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7: Design Thinking

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    Chapter 7 Learning Outcomes

    After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

    1. Define “Design Thinking”.
    2. Describe how a company might implement a design thinking approach to innovation.
    3. Provide examples of innovative products being designed today using Design Thinking.
    4. Discuss the importance of prototyping fast and often.
    5. Explain how to design parts for prototyping using 3D Print software.
    6. Explain the 3D printing process.
    7. Provide examples of innovative products being designed today using 3D printing technology.

    What is Design Thinking?

    Design thinking encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for and leads to human-centered products, services, and internal processes. The core of design thinking is getting actionable and knowing your questions. It’s about simple mindset shifts or ways of asking questions differently—a new way to look at problems. Watch this brief introduction to design thinking from IDEO U.[1] Transcript for “What is Design Thinking?” Video [PDF–New Tab]. Closed captioning is available on YouTube.

    The Five Stages of Design Thinking

    As the world is changing at an accelerated rate, organizations look for solutions to grow with their customers or users, to do new things in better ways to improve their practices, retain and grow their customers, and expand their business. Innovation is a must for these organizations. Design thinking is one of several approaches to innovation and is a process for creative problem-solving. Design thinking has a human-centered core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they are creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. The design thinking framework helps inspire creative thinking and strategies that lead designers to create user-friendly products that help solve a particular problem.

    There are five stages to the design thinking process which include empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. They are not always completed in a linear fashion. They can be done in any order, and then redone as needed. Different stages might spark new ideas or showcase new findings in the user journey that will inspire new iterations of phases that have already been completed.

    5 Stages of Design Thinking: Emphasize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test
    Five Stages of Design Thinking

    Empathize

    Imagine what the customer might be thinking or feeling, what needs they may have, and what their desires are. Observe the customer, interview the customer, and put yourself in the customer’s shoes. How do they want this product to work? As designers (or design thinkers), we should always do our best to leave our own assumptions and experiences behind when making observations. Our life experiences create assumptions within us, which we use to explain and make sense of the world around us. However, this very process affects our ability to empathize in a real way with the people we observe. Since completely letting go of our assumptions is impossible, we should continuously and consciously remind ourselves to assume a beginner’s mindset. It’s helpful if you often remind yourself never to judge what you observe, but to question everything—even if you think you know the answer—and to really listen to what others are saying.[2]

    Define

    Designers will analyze their observations completed throughout the empathy stage, and work on synthesizing that information. Forming a problem statement that is succinct is an important part of this phase that ensures a human-centered approach by focusing on the end-user. A problem statement is important to a Design Thinking project because it will guide you and your team and provide a focus on the specific needs that you have uncovered. A good problem statement should thus have the following traits. It should be human-centered, broad enough for creative freedom, and narrow enough to make it manageable.[3]

    Ideate

    The solution-finding stage is where the team comes together to brainstorm creative solutions to solve the defined problem(s). When facilitated in a successful way, Ideation is an exciting process. The goal is to generate a large number of ideas — ideas that potentially inspire newer, better ideas — that the team can then evaluate and reduce into the best, most practical, and innovative ones.

    Ideation Will Help You:

    • Ask the right questions and innovate.
    • Step beyond the obvious solutions and therefore increase the innovation potential of your solution.
    • Bring together perspectives and strengths of team members.
    • Uncover unexpected areas of innovation.
    • Create volume and variety in your innovation options.
    • Get obvious solutions out of your heads, and drive your team beyond them.

    In Ideation sessions, it’s important to create the right type of environment to help create a creative work culture with a curious, courageous, and concentrated atmosphere. Instead of using a boardroom with the CEO sitting at the head of the table, Design Thinking and Ideation sessions require a space in which everyone is equal. There are hundreds of ideation methods used to spark innovative ideas. Some methods are merely renamed or slightly adapted versions of more foundational techniques. Here you’ll get a brief overview of some of the best methods:[4]

    Prototype

    Without testing a new idea, designers would have a tough time actually solving the problem comprehensively. At this stage, small-scale, inexpensive versions of the product are required. This sets the stage for decision-making conversations around what works and what doesn’t. Prototypes can be sketches, models, or digital renders of an idea. These scaled-down prototypes can then be used in order to observe, record, judge, and measure user performance levels based on specific elements, or the users’ general behaviour, interactions, and reactions to the overall design. For instance, when developing software, a design team may produce a number of paper prototypes that the user can gradually work through in order to demonstrate to the design team or evaluators how they may tackle certain tasks or problems. When developing tangible devices, such as the computer mouse, designers may use a number of different materials to enable them to test the basic technology underlying the product. With advances in 3D printing technology, producing prototypes is now often a more instant and low-cost process, and as a result, this has allowed designers to provide stakeholders with accurate and testable/useable replica models before settling upon a particular design.[5]

