Design Thinking

Short Description

Design thinking is a user or human centric approach to create products or services that focuses on understanding the wants or needs of the end-user and then innovating in a way that takes those wants or needs into consideration.

Design thinking incorporates five stages: empathize, define the problem, idea, prototype and test.

Case Study

Tools

No specific tools.

Scenario

The Stanford D-school – Redesign the Gift-Giving Experience is an immersive activity meant to give participants a full cycle through the design thinking process in around 2 hours (that include debriefing). Instead of telling students about the design thinking method, you can facilitate the experience for them.

Stanford D. School – How to kick off a crash course 

What you need:

• at least 2 facilitators
• if it is your first experience, you can download the students’ workbook and the facilitator guide to help you in guiding the activity.
• to organize the class in pairs
• to make available to students different material to be used for prototyping and supporting flux of ideas – the material you can easily access: for ex. paper (white and coloured), scissors, pens, glue, cardboard, foil, duct tape, lego, etc.

Space should be configured to allow for participants to pair up and move around easily.

Challenge students has to afford: participants haveneed to design something to improve their partners’ experience of finding/selecting/buying/giving gifts (they are not designing a gift for their partners).

Stage 1: gaining empathy

1. 1st interview (8 min, 2 sessions of 4 min each): the pairs take turns to ask each other about the last time they gave a gift. Students take notes
2. 2nd interview (6 min, 2 sessions of 3 min each): the pairs take turns to ask each other stories, emotions with the aim to dig deeper. Students take notes

Stage 2: reframe the problem

1. capture findings/insights (3 min): what are the goals and wishes of the partner?
2. take a stand with a point of view: each participant will state the challenge they are going to address

Stage 3: ideate by generating alternatives to test5. sketch at least 5 radical ways to meet the users’ needs (5 min)
6. share the solutions and capture feedback (10 min, 2 sessions of 5 min each)

Stage 4: iterate based on feedback
7. reflect & generate a new solution (3 min)

Stage 5: build and test
8. build the solution, something the partner can interact with (7 min)
9. share solution and get feedback (8 min, 2 sessions of 4 min each)

Stage 6: debriefing
A well facilitated reflection can turn this exercise from a fun activity to a meaningful experience that could impact the way participants approach innovation. The key to leading is to relate the activity to the core values of design thinking:

• Human-centered design: Empathy for the person or people you are designing for, and feedback from users, is fundamental.
• Experimentation and prototyping: Prototyping is not simply a way to validate ideas; it is an integral part of the innovation process. We build to think and learn.
• A bias towards action: Design thinking is more about doing that thinking. Bias toward doing and making over thinking and meeting.
• Show don’t tell: Creating experiences, using illustrative visuals, and telling good stories communicate vision in an impactful and meaningful way.
• Power of iteration: The reason we go through the exercise at a frantic pace is to help people to experience a full design cycle. A person’s fluency with design thinking is a function of cycles, so we challenge participants to go through as many cycles as possible—interview twice, sketch twice, and test with your partner twice.
• Additionally, iterating solutions many times within a project is key to successful outcomes.

Assessment

Standford D. School – Design Thinking basic rubric

Additional Resources

Standford D. School Resources: Tools for taking action 

Stanford D. School Wiki: Design resources

Stanford D. School  How to kick off a crash course 

Design Thinking for Educators 

IBM Design Thinking toolkit

A.J Juliani Intentional Innovation

Additional Resources

Avis, S. (2015-2019) 14 free tools to facilitate innovation. https://tallyfy.com/brainstorming-tools/ Accessed 17.06.19

Goswami B, Jain A, Koner BC (2017) Evaluation of Brainstorming Session as a Teaching-learning Tool among Postgraduate Medical Biochemistry Students. International Journal of Applied Basic Medical Research. 7 (Suppl 1):S15–S18. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769163/ Accessed 17.06.19

Paulus, PB and Kenworthy, JB (2019) Effective Brainstorming in Paulus PB and Nijstad, BA (eds) The Oxford handbook of group creativity and innovation. 287-306. New York, Oxford University Press

Connection with other methods

Brainstorming
Experiential learning
Peer-to-peer discussions
Project-based learning
Work in Teams/pair