problem solving approach product design

Solve Any Product Problem With the Design Thinking Framework

Design is about solving problems. As such, product teams are constantly looking for a process that allows them to solve problems quickly and effectively, and design thinking is one of the most popular approaches to do just that. As the name suggests, design thinking is a process that allows product teams to solve problems through design.

The Design Thinking Framework

Prototyping.

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Design thinking is a five-step process that allows a product team to go from initial idea to implementation and validation. The approach was originally proposed by Herbert A. Simon in his book The Sciences of the Artificial and later popularized by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford and design agencies like IDEO .

The product team clearly defines the problem they need to solve. Typically, the definition step includes all relevant information about the problem, who experienced it and why it’s important, which involves articulating the solution’s value both to users and the business. 

2. Research

The product team collects and analyses as much data as it can to better understand the problem it wants to solve and the needs of users and businesses.

3. Ideation

The product team proposes possible solutions based on the information it collected in the previous stage. At the end of this step, the team selects the best solution for prototyping. 

4. Prototyping 

A prototype is a functioning model of the best solution. During this stage, the product team makes the solution tangible so other people can interact with it. 

5. Testing 

The target audience tests the prototype to ensure that it effectively solves the original problem. 

Principles of Design Thinking

Design thinking is more than just a process a team follows; it's a philosophy with a set of guiding principles. The essential principles are as follows:

3 Principles of Design Thinking

• A human-centric approach.
• There are no bad ideas.
• Product design is iterative in nature.

1. A Human-first way of thinking

Design thinking is about finding the best possible solution for the people who will use your product. This principle makes the testing phase crucial for design thinking because it helps the team validate the solution with the target audience.  

2. There are no bad ideas

During the ideation phase, team members are invited to propose as many ideas as possible. No one should be afraid that theirs will be considered bad. Later on, the team will narrow them down to the best output.

3. Product design is iterative in nature

The more teams learn about user needs, the better solution they can create. Design thinking is a cyclical process. At the end of the testing phase, the team can return to the definition phase with new insights about user behavior and, thus, create a better solution.

Applying Design Thinking to Product Design 

Let’s look at how a design thinking process can be used to design an app that will help users learn a new language. 

The better you define a problem, the more focussed your design activities will be. Try to be explicit about what you want to build and why. For example, you provide plenty of detail about each part of the product: “ We want to build an app that will be focussed on beginners and intermediate students. The app will require 30 minutes of daily interaction at any part of the day, and a large part of the interaction will be typing. We will make money by showing advertisements to our users. ”  

Notice that the definition includes information on how we will monetize our product. If we don't think about revenue right from the beginning, we minimize the chances of building a commercially successful product.

Learn as much as you can about your target audience and your market. Create a user persona (the archetype of your ideal user) , and conduct a series of interviews with people who represent your user target audience to learn more about their personal goals and lifestyles. Try to understand if the product can fit naturally into their daily routine. In our example, we want to figure out when users have a half-hour of free time to use the app so that we can tailor our reminders.

Don ’ t forget about your competitors. You also need to conduct market research to learn more about the business model of your direct and indirect competitors. What other language or educational apps are available? How else are people learning languages?

Once you have a lot of insights about your target audience, conduct a brainstorming session where you discuss possible solutions for your future product. Every team member must be able to participate in the discussion. When people from different domains participate in product design, you have a unique chance to gather different perspectives on the problems at hand. For instance, someone from marketing might have a great idea about how to differentiate our new product from existing language learning apps.

Expressing your ideas in plain words can be hard. That's why, during ideation, visualizing your ideas is essential. Invite team members to sketch schematic designs . The sketches can visualize the business logic of your application or individual design decisions (such as the design of the app's screens). 

At the end of the brainstorming session, you need to collect all ideas and ask all team members to vote for the best idea. This voting part can be followed up with a quick discussion of what every member thinks about the selected solution. 

Prototyping is not about building a final product; it ’ s about investing the least possible amount of time and energy into making a solution tangible. You need to follow the “fail fast” strategy, meaning that you should be able to quickly validate your hypothesis and adjust your product design decisions based on that failure. Thus, if you are only at the first iteration of the design thinking cycle, you can create a paper prototype or low-fidelity digital prototype that you will later validate with your test participants. We would roll out our prototype to a select group of trial users and see how well it helps them to learn a new language. 

By testing a prototype with people who represent the target audience, the product team comes to understand whether their design hypothesis is valid. Testing also helps identify areas where products can perform better. So, based on our testing, we may decide to reduce the amount of typing involved in the product interaction and make it more voice-based.

Testing should not be expensive or time-consuming. During the first iteration of the design thinking cycle, the product team can use low-fidelity prototypes and ask test participants to perform the most common operations. For example, when it comes to learning a new language, the prototype test may just involve completing a daily lesson using your prototype. 

Hiring test participants that match your criteria might not be easy. Fortunately, you don ’ t need a lot of participants to validate your concept. NNGroup suggests that five test participants can find 85 percent of usability problems .  

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Master Design Thinking to Build Great Products

Design thinking is a process that helps product teams better understand the problem space and people who will use your product. When a team has a clear understanding of what problem it solves, and for whom, it can create a much better solution. At the same time, design thinking minimizes the pressure that team members have when they build a product since product design is created in iterations.

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Ideas Made to Matter

Design thinking, explained

Rebecca Linke

Sep 14, 2017

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving process rooted in a set of skills.The approach has been around for decades, but it only started gaining traction outside of the design community after the 2008 Harvard Business Review article [subscription required] titled “Design Thinking” by Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO.

Since then, the design thinking process has been applied to developing new products and services, and to a whole range of problems, from creating a business model for selling solar panels in Africa to the operation of Airbnb .

At a high level, the steps involved in the design thinking process are simple: first, fully understand the problem; second, explore a wide range of possible solutions; third, iterate extensively through prototyping and testing; and finally, implement through the customary deployment mechanisms. 

The skills associated with these steps help people apply creativity to effectively solve real-world problems better than they otherwise would. They can be readily learned, but take effort. For instance, when trying to understand a problem, setting aside your own preconceptions is vital, but it’s hard.

Creative brainstorming is necessary for developing possible solutions, but many people don’t do it particularly well. And throughout the process it is critical to engage in modeling, analysis, prototyping, and testing, and to really learn from these many iterations.

Once you master the skills central to the design thinking approach, they can be applied to solve problems in daily life and any industry.

Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Understand the problem 

The first step in design thinking is to understand the problem you are trying to solve before searching for solutions. Sometimes, the problem you need to address is not the one you originally set out to tackle.

“Most people don’t make much of an effort to explore the problem space before exploring the solution space,” said MIT Sloan professor Steve Eppinger. The mistake they make is to try and empathize, connecting the stated problem only to their own experiences. This falsely leads to the belief that you completely understand the situation. But the actual problem is always broader, more nuanced, or different than people originally assume.

