Design thinking

What is design thinking?

Design thinking, or design thinking, consists of the adoption of the way of thinking Y the work process of a designer when developing a product or service.

This concept was developed by Tim Brown, who defines it as “a discipline that uses the sensitivity and methods of designers to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible, and with what a viable business strategy can convert into value for the client and a great opportunity for the market ”.

Basically, you take a problem or need to satisfy, break it down into smaller parts to facilitate analysis, come up with various creative solutions or prototypes, and, Together with the consumers or end users, the best option is chosen.

Design thinking characteristics

The success of this discipline is based on the following principles:

• It's people-centered: places the human being (before the consumer) at the center of the whole process. The goal is to create products that people find useful and that meet their needs, taking into account their individual characteristics. The end user or consumer, then, is involved in all stages of product or service development.
• Aware of the process: you must be clear about the design process and know what methods are used in each phase of design thinking.
• Show it, don't say it: the ideation process is communicated visually, drawing the attention of the people involved, through illustrative images, creating experiences and telling good stories.
• Radical collaboration: It is essential that the creative team is made up of people from different disciplines and points of view. Diversity brings out radical and innovative ideas.
• Culture of experimentation: having prototypes is essential to visualize the solution to the problem. This allows the person to use their senses in experimenting with the product or service in order to make the necessary adjustments at an early stage and at a low cost.
• Incitement to action: from idea to action. By integrating people in the development of the product or service, so that they are participants in the process and test its usability, there is an urgent need to develop the final version of the product or service.

Stages of design thinking

The process consists of 5 stages:

1. Empathize: the first step is to understand people's feelings and emotions, trying to objectively and rationally experience what they feel. Therefore, the needs and habits of the target audience should be investigated, as well as the environment in which they move.
2. Define: once all the information has been collected, filters must be applied to identify the central problem of the target audience, which will be decisive for obtaining an innovative solution (the product or service to be offered).
3. Idea: Having identified the problem, a brainstorming session (brainstorming) should be carried out in order to have as many ideas as possible and then select the best one. It is about giving free rein to ideas, without conditions of any kind.
4. Prototype: at this stage, the idea selected as the best option becomes an executable and palpable prototype, where you can see the feasibility of the proposed work and refine details.
5. Testing or Proof: consists of carrying out prototype tests with end users to analyze the efficiency of the solution proposal, through the difficulties they experience when interacting with the product or service.

Examples of design thinking

Many companies have successfully used the design thinking methodology, managing to adapt their current services and products to the needs of society. Some examples are the following.

Airbnb

In the first years since its launch, the platform for offering private and tourist accommodation did not achieve the expected objectives. This is how the company's team decided to put itself in the shoes of customers to find out their needs. In this way, they began to speak directly with the people who were looking for accommodation and with the property owners to discover what were the main problems that the platform posed. From this, Airbnb was a success.

Netflix

The famous American entertainment company that distributes audiovisual content online, uses design thinking in its creative processes to offer a better user experience.

Thus, when working with clients, they were able to establish algorithms that suggest series and movies of their choice, since one of the problems they identified was the hassle caused by searching through hundreds of series and movies available. Likewise, Netflix proposes movies with similar themes to those previously seen and informs about new episodes of the series that the user has started to watch.