understanding of the problem, help us determine the parameters of the problem, enable us to redefine the problem, and, perhaps most importantly, provide us with new insights so we can see any alternative solutions that might not have been available with our previous level of understanding.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that consists of 5 phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry out the stages in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process-you don't have to follow them in order.

It's a process that digs abit deeper into problem-solving as you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions and redefine problems. The design thinking process has both a scientific and artistic side to it, as it asks us to understand and challenge our natural, restrictive patterns of thinking and generate innovative solutions to the problems our users face.

Design thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach that has the intention to improve products. It helps you assess and analyze known aspects of a problem and identify the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution.

The iterative and ideation-oriented nature of design thinking means we constantly question and acquire knowledge throughout the process. This helps us redefine a problem so we can identify alternative strategies and solutions that aren't instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is often referred to as outside-the-box thinking, as designers attempt to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods-just like artists do.

The design thinking process has become increasingly popular over the last few decades because it was key to the success of many high-profile, global organizations. This outside-the-box thinking is now taught at leading universities across the world and is encouraged at every level of business.

"The 'Design Thinking' label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results."

- Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Enroll in our engaging course, "Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide"

Here are some examples of good and bad designs to inspire you to look for examples in your daily life.

Read this informative article "What Is Design Thinking, and How Can SMBs Accomplish It?" by Jackie Dove.

Read this insightful article "Rethinking Design Thinking" by Don Norman.

Check out Tim Brown's book "Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction," 2009.

Learn more about Design Thinking in the article "Design Thinking: Dear Don" by Bill Moggridge.

Images

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

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What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

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Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world. Here we'll cut to the chase and tell you what it is, as well as why it's so in demand.