Take the example of a meal delivery service in Holstebro, Denmark. When a team first began looking at the problem of poor nutrition and malnourishment among the elderly in the city, many of whom received meals from the service, it thought that simply updating the menu options would be a sufficient solution. But after closer observation, the team realized the scope of the problem was much larger , and that they would need to redesign the entire experience, not only for those receiving the meals, but for those preparing the meals as well. While the company changed almost everything about itself, including rebranding as The Good Kitchen, the most important change the company made when rethinking its business model was shifting how employees viewed themselves and their work. That, in turn, helped them create better meals (which were also drastically changed), yielding happier, better nourished customers.

Involve users

Imagine you are designing a new walker for rehabilitation patients and the elderly, but you have never used one. Could you fully understand what customers need? Certainly not, if you haven’t extensively observed and spoken with real customers. There is a reason that design thinking is often referred to as human-centered design.

“You have to immerse yourself in the problem,” Eppinger said.

How do you start to understand how to build a better walker? When a team from MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program together with the design firm Altitude took on that task, they met with walker users to interview them, observe them, and understand their experiences.  

“We center the design process on human beings by understanding their needs at the beginning, and then include them throughout the development and testing process,” Eppinger said.

Central to the design thinking process is prototyping and testing (more on that later) which allows designers to try, to fail, and to learn what works. Testing also involves customers, and that continued involvement provides essential user feedback on potential designs and use cases. If the MIT-Altitude team studying walkers had ended user involvement after its initial interviews, it would likely have ended up with a walker that didn’t work very well for customers. 

It is also important to interview and understand other stakeholders, like people selling the product, or those who are supporting the users throughout the product life cycle.

The second phase of design thinking is developing solutions to the problem (which you now fully understand). This begins with what most people know as brainstorming.

Hold nothing back during brainstorming sessions — except criticism. Infeasible ideas can generate useful solutions, but you’d never get there if you shoot down every impractical idea from the start.

“One of the key principles of brainstorming is to suspend judgment,” Eppinger said. “When we're exploring the solution space, we first broaden the search and generate lots of possibilities, including the wild and crazy ideas. Of course, the only way we're going to build on the wild and crazy ideas is if we consider them in the first place.”

That doesn’t mean you never judge the ideas, Eppinger said. That part comes later, in downselection. “But if we want 100 ideas to choose from, we can’t be very critical.”

In the case of The Good Kitchen, the kitchen employees were given new uniforms. Why? Uniforms don’t directly affect the competence of the cooks or the taste of the food.

But during interviews conducted with kitchen employees, designers realized that morale was low, in part because employees were bored preparing the same dishes over and over again, in part because they felt that others had a poor perception of them. The new, chef-style uniforms gave the cooks a greater sense of pride. It was only part of the solution, but if the idea had been rejected outright, or perhaps not even suggested, the company would have missed an important aspect of the solution.

Prototype and test. Repeat.

You’ve defined the problem. You’ve spoken to customers. You’ve brainstormed, come up with all sorts of ideas, and worked with your team to boil those ideas down to the ones you think may actually solve the problem you’ve defined.

“We don’t develop a good solution just by thinking about a list of ideas, bullet points and rough sketches,” Eppinger said. “We explore potential solutions through modeling and prototyping. We design, we build, we test, and repeat — this design iteration process is absolutely critical to effective design thinking.”

Repeating this loop of prototyping, testing, and gathering user feedback is crucial for making sure the design is right — that is, it works for customers, you can build it, and you can support it.

“After several iterations, we might get something that works, we validate it with real customers, and we often find that what we thought was a great solution is actually only just OK. But then we can make it a lot better through even just a few more iterations,” Eppinger said.

Implementation

The goal of all the steps that come before this is to have the best possible solution before you move into implementing the design. Your team will spend most of its time, its money, and its energy on this stage.

“Implementation involves detailed design, training, tooling, and ramping up. It is a huge amount of effort, so get it right before you expend that effort,” said Eppinger.

Design thinking isn’t just for “things.” If you are only applying the approach to physical products, you aren’t getting the most out of it. Design thinking can be applied to any problem that needs a creative solution. When Eppinger ran into a primary school educator who told him design thinking was big in his school, Eppinger thought he meant that they were teaching students the tenets of design thinking.

“It turns out they meant they were using design thinking in running their operations and improving the school programs. It’s being applied everywhere these days,” Eppinger said.

In another example from the education field, Peruvian entrepreneur Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor hired design consulting firm IDEO to redesign every aspect of the learning experience in a network of schools in Peru. The ultimate goal? To elevate Peru’s middle class.

As you’d expect, many large corporations have also adopted design thinking. IBM has adopted it at a company-wide level, training many of its nearly 400,000 employees in design thinking principles .

What can design thinking do for your business?

The impact of all the buzz around design thinking today is that people are realizing that “anybody who has a challenge that needs creative problem solving could benefit from this approach,” Eppinger said. That means that managers can use it, not only to design a new product or service, “but anytime they’ve got a challenge, a problem to solve.”

Applying design thinking techniques to business problems can help executives across industries rethink their product offerings, grow their markets, offer greater value to customers, or innovate and stay relevant. “I don’t know industries that can’t use design thinking,” said Eppinger.

Ready to go deeper?

Read “ The Designful Company ” by Marty Neumeier, a book that focuses on how businesses can benefit from design thinking, and “ Product Design and Development ,” co-authored by Eppinger, to better understand the detailed methods.

Register for an MIT Sloan Executive Education course:

Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services , a five-day course taught by Eppinger and other MIT professors.

• Leadership by Design: Innovation Process and Culture , a two-day course taught by MIT Integrated Design and Management director Matthew Kressy.
• Managing Complex Technical Projects , a two-day course taught by Eppinger.
• Apply for M astering Design Thinking , a 3-month online certificate course taught by Eppinger and MIT Sloan senior lecturers Renée Richardson Gosline and David Robertson.

Steve Eppinger is a professor of management science and innovation at MIT Sloan. He holds the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and has a PhD from MIT in engineering. He is the faculty co-director of MIT's System Design and Management program and Integrated Design and Management program, both master’s degrees joint between the MIT Sloan and Engineering schools. His research focuses on product development and technical project management, and has been applied to improving complex engineering processes in many industries.

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What is design thinking and why does it matter?

Solving problems is a pivotal part of product development. But some issues that come up during product development are more complex than others, and it can be difficult to find the right solution—or even know where to start looking.

That's where the concept of design thinking comes in, keeping users at the center of every process by combining problem-solving with deep empathy.

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This guide gives you a comprehensive overview of design thinking as a problem-solving approach. In this first chapter, you'll gain a strong understanding of what design thinking is, why it’s relevant, and how it helps you design products that you’re proud to bring into the world—and that your users will love.

