What is Design Thinking?
Today I completed a 45 mins mini-course on design thinking by IBM and I am excited to blog about my key take-aways from the course. Very often designers are building solutions to solve problems without thinking about the end users. This way of thinking makes the grand assumption that if problems are solved, the people are satisfied which takes away from the users the power, so to speak, to influence ‘how’ the problem is solved and their perceptions of the whole process. Alternatively, design thinking seeks to create a loop that starts with empathy - this involve putting ones self in the shoes of the users of the products being developed - and entails designers defining who are the end users, what do they want the product to do what is the ‘wow’ that the experience would bring to them. The principles of design thinking involves building diverse multitalented team whose design culture prioritises user experience and rapidly reivents products to meet the needs of the user - akin to agile thinking (personal opinion).
These system of thinking results in a loop of observe ➡ reflect ➡ build (make).
Designers are expected to observe who the intended users are, create a personas for them and think about what they would say, do, think or feel. There may be lots of assumptions at the first interations-but since every product is thought of as a prototype- it is excepted that after each iteractions, there is more knowledge about the user and less assumption which leads to the next key reflection. Reflecting on how the product made the user feel, their suggestion and the lessons learnt would help to focus the design on the user experience. Lastly where it all fits together, the make where user suggestions are incorporated and data-driven products are built.
The IBM’s Enterprise Decision Thinking process are marked by three keys which helps to keep the team focused on the users and the user experience - Hill, Playbacks and Sponsor users.
The Hill - this would imply a highpoint from which everyone in the team can see the endgoal, this would always be the big wow experience for the user, this helps to align the diverse teams. The hill does not consider the how as long as this goal is achievable. The other key involves playbacks which look at the design from different timelines in the design process to ensure suggestions and inputs from previous iterations are not lost in the process and lastly the sponsor users are members of the design team who are actual users of the products who are on the team to give on-the-spot feedback about the product.
Design thinking is an iteractive process that involve non-directional loops of research, observations, reflections and building and helps product and solutions to be people-centred rather than problem-centred.
Spare 45 minutes to take the course, I would like to hear your reviews and take-aways from the course.