    Test

    Gather feedback from real users. Because design thinking is iterative, many designers roll out multiple prototypes to test different change factors within their idea. Designers should expect to go through a series of changes, edits, and refinements during the testing stage. It is not uncommon for the testing phase to “restart” some other design thinking processes such as ideation or additional testing or an entirely fresh approach. In order to achieve the best learning results from each test, here are some areas of a test that you should take into consideration:[6]

    • The prototype
      Remember that you are testing the prototype, not the user. Your prototype should be designed with a central question in mind — a question that you will put to the test in the testing stage.
    • Context and scenario
      As much as possible, try to recreate the scenario in which your users are most likely to be using the product. This way, you can learn more about the interaction (or disruptions) between the user, the prototype, and the environment, as well as how problems might arise as a result of that interaction.
    • How you interact with the user
      Make sure your users know what the prototype and test are about, but do not over-explain how the prototype works.
    • How you observe and capture feedback
      While collecting feedback, make sure you are not disrupting the user’s interaction with the prototype. Find a way to collect feedback in a way that freely allows you to observe what is happening (for example, by having a partner in the test, or by recording an audio or video of the test).

    Watch the YouTube video below for an explanation of the five stages of the Design Thinking process.[7] Transcript for “5 Stages of Design thinking Process” Video [PDF–New Tab]. Closed captioning is available on YouTube.

    Products Created Using Design Thinking

    Can you think of a few products you enjoy using that most probably were created using the design thinking methodology? Here are a few examples: shoelaces that don’t need to be tied (great for kids), velcro closures instead of buttons or laces (great for anyone, but specifically for seniors that may have difficulty with buttons or laces), and what about gel pads that are placed inside shoes (great for anyone with sore feet or people that stand for long hours in the workplace).

    IDEO, lists 11 of their favorite products and services created with design thinking:[8]

    • Pillpack, a prescription home delivery system
    • Airbnb, the online platform that lets you stay anywhere
    • Willow, the first wearable breast pump
    • Uber Eats, an app that is redefining food delivery
    • Pay It Plan It from American Express, a feature to manage your money
    • Project Bloks, a Google project that helps kids learn to code
    • Besider, a birth control support network for women
    • Braun, Oral-B electric toothbrush, a better brushing experience
    • Moonrise, a platform that connects people with on-demand work
    • LA County Voting System, an intuitive and accessible voting device
    • Bendable, a community learning program for South Bend

    Prototyping and 3D Printing

    As mentioned above, a prototype is a mini design of the actual product. It can be a sketch, a low-quality, or a high-quality copy depicting what the real product will look like. It is important for companies to prototype fast and often in order to produce innovations at the right times–when customers demand them and before competitors beat them to market. The main benefit of prototyping is that it results in a faster and more effective design cycle (accelerated development). Because prototypes allow companies to test their design in the “real-world” environment, it is easier to identify potential problems and prevent costly mistakes down the road (better products).[9]

    3Dprinting is an inexpensive way to make a prototype. Today 3D printing, or additive processing for manufacturing, has become a standard. In previous years many manufacturers, automakers, jewelry makers, sculptures, etc., were using a subtractive processing method. With subtractive manufacturing, there is much waste. Think about sculpting a statue out of a tree, you would whittle away the parts of the tree you don’t want to make the statue appear. With additive manufacturing, there is little waste because the statue would be built layer upon layer from the ground up in the exact shape and design you specify.

    Watch this YouTube video from Mashable, “What is 3D Printing and How It Works?”, to learn more about the 3D Printing process.[10] Transcript for “What is 3D Printing and How Does it Work? Video [PDF–New Tab]. Closed captioning is available on YouTube.

    Key Takeaways

    1. Design thinking is one of several approaches to innovation and is a process for creative problem-solving. Design thinking has a human-centered core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they are creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. The design thinking framework helps inspire creative thinking and strategies that lead designers to create user-friendly products that help solve a particular problem.
    2. There are five stages to the design thinking process which include empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing.
    3. There are hundreds of ideation methods used to spark innovative ideas.
    4. There are many products created using design thinking such as shoelaces that don’t need to be tied (great for kids), velcro closures instead of buttons or laces (great for anyone, but specifically for seniors that may have difficulty with buttons or laces), and what about gel pads that are placed inside shoes (great for anyone with sore feet or people that stand for long hours in the workplace).
    5. A prototype is a mini design of the actual product. It can be a sketch, a low-quality, or a high-quality copy depicting what the real product will look like. It is important for companies to prototype fast and often in order to produce innovations at the right times–when customers demand them and before competitors beat them to market.