Design better products with empathy

Use Hotjar to understand your customer’s habits, behaviors, frustrations, needs, and wants—so you can design a frictionless, user-centric experience.

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is a problem-solving approach to product development that places an emphasis on the user to help teams identify issues, reframe them, and generate creative solutions.  

It’s a solution-based ideology, process, and collection of hands-on methods to solve complex problems in a user-centric way . Design thinking is most useful for addressing problems that are either ill-defined or unknown, by helping you:

Redefine the problem with a user-centric mindset

Identify the challenge worth solving

Develop ideas in brainstorming sessions

Adopt a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing

Who is design thinking for?

Despite its name, design thinking is not exclusively used by designers. Instead, it’s a human-centered approach to innovation practiced across science, art, engineering, and business.

In the world of product development, design thinking has been incredibly successful in showcasing relevant solutions for real problems. With it, teams can do better UX research, prototyping, and usability testing to uncover new ways to meet users’ needs.  

Design thinking helps you focus on achieving practical results and solutions that:

Meet and solve a real human need

Can be developed into functional products or processes

Are economically viable

It also aims to turn ideas into tangible, testable products as quickly as possible, and make changes and improvements before building the real thing.

💡 Pro tip: don’t base your entire product on assumptions. Use design thinking to go beyond what you already know about your users and product. 

Engage with your users as much as possible; run interviews, watch screen recordings to see what your users see and identify their pain points, and use Hotjar Surveys and Feedback widgets to send out a mix of full-scale surveys and quick questions.

Understand what users really think about your site with Feedback

5 things you need to know about design thinking

Design thinking has long been considered the holy grail of innovation. But before you incorporate it into your own workflows, you need to understand what it is and why it’s so popular. 

1. Design thinking came about as a way to teach engineers how to approach problems creatively—like designers do.

The concept of design thinking was fathered by John E. Arnold, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University. From there, it began to evolve as a way of creative thinking and problem-solving, leading to IDEO’s iconic 90s run and Stanford University’s d.school design thinking course as an approach to technical and social innovation.

Today, design thinking gives us the opportunity to reimagine the world and the products, systems, or institutions that reinforce the ways people relate to each other. Some of the world’s leading brands are using design thinking to drive innovation and results—from Apple to Google, and from Samsung to IBM and GE. 

Dive into the Design Thinking Examples chapter of this guide to learn what actions your product team can take related to design thinking.

2. Design thinking means approaching a problem with a designer’s mindset, from the user’s perspective.

As a designer, you have this amazing power of wide-eyed curiosity. What does the world—or even just one person—need in terms of product, user experience, strategy, or complex systems? Can design help achieve it?

A designer is uniquely equipped to deal with these complex problems, with an inquisitive approach that embraces empathy, optimism, iteration, creativity, and ambiguity.

As a solution-based approach to innovation, design thinking draws techniques from the designer’s toolkit to solve problems in a creative and innovative way . The designer’s mindset helps you observe and develop empathy with the user—it asks about what they want and need from your product, and how you can use design to bring that to life.

💡 Pro tip: combine quantitative metrics with qualitative feedback to inform designs and keep users at the center of your work. 

Hotjar’s Feedback widget and Surveys give you clear voice of the customer (VoC) data to back up your discoveries, and Recordings and Heatmaps give you quantitative metrics on where customer issues lie with your current products.

Collect actionable product feedback so you can identify what needs to change—and how to change it

3. There are 5 principles that are pivotal to design thinking. 

The five principles of design thinking are reflected in the design thinking methodology; here they are in summary:

User-centricity and empathy: human-centered design thinking keeps people at the center of every process. A good designer knows that when you stay focused on the people you're designing for—and listen to them directly—you can arrive at optimal solutions that meet their needs.

Collaboration: design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business. Innovation comes from diverse perspectives and ideas, and should involve colleagues from various departments to create a cross-functional team.

Ideation: design thinking is a solution-based framework, so the focus is on coming up with as many ideas and potential solutions as possible. These are not necessarily new (or good) ideas, but they can become the foundations of new solutions to be tested with prototypes.

Experimentation and iteration: the early and frequent testing of your solutions is inherent to the design thinking process; this way, you can gather feedback and make any necessary changes long before the product is fully developed .  

A bias towards action : design thinking is an extremely hands-on approach to problem-solving. That means turning ideas into tangible prototypes and testing them in real-world contexts—an essential way to assess new ideas and identify the changes needed to make them work.

Learn more about these five principles in the Design Thinking Methodology chapter of this guide.

💡 Pro tip: in design thinking, prototyping is carried out on far-from-finished products, to understand users’ iterative experiences with a work in progress. 

Getting your product ideas in front of real users for feedback can be daunting, but the basis for prototyping early and often is intended to keep you from forming attachments to ideas that may or may not be worthwhile.

Sometimes the key to user empathy is sharing or co-creating a prototype with your users and getting their feedback. By testing your prototypes with real users in context, observing their reactions , and getting feedback , you can refine your point of view, learn more about your users, and make the next iteration of the product that much better.

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Source: Hotjar 

4. Design thinking is a solution-based framework, not a problem-focused approach. 

The way you look at a problem can dictate the way you solve it. Design thinking offers an alternative to problem-focused approaches by highlighting what is working (or could work), rather than emphasizing deficits, limitations, and weaknesses.

A problem-focused approach helps to identify the problem , why it exists, and when and where it becomes a pain point for your users. The approach lets you analyze a situation and figure out where the breakdown is occurring—but you still need to figure out what comes next.

A solution-focused approach, on the other hand, helps you solve the problem. Beyond identifying the problem, and when and where it occurs, this approach lets you identify strategies to resolve the issues that are causing the problem in the first place. 

In product development, solution-based approaches tend to yield more positive results and better products. A user-first approach like design thinking simplifies everything across product teams, marketing, sales, and client services, because customer goals and success metrics are the centerpiece.

A solutions-driven organization does everything from the users’ perspective first, allowing you to:

Gain empathy with users’ habits, behaviors, and needs: discover new opportunities to improve the user experience by empathizing with users and seeing an unbiased view of their experience

Design a frictionless user experience: identify pain points in the user experience and design a solution that balances both user and business needs

The focus is on coming up with as many ideas and potential solutions as possible, thinking ‘outside the box’, looking for alternative ways to view the problem, and identifying innovative solutions to the design thinking problem statements you’ve created.

For a closer look, read the Design Thinking Process and Framework chapter of this guide.

5. Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that encourages constant experimentation.

