Overview of Design Thinking

Introduction

• Presenter: Jonathan from AJ and Smart
• Topic: Design Thinking and its relevance in 2020
• Importance: Used by innovative companies worldwide; essential for designers, product managers, and anyone interested in innovation.

What is Design Thinking?

• Definition: A philosophy and set of tools for creative problem-solving with a human-centered approach.
• Focus on understanding the user's needs and innovating based on those needs.
• Different from past problem-solving processes which focused on technology over user needs.

The Design Thinking Process

Step 1: Empathize

• Objective: Understand the people for whom you are designing.
• Activities: User interviews, creating personas, gathering insights about user problems and behaviors.

Step 2: Define

• Objective: Synthesize the empathize phase information to define user needs and insights.
• Activities: Analyze the data from interviews, identify common problems and challenges.

Step 3: Ideate

• Objective: Develop solutions based on insights from the empathize and define phases.
• Activities: Brainstorming sessions, idea generation, matching ideas to user needs.

Step 4: Prototype

• Objective: Create simple, testable prototypes of the ideas generated.
• Characteristics: Prototypes are basic, not fully designed or coded, meant for testing.

Step 5: Test

• Objective: Test prototypes with real users to gather feedback.
• Activities: Use insights from testing to refine and re-enter the design process cycle.

Key Points

• Design Thinking is a cyclical process: Iterates from testing back to defining and ideating based on new insights.
• Flexible Methodology: Unlike design sprints, Design Thinking is not a strict recipe but rather a flexible framework.
• Mindset and Philosophy: Focuses on understanding and solving for human needs.

Additional Resources

• Weekly content on design thinking: Available on AJ and Smart's LinkedIn and YouTube.
• Workshop resources: Workshopper.com provides guides and tools for running design thinking workshops.

Engagement and Community

• Encouragement to subscribe to AJ and Smart on YouTube for more content.
• Invitation to engage with AJ and Smart on LinkedIn for additional insights and resources.

Conclusion

• Design Thinking remains a vital tool in innovation, adaptable to the needs of those using it.