    End-of-Chapter Exercises

    1. Design Thinking Innovations. Search the Internet to locate a company that is using design thinking to develop new innovations. Share your findings with the class and/or professor.
    2. Ideation Methods. Search the Internet to research one of the many ideation methods. Describe how it is done and the benefits of this method. Share your findings with the class and/or professor.
    3. Ideation Session. In a group or with a partner use one of the ideation methods listed in this chapter to ideate some innovative concepts. The problem you are trying to solve is for seniors. Foot problems are common in older people, for a variety of reasons. Feet lose cushioning as they age, and the skin and nails can grow dry and brittle. Many seniors have poor circulation, and this can slow the healing of foot sores. Seniors often have very dry feet with cracked heels, an inability to reach their feet to apply needed lotions, and stubborn athlete’s foot. When feet are very dry and cracking, they can be painful to walk on and are more likely to get infected. They may have bunions, toenail issues, corns, and calluses on their feet. So what ideas can you and your team come up with during an ideation session that might help reduce or solve these problems associated with aging feet? After your ideation session make some notes and share them with the class and/or professor.
    4. Hands-on 3D Print. Try creating a 3D printed object. You can use TinkerCad, a free software tool online, used to design 3D print objects. You can view other people’s objects as well both at TinkerCad and Thingiverse, and you can reuse many of these designs. Choose either someone else’s design to start with then modify it by adding your initials to the design, or create an object from scratch. You will end up with an STL file type. This file can be sent to any 3D printing shop to get a physical copy. Many libraries offer 3D printing services now and they are not very expensive. Share your TinkerCad editing screen as well as your printed 3D model with the class and/or professor and describe the experience, the difficult parts, and the rewarding parts.
    5. 3D Printed Products. Search the Internet to discover what things can be 3D printed. Can a car be 3D printed? Can a house be 3D printed? Can teeth be 3D printed? Can body limbs be 3D printed? Can food be 3D printed? What other products did you discover can be 3D printed? Share your findings with the class and/or professor.
    6. New 3D Print Businesses. Search the Internet to find new businesses that are now offering 3D Print services for individual consumers. Were there many? What services do they offer? How do they create 3D objects (e.g. software CAD or photo scanning, etc.)? What material(s) are used to create these 3D printed objects (e.g., metal, plastic, food, etc.)? Share your findings with the class and/or professor.
    7. Personal 3D Printer. Search the Internet to find the most commonly used type of 3D printer for home use. How much does it cost? Do you foresee 3D printing becoming a common thing used by individual consumers? Why or why not? Share your findings with the class and/or professor.

    Self-Check Exercise – Drag the Words – Design Thinking Innovations

    An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
    https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/leadinginnovation/?p=48#h5p-11

    Additional Resources

    1. Stage 1 in the Design Thinking Process: Empathy
    2. Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define
    3. Stage 3 in the Design Thinking Process: Ideate
    4. Stage 4 in the Design Thinking Process: Prototype
    5. Stage 5 in the Design Thinking Process: Test
    6. 5 Game-Changing Design Thinking Examples to Learn From
    7. 12 Great Design Thinking Examples You Can Use to Seek Inspiration
    8. 20 Products That Are Now Being Made Using 3D Printing
    9. The Importance of Prototyping in UX Designing
    10. 3D Printing History and Overview – Wikipedia
    11. 55 Useful, Cool Things to 3D Print
    12. History of 3D Printing: It’s Older Thank You Think

    References

    (Note: This list of sources used is NOT in APA citation style instead the auto-footnote and media citation features of Pressbooks were utilized to cite references throughout the chapter and generate a list at the end of the chapter.)

    Media Attributions

    1. IDEO U. (2021, May 26). What is design thinking? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdgcpAHRlM&t=37s ↵
    2. Mortensen, D. (2020). Stage 1 in the design thinking process: Empathize with your users. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-1-in-the-design-thinking-process-empathise-with-your-users ↵
    3. Dam, R. & Siang, T. (2021). Stage 2 in the design thinking process: Define the problem and interpret the results. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-2-in-the-design-thinking-process-define-the-problem-and-interpret-the-results ↵
    4. Dam, R. & Siang T. (2020). Stage 3 of the design thinking process: Ideate. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-3-in-the-design-thinking-process-ideate ↵
    5. Dam, R. & Siang T. (2021). Stage 4 of the design thinking process: Prototype. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-4-in-the-design-thinking-process-prototype ↵
    6. Dam, R. & Siang, T. (2021). Stage 5 in the design thinking process: Test. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/stage-5-in-the-design-thinking-process-test ↵
    7. InVision. (2020, January 29). The 5 stages of design thinking. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySx-S5FcCI ↵
    8. IDEO U. (n.d.). 11 products & services made using design thinking. https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/11-products-made-using-design-thinking#:~:text=Here%20are%20some%20of%20our%20favorite%20examples%20of,to%20take%20medications%20can%20be%20challenging%20and%20time-consuming ↵
    9. Erickson, A. (2019, May 14). The importance of prototyping. https://www.cati.com/blog/2019/05/the-importance-of-prototyping/#:~:text=The%20main%20benefit%20of%20prototyping%20is%20that%20it,problems%20and%20prevent%20costly%20 ↵
    10. Kwestyon. (2014, May 8). What is 3D printing and how does it work? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Vx0Z6LplaMU ↵

    7: Design Thinking is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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