The design thinking process fosters creativity, innovation, and user-centricity, and helps you come up with actionable solutions. As noted above, the process outlines a series of principles, or stages, that bring this ideology to life: 

Empathize : getting to know your users and their challenges

Define : homing in on what problem needs to be solved

Ideate : outside-the-box thinking about solutions and angles

Prototype : creating something tangible that users can then try-out

Test : exposing your prototype to real users to determine if your solution is valid or needs some work.  

You can carry out these five-stages in parallel, repeat them, and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process. 

For example, even once you’ve defined your problem statement, you should keep building empathy with users—use design thinking tools like surveys and feedback software to validate your problem statement and update your assumptions.

The purpose of the process is to allow you to work dynamically to develop and launch innovative ideas. Regardless of how you choose to implement the design thinking process, the goal remains the same: to approach complex problems from a human perspective.

💡 Pro tip: design thinking embraces the principles of continuous discovery to evolve, adapt, and refine ideas and turn them into valuable solutions for your users.

Don’t be afraid to hop back and forth between different stages of the design thinking process to start thinking out of the box. If the creative juices aren’t flowing, go back to your users. Teams can always benefit from building more user empathy with tools like Hotjar Feedback or Surveys .

Intuitive and simple Hotjar Surveys are perfect for capturing all types of feedback

How design thinking helps teams build better products

Design thinking is a tool for creativity, innovation, and problem-solving:

It helps designers gain an understanding of user habits, behaviors, frustrations, needs, and wants.

It allows managers to foster a culture of user-centricity at every level of business.

Most importantly, it helps teams create ground-breaking products that users actually want.

Design thinking empowers teams to get their ideas out and share them. It holds the space for you to be ambiguous and messy, knowing you're moving in the direction of the outcomes you're looking for. It’s a way to start , and be willing to have 100 sketches on the floor that won’t work, before finding the one that does—from ambiguity to clarity, refinement, and launch. 

Design thinking can impact and provide innovative solutions to issues product teams truly care about:

Tackling complex challenges

Design thinking encourages creative problem-solving. It pushes you further into the process of questioning: questioning the problem, the assumptions, and the implications. 

A good design thinking framework will give you new perspectives on the lives of your users—including the challenges they face in your product, and the moments that delight them. Having this empathy can give you the insights you need to solve hard, worthwhile problems.

This is especially useful in a product development context—whether it’s designing a competitive product, optimizing internal processes, or reinventing an entire business model.

Moving faster, with iterative speed

Design thinking stops you from falling into assumptions and designing patterns out of habit. Instead, it shifts the focus from your problem to the solution that works best for your users. 

Designing a product with insights from user observation is much more productive than starting from scratch. This shortens the development process by helping you design better products that your users actually want, from the get-go.

Design thinking also helps scale the design process through large organizations. It keeps the team and stakeholders on the same page and improves efficiency with an agile design thinking approach to early-stage feedback that stops you wasting resources on unpromising ideas. 

Meeting and exceeding customer expectations to ensure customer delight 

Empathy is at the heart of design. It connects you—the designer—to the people who will benefit from your work, empowering you to create products that ultimately meet real human needs.

Design thinking revolves around a deep interest to understand the people you're building for, creating the conditions for innovation to happen over and over again .

With design thinking, teams have the freedom to generate real solutions. It’s not just about coming up with ideas—it’s about turning them into prototypes, testing them, and making changes based on user feedback.

🔥 How we use the design thinking framework at Hotjar

At Hotjar , we ‘live and breathe’ design thinking and use this framework to deliver work in any part of our company—from Marketing to Product Teams.

Here are the four key product experience insights tools we use to produce granular insights that help our designers empathize with users:

Heatmaps : see where users click, navigate, and scroll to discover which elements attract attention and which get overlooked.

Feedback widgets : gather on-site user feedback to hear from customers in the wild.

Recordings : watch playbacks of users navigating your product to zero-in on issues, pain points, and bugs.

Surveys : gather VoC data both on- and off-site by sending out either short- or long-form surveys.

Minimizing uncertainty and improving confidence in design decisions

Product development can be fraught with obstacles. Your team either collects a lot of backward-looking data, which doesn’t tell you what current or future users really want, or you make risky bets based on instinct instead of evidence. 

Design thinking is a strategy-making tool that shifts the focus to human behavior. By using imaginative, human-centered problem solving, you can identify new strategies and unlock new markets. Design thinking also plays a key role in reducing assumptions for product teams, and ultimately enables you to better understand users and deliver products that delight them . 

Developing this type of deep empathy with your target users means you’ll be able to design products they really want, and will use and come back to.

Put users at the center of your designs, every time

Faqs about design thinking:.

Design thinking is a popular ideology and process that focuses on solving complex problems in a highly user-centric way. 

It’s a creative approach to innovation and problem-solving that takes design perspectives and processes and applies them to a variety of industries to help strengthen their services, products, policies, or design processes. 

The design thinking process outlines a series of steps that bring this ideology to life—starting with building empathy for the user, through to coming up with ideas and turning them into prototypes.

Why is design thinking important for product development?

Design thinking has become closely associated with innovation and the creation of ground-breaking products and services. It can be used to develop solutions for end-users, but can also help organizations boost creativity and innovation to implement new strategies across every business level.

Design thinking allows teams to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.

The iterative and non-linear nature of the design thinking process allows product teams to work dynamically to develop and launch innovative ideas.

How can I practice design thinking?

The goal of the design thinking process is to come up with solutions, products, or services that are desirable for the user, economically viable from a business perspective, and technologically feasible. 

To do that, start by Empathizing with your users, being more open to the user experience and seeing things from their perspectives. This will help you Define your problem statement, which helps you reframe your point of view and see a problem from a different angle. 

Then, your team can start to Ideate , which may spur new approaches to your problem and bring you closer to an innovative solution that puts your users at the center. Based on this, you can start to build a Prototype to answer critical questions quickly.

When you Test your prototype, it opens you to both the many possible directions of your design and the ways it might address real human needs. Each step along the way affords the opportunity to rethink, relearn, and reboot as needed. The design process is rarely linear.

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• How to solve problems using the design ...

How to solve problems using the design thinking process

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you develop solutions in a human-focused way. Initially designed at Stanford’s d.school, the five stage design thinking method can help solve ambiguous questions, or more open-ended problems. Learn how these five steps can help your team create innovative solutions to complex problems.

As humans, we’re approached with problems every single day. But how often do we come up with solutions to everyday problems that put the needs of individual humans first?

This is how the design thinking process started.

What is the design thinking process?

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you tackle complex problems by framing the issue in a human-centric way. The design thinking process works especially well for problems that are not clearly defined or have a more ambiguous goal.

One of the first individuals to write about design thinking was John E. Arnold, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford. Arnold wrote about four major areas of design thinking in his book, “Creative Engineering” in 1959. His work was later taught at Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (also known as d.school), a design institute that pioneered the design thinking process. 

This eventually led Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon to outline one of the first iterations of the design thinking process in his 1969 book, “The Sciences of the Artificial.” While there are many different variations of design thinking, “The Sciences of the Artificial” is often credited as the basis. 

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A non-linear design thinking approach

Design thinking is not a linear process. It’s important to understand that each stage of the process can (and should) inform the other steps. For example, when you’re going through user testing, you may learn about a new problem that didn’t come up during any of the previous stages. You may learn more about your target personas during the final testing phase, or discover that your initial problem statement can actually help solve even more problems, so you need to redefine the statement to include those as well. 

Why use the design thinking process

The design thinking process is not the most intuitive way to solve a problem, but the results that come from it are worth the effort. Here are a few other reasons why implementing the design thinking process for your team is worth it.

Focus on problem solving

As human beings, we often don’t go out of our way to find problems. Since there’s always an abundance of problems to solve, we’re used to solving problems as they occur. The design thinking process forces you to look at problems from many different points of view. 

The design thinking process requires focusing on human needs and behaviors, and how to create a solution to match those needs. This focus on problem solving can help your design team come up with creative solutions for complex problems. 

Encourages collaboration and teamwork

The design thinking process cannot happen in a silo. It requires many different viewpoints from designers, future customers, and other stakeholders . Brainstorming sessions and collaboration are the backbone of the design thinking process.

Foster innovation

The design thinking process focuses on finding creative solutions that cater to human needs. This means your team is looking to find creative solutions for hyper specific and complex problems. If they’re solving unique problems, then the solutions they’re creating must be equally unique.

The iterative process of the design thinking process means that the innovation doesn’t have to end—your team can continue to update the usability of your product to ensure that your target audience’s problems are effectively solved. 

The 5 stages of design thinking

Currently, one of the more popular models of design thinking is the model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (or d.school) at Stanford. The main reason for its popularity is because of the success this process had in successful companies like Google, Apple, Toyota, and Nike. Here are the five steps designated by the d.school model that have helped many companies succeed.

1. Empathize stage

The first stage of the design thinking process is to look at the problem you’re trying to solve in an empathetic manner. To get an accurate representation of how the problem affects people, actively look for people who encountered this problem previously. Asking them how they would have liked to have the issue resolved is a good place to start, especially because of the human-centric nature of the design thinking process. 

Empathy is an incredibly important aspect of the design thinking process.  The design thinking process requires the designers to put aside any assumptions and unconscious biases they may have about the situation and put themselves in someone else’s shoes. 

For example, if your team is looking to fix the employee onboarding process at your company, you may interview recent new hires to see how their onboarding experience went. Another option is to have a more tenured team member go through the onboarding process so they can experience exactly what a new hire experiences.

2. Define stage

Sometimes a designer will encounter a situation when there’s a general issue, but not a specific problem that needs to be solved. One way to help designers clearly define and outline a problem is to create human-centric problem statements. 

A problem statement helps frame a problem in a way that provides relevant context in an easy to comprehend way. The main goal of a problem statement is to guide designers working on possible solutions for this problem. A problem statement frames the problem in a way that easily highlights the gap between the current state of things and the end goal. 

Tip: Problem statements are best framed as a need for a specific individual. The more specific you are with your problem statement, the better designers can create a human-centric solution to the problem. 

Examples of good problem statements:

We need to decrease the number of clicks a potential customer takes to go through the sign-up process.

We need to decrease the new subscriber unsubscribe rate by 10%. 

We need to increase the Android app adoption rate by 20%.

3. Ideate stage

This is the stage where designers create potential solutions to solve the problem outlined in the problem statement. Use brainstorming techniques with your team to identify the human-centric solution to the problem defined in step two. 

Here are a few brainstorming strategies you can use with your team to come up with a solution:

Standard brainstorm session: Your team gathers together and verbally discusses different ideas out loud.

Brainwrite: Everyone writes their ideas down on a piece of paper or a sticky note and each team member puts their ideas up on the whiteboard. 

Worst possible idea: The inverse of your end goal. Your team produces the most goofy idea so nobody will look silly. This takes out the rigidity of other brainstorming techniques. This technique also helps you identify areas that you can improve upon in your actual solution by looking at the worst parts of an absurd solution. 

It’s important that you don’t discount any ideas during the ideation phase of brainstorming. You want to have as many potential solutions as possible, as new ideas can help trigger even better ideas. Sometimes the most creative solution to a problem is the combination of many different ideas put together.

4. Prototype stage

During the prototype phase, you and your team design a few different variations of inexpensive or scaled down versions of the potential solution to the problem. Having different versions of the prototype gives your team opportunities to test out the solution and make any refinements. 

Prototypes are often tested by other designers, team members outside of the initial design department, and trusted customers or members of the target audience. Having multiple versions of the product gives your team the opportunity to tweak and refine the design before testing with real users. During this process, it’s important to document the testers using the end product. This will give you valuable information as to what parts of the solution are good, and which require more changes.

After testing different prototypes out with teasers, your team should have different solutions for how your product can be improved. The testing and prototyping phase is an iterative process—so much so that it’s possible that some design projects never end.

After designers take the time to test, reiterate, and redesign new products, they may find new problems, different solutions, and gain an overall better understanding of the end-user. The design thinking framework is flexible and non-linear, so it’s totally normal for the process itself to influence the end design. 

Tips for incorporating the design thinking process into your team

If you want your team to start using the design thinking process, but you’re unsure of how to start, here are a few tips to help you out. 

Start small: Similar to how you would test a prototype on a small group of people, you want to test out the design thinking process with a smaller team to see how your team functions. Give this test team some small projects to work on so you can see how this team reacts. If it works out, you can slowly start rolling this process out to other teams.

Incorporate cross-functional team members : The design thinking process works best when your team members collaborate and brainstorm together. Identify who your designer’s key stakeholders are and ensure they’re included in the small test team. 

Organize work in a collaborative project management software : Keep important design project documents such as user research, wireframes, and brainstorms in a collaborative tool like Asana . This way, team members will have one central source of truth for anything relating to the project they’re working on.

Foster collaborative design thinking with Asana

The design thinking process works best when your team works collaboratively. You don’t want something as simple as miscommunication to hinder your projects. Instead, compile all of the information your team needs about a design project in one place with Asana. 

Related resources

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How Asana uses work management to drive product development

How Asana uses work management to streamline project intake processes

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

How to solve problems with design thinking

May 18, 2023 Is it time to throw out the standard playbook when it comes to problem solving? Uniquely challenging times call for unique approaches, write Michael Birshan , Ben Sheppard , and coauthors in a recent article , and design thinking offers a much-needed fresh perspective for leaders navigating volatility. Design thinking is a systemic, intuitive, customer-focused problem-solving approach that can create significant value and boost organizational resilience. The proof is in the pudding: From 2013 to 2018, companies that embraced the business value of design had TSR that were 56 percentage points higher than that of their industry peers. Check out these insights to understand how to use design thinking to unleash the power of creativity in strategy and problem solving.

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How design helps incumbents build new businesses

Design Thinking: Product strategy framework explained

Learn how to develop a successful product strategy using design thinking.

In today's competitive and fast-paced business environment, having a product strategy that resonates with your target audience is the key to success. One methodology that has gained prominence in recent years is Design Thinking. If you're unfamiliar with this approach, fear not, we'll take you through the process and discuss how it can be effectively implemented in your product strategy.

Understanding Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that concentrates on understanding and empathizing with end-users. It involves a process of ideation and iteration, where designers test and refine their ideas based on feedback from users. In essence, this process puts the users' needs at the center of product development.

Design Thinking is an iterative process that involves a deep understanding of the user's needs, wants, and pain points. The methodology is centered around empathy, which involves understanding the user's perspective and seeing the world through their eyes. This approach helps designers create products that are not only functional but also emotionally satisfying for users.

Origins of Design Thinking

Design Thinking traces its origins back to the 1970s, where it was first popularized in the fields of design and architecture. It later found its way into other areas such as service design and business strategy. The focus on empathetic problem-solving and user-centered design has helped propel the methodology's popularity in recent years.

The origins of Design Thinking can be traced back to the work of Herbert Simon, who proposed that design was a problem-solving activity. Simon's work laid the foundation for the Design Thinking methodology, which emphasizes the importance of understanding the user's needs and designing products that meet those needs.

Key principles of Design Thinking

The key principles of Design Thinking are empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing. Empathy involves understanding your users' needs, wants, and pain points. Ideation is the process of generating ideas that can meet those needs, while prototyping and testing involve building and refining prototypes based on user feedback.

Design Thinking is a user-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of understanding the user's perspective. This approach helps designers create products that are not only functional but also emotionally satisfying for users. The methodology is based on the idea that by empathizing with users, designers can create products that solve real problems and meet real needs.

Design Thinking process

The Design Thinking process can be broken down into five stages, which include:

• Empathize with the user
• Define the problem
• Ideate solutions
• Prototype and test
• Iterate and refine

The Design Thinking process is an iterative one that involves continuous feedback from users. Designers start by empathizing with users to understand their needs and pain points. They then define the problem and ideate solutions that can meet those needs. Prototyping and testing involve building and refining prototypes based on user feedback. The final stage is to iterate and refine the product until it meets the user's needs.

Design Thinking is a powerful methodology that can help designers create products that are not only functional but also emotionally satisfying for users. By putting the user's needs at the center of product development, designers can create products that solve real problems and meet real needs.

Implementing Design Thinking in Product Strategy

Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that involves empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing. Implementing Design Thinking in your product strategy can help you create products that are user-centered and meet the needs of your target audience.

Defining the problem

Before ideating solutions, it's essential to define the problem you're trying to solve clearly. To do this effectively, you'll need to conduct research that uncovers the user's pain points and needs. User surveys, focus groups, and interviews can all be valuable tools in this regard. It's important to understand the user's perspective and identify the root cause of the problem to create an effective solution.

For example, if you're creating a new app to help people manage their finances, you'll need to understand the challenges they face when managing their money. You might find that users struggle to keep track of their expenses or have difficulty creating a budget. By defining the problem, you can create a product that addresses these pain points and meets the needs of your target audience.

Empathizing with users

The next step is to engage in empathetic problem-solving by trying to view the problem from the user's perspective. Understand their pain points and needs, and seek to address them in your product strategy. Efforts to empathize with users help you identify potential solutions that can make a considerable impact on the user's experience.

Empathizing with users can involve conducting user research, observing their behavior, and even putting yourself in their shoes. By doing so, you can gain a deeper understanding of the user's needs and create a product that meets those needs.

Ideation and brainstorming

Armed with a proper understanding of the problem and the user's needs, it's time to generate ideas. Brainstorming sessions can help spark new ideas that address the user's pain points and needs. When brainstorming, it's important to defer judgment and approach problem-solving creatively.

Brainstorming can involve a variety of techniques, such as mind mapping, sketching, or even role-playing. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible, no matter how wild or unconventional they may seem. By doing so, you can identify potential solutions that you might not have considered otherwise.

Prototyping and testing

Even the best ideas need to be tested before they can be implemented. Therefore, creating prototypes is essential to validate your conceptual ideas. Simple prototypes can be created using basic UI or visual design tools or even paper mockups. Testing these prototypes with users can help you refine the ideas further.

Prototyping and testing can involve a variety of techniques, such as usability testing, A/B testing, or even focus groups. The goal is to gather feedback from users and identify areas for improvement. By doing so, you can create a product that meets the needs of your target audience and provides a positive user experience.

Iterating and refining

Based on the feedback received, iterate and refine your prototypes and product strategy. Be open to feedback, make adjustments where necessary, and be willing to go back and refine initial ideas that didn't pan out. This process of iteration and refinement is critical to designing a user-centered product.

Iteration and refinement can involve a variety of techniques, such as user testing, data analysis, or even surveys. The goal is to continually improve the product and ensure that it meets the needs of your target audience. By doing so, you can create a product that is not only user-centered but also has the potential to be successful in the market.

Benefits of Design Thinking in Product Development

Lastly, here are some significant benefits of using Design Thinking in your product development:

Enhanced user experience

Design Thinking places the user at the center of product development, ensuring that their needs are met, resulting in a product that offers an enhanced user experience.

Improved product-market fit

The empathetic approach employed in Design Thinking ensures that a product solution is tailored to meet the specific needs of its users, leading to an improved product-market fit.

Encouraging innovation

The ideation stage in Design Thinking encourages creativity and originality, which, in turn, leads to innovative product solutions.

Streamlined decision-making

A user-centered product development process ensures that decision-making towards product development aligns with the user's preferences. This streamlined approach increases the product's marketability.

Increased team collaboration

Design Thinking encourages creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. By focusing on the user's needs, team members work together towards a common goal, ensuring accountability and ownership of the process, leading to higher-quality outputs.

In summary, Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach that is centered on the user's needs. By incorporating this methodology into your product strategy, you can create user-centered products that offer enhanced user experiences, product-market fit, and encourage innovation while streamlining decision-making and increasing team collaboration.

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6.3 Design Thinking

Portions of the material in this section are based on original work by Geoffrey Graybeal and produced with support from the Rebus Community. The original is freely available under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license at https://press.rebus.community/media-innovation-and-entrepreneurship/.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the design thinking process
• Discuss some design thinking tools

David Kelley , founder of Stanford University’s Design School and cofounder of design company IDEO , is credited as the originator of design thinking, at least within business and entrepreneurial contexts. You were briefly introduced to design thinking in Creativity, Innovation, and Invention , but we will delve into it in more depth here. IDEO grew from a merger of the creator of Apple ’s first mouse and the first laptop computer designer, David Kelley Design and ID Two , respectively. Almost a decade after the 1982 Apple creations, the 1991-merged company primarily focused on the traditional design of products, ranging from toothbrushes to chairs. Yet another decade later, the company found itself designing consumer experiences more so than consumer products. Kelley began using the word “thinking” to describe the design process involved in creating customer experiences rather than creating physical products. The term design thinking was born.

The current IDEO CEO Tim Brown defines design thinking as “a human-centered and collaborative approach to problem-solving, using a designed mindset to solve complex problems.” 21 Design thinking is a method to focus the design and development decisions of a product on the needs of the customer, typically involving an empathy-driven process to define complex problems and create solutions that address those problems.

A common core of design thinking is its application beyond the design studio, as the methods and tools have been articulated for use by those outside of the field, particularly business managers. Design practice is now being applied beyond product and graphic areas to the design of digital interactions, services, business strategy, and social policy.

Link to Learning

Watch this 2009 TEDGlobal talk where Tim Brown describes design thinking from a historical perspective to modern times.

Design Thinking Process

Business schools have typically taught a rational, analytic approach to thinking. It focuses on well-defined goals and constraints, and thought precedes action in a sequential process of planning and analysis. The design thinking process approaches problem solving differently. Thinking and doing are often intertwined in an iterative exploration of the design “space,” and the process uncovers goals and constraints, rather than identifying them up front.

One design thinking approach that is taught at places like Stanford’s Design School and organizations like the LUMA Institute (a global company that teaches people how to be innovative) is human-centered design (HCD) . HCD, as the name suggests, focuses on people during design and development. This speaks to the Tim Brown definition of design thinking. Inspiration for ideas comes from exploration of actual people, their needs and problems.

Three spaces—inspiration, ideation, and implementation—compose the design thinking process ( Figure 6.14 ). The process uses “spaces” and not “phases” because multiple spaces can happen simultaneously.

Nevertheless, inspiration usually occurs first. This entails identifying a problem or opportunity that motivates someone to search for solutions. Ideation is the process of generating ideas and solutions through various techniques such as brainstorming and sketching sessions. There are hundreds of ideation techniques available. A few examples of ideation exercises include Top Five, How Might We, Mash-up, and Co-Creation Session. In Top Five, everyone on the team writes down their top five ideas, shares them, and clusters similar ideas. In How Might We, the team looks at insight statements and reframes them as “How Might We” questions by adding that phrase at the beginning. The goal is to find opportunities for design that also allows for a variety of solutions. Mash-up involves combining existing brands or concepts to create something new. The team identifies those brands or concepts that represent a quality they desire in their solution, and they “mash up” those ideas to create a new idea. A co-creation session incorporates the desired market into the creation process by recruiting a group of people from the market to work on the design with the team. The goal is to capture the feedback the group provides by treating them as designers, not as interview subjects. Implemented solutions evolve from interactions with users and from the ongoing creation and refinement of possible solutions. Design thinking incorporates experience-based insights, judgments, and intuition from the end users’ perspectives, while in a rational analytic approach, the solution process often becomes formalized into a set of rules.

Nesta is a UK-based innovation foundation that offers many design thinking tools and resources similar to IDEO. Named for the acronym NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, the organization was established in 1998 with an endowment from the UK National Lottery and became an independent charity in 2012. Nesta’s strategy focuses on health, government innovation, education, arts, and creative economy and innovation policy. Nesta offers a set of five criteria to ascertain that an occupation is creative: 22

• Novel process
• Mechanization resistant
• Nonrepetitive or nonuniform function
• Makes a creative contribution to the value chain
• Involves interpretation not merely a transformation in the service or artifact

As the name implies, design thinking originates from design. As design is one of the identified creative industries, there’s a clear connection between creative industries and design thinking. In fact, Nesta offers inspiration and ideation exercises that are freely available for users wishing to implement design thinking practices.

Human-Centered Design Thinking Spaces

The Stanford Design School uses human-centered design thinking (HCD) as its design thinking approach. HCD emphasizes the following spaces of the design thinking process:

• Empathizing: As illustrated by the human-centered approach, it is important to have empathy for the problem you are attempting to solve. Empathy, as the chapter on Creativity, Innovation, and Invention defined, means observing and immersing yourself in the surrounding environment to engage with and understand people’s experiences and motivations.
• Defining: This aspect involves describing the core problem(s) that you and your team have identified. Asking “how might we?” questions helps narrow the focus, as the ultimate aim here is to identify a problem statement that illustrates the problem you want to tackle. “Frame Your Design” is one such challenge in what IDEO calls its “toolkit” that works well here. Frame Your Design asks you to write down your problem and then refine it by following specific steps so that you end up with a design question that serves as a starting point but leaves room for creativity. 23
• Ideating: This is where you begin to come up with ideas that address the problem “space” you have defined. There are hundreds of exercises aimed at the ideation process, ranging from brainstorming to “Five whys?” in the IDEO toolkit. The “Five whys” is a questioning method in which the researcher, in looking for information to solve a problem, asks a respondent a broad question, then asks “why” to get deeper into the respondent’s thinking. IDEO puts it this way: “You’ll use this method while you’re conducting an interview and start with really broad questions like “Do you save much money?” or “How was your harvest this year?” Then, by asking why five times you’ll get some essential answers to complicated problems. This can be a great method to use if you’re trying to get at the human and emotional roots of a problem.” 24
• Prototyping: In this space, the entrepreneur creates and tests inexpensive, scaled-down versions of a product with features or benefits that serve as solutions for previously identified problems. This could be tested internally among employees, a process known as dogfooding , or externally with potential customers. This is an experimental phase.
• Testing: Designers apply rigorous tests of the complete product using the best solutions identified in the prototyping space.

What Can You Do?

Every day a little closer.

Some examples of everyday items that can be improved through design thinking are sinks on top of toilet cisterns that save water by refilling the cistern with the water you wash your hands with, video doorbells, and smart lightbulbs. Try to think of an improvement to one of your everyday items.

Design Thinking Tools

There are numerous design thinking tools aimed to aid or stimulate your design thinking activities. They stem from organizations dedicated to design thinking like IDEO and Google Ventures . While methodologies incorporate processes and techniques, tools are resources that enable such approaches. These may be activities, or templates that facilitate the approach.

• Innovation Flowchart: A sample innovation flowchart may map out the details of the process. The structured overview serves as an organizational tool in the development process.
• Question Ladder: A tool that helps you ask the “right” questions by refining your questions ( Figure 6.15 ). Asking the “wrong” questions can yield meaningless or less-than-adequate results.
• Design Thinking Tool Kit: There are various tool kits for select audiences. For example, the “design thinking for educators” toolkit has design thinking resources related to education. A typical tool kit includes a wide assortment of resources with methods and instructions to help you put design thinking into action.
• IDEO Design Kit: IDEO offers an approximately 200-page free PDF, “The Field Guide to Human Centered Design,” with activities on mindsets, ideation, inspiration, implementation and a few case studies: http://www.designkit.org/resources/1.
• Google Ventures Design Sprint: A five-day design-thinking exercise that helps resolve questions through design, prototyping, and testing: https://www.gv.com/sprint/.
• Design Thinking Mix Tapes: Stanford’s Design School offers three “mixtapes” that serve as guides through a half day of design thinking work in the areas of understanding, experimentation, and ideation: https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/chart-a-new-course-put-design-thinking-to-work.
• WE THINQ: Software designed to enable collaboration in innovation management: https://www.ideaconnection.com/software/we-thinq-258.html.

Entrepreneur In Action

Bitgiving and design thinking.

At age twenty-two, Ishita Anand created India’s first live social crowdfunding platform that enabled artists, engineers, and creators to collaborate and raise funds for special causes by verifying causes and how the funds would be used, while charging a small percentage of the funds raised as a fee. Within five years of its inception, her social enterprise, called BitGiving , has led efforts to address problems through social change. The firm has contributed to various social campaigns related to children, women, education, health, and disaster among others. The firm partnered with charities and other organizations to raise funds for India’s National Ice Hockey team to compete in Kuwait at the World Cup and for the victims of the 2015 Nepal earthquake through the crowdfunding platform and other social media platforms such as Twitter . 25

As India’s first social crowdfunding platform, BitGiving literally aimed to solve problems through social change. Describe some design thinking activities that would have been useful to Anand at BitGiving’s inception.

As of September 2018, the company closed its website abruptly and reportedly shut down. While the exact reason for its failure is unknown, some reasons the venture could have failed were insufficient capital, regulation, management problems or strategic misalignment, or even poor timing. Failure is common in entrepreneurship, and conferences dedicated to failure are even conducted around the globe (FailCon is sort of the TED Talk of failure).

• How could the design thinking process have helped BitGiving from the outset?
• 21 Mark Logan. “Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs.” Medium . September 29, 2018. https://medium.com/idealect/design-thinking-for-entrepreneurs-392c8cbdcc24
• 22 Christine Harris, Margaret Collins, and Dennis Cheek. America’s Creative Economy: A Study of Recent Conceptions, Definitions, and Approaches to Measurement across the USA . National Creativity Network and Creative Alliance. August 2013. https://www.centerforcreativeeconomy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/AmericasCreativeEconomyFULLReport.pdf
• 23 IDEO.org. The Field Guide to Human Centered Design . 2015. https://bestgraz.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Field-Guide-to-Human-Centered-Design_IDEOorg.pdf
• 24 “The Five Whys.” Design Kit. n.d. http://www.designkit.org/methods/66
• 25 “BitGiving.” Crunchbase. n.d. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bitgiving#section-overview

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• Authors: Michael Laverty, Chris Littel
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Entrepreneurship
• Publication date: Jan 16, 2020
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Design Problem Statements: What They Are and How to Frame Them

Even exciting product ideas can flop without an understanding of the user problem to solve. A design problem statement is an essential step in the design process for creating products that truly matter.

By Jordan DeVos

Jordan’s expertise spans across brand strategy, service design, and UX. She works with organizations to help strengthen teams and innovate.

PREVIOUSLY AT

In 2006, Microsoft made the competitive move and released Zune, its version of the futuristic, one-buttoned, every-song-in-your-pocket iPod. The onscreen colors were punchy and the interface was type-led with a beautiful minimalist font. It was a bold move to challenge Apple, but in the world of product, success is not always about being first .

It could be argued that the Zune-only features, such as wirelessly sending a song from one Zune to another (an innovative feature in the mid-aughts) were just as good as the iPod-exclusive features, making Microsoft’s product a seemingly strong contender. But instead, it was a failure.

You could unearth countless reasons why the Zune wasn’t a success (and probably a pile of reasons why it should have been). One major underlying cause was that Microsoft had not identified a problem the Zune would solve. There were no clear user needs that the iPod was failing to meet or any new innovation that would shake things up. The Zune was solving nothing.

If there is no problem, there is no solution, and no reason for a company to exist. – Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures (a Silicon Valley venture capital firm)

What Exactly Is a “Design Problem”?

We’ve all had them, solved them, and most definitely caused them. But to put it in simple terms is a challenge in itself. The Oxford dictionary says a problem is “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.” True, but this implies there is an awareness of the desired outcome. With all due respect to the brilliant minds at the Oxford Dictionary, this definition is missing an important component of most examples of design problems: unconscious desires .

Inventor of the automobile, Henry Ford, knew about this layer of desire when he famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” He knew that the unwelcome matter at hand was that horses were too slow. But this wasn’t really the problem that needed solving. There was a deeper need that his customers couldn’t articulate.

Richard Buchanan is a “design theorist” whose career revolves around human-centered design thinking principles. In his paper, Design Research and the New Learning , he alludes to a user’s unarticulated need when he defines design as “the human power of conceiving, planning, and making products or services that serve human beings in the accomplishment of their individual and collective purposes.” It’s the user’s purpose that needs attention, not simply an unwelcome situation. This deeper need is at the root of what a user desires, whether or not they can articulate it.

Ford’s customers thought they needed a faster version of what they already had. But Ford understood their deeper purpose: to get from one place to another faster . This distinction helped him avoid simply engineering a faster horse and instead opened the doors to create something that had never existed before.

A problem isn’t simply an unwanted situation or a matter that deviates from the norm—although these are still valid definitions of a problem. For designers and creative problem solving, a problem is an unmet need that, if met, can satisfy the user’s purpose.

Why Frame a Problem?

Framing a design problem is the first step in a human-centered design process . It prioritizes the elements just discussed: the user and the purpose they desire to accomplish. This means that an initial round of user research can be revolutionary in uncovering deep-rooted desires. Conducting user interviews or desktop research, such as competitive analysis, can reveal insights into potential users and what problems they face.

For instance, “New mums need a way to feel connected to a support group because they spend a large amount of time alone with their babies and end up feeling isolated and lonely,” is one of many design problem statement examples a designer might create when tasked with creating a product for parents. These mums have a deep-rooted desire to know they’re not alone, and a new product might help them accomplish the purpose of feeling connected.

A design team could develop an app, a social network platform, or even a brick-and-mortar venue where mums could gather. The problem statement would guide the team in navigating decisions and features, like, should we use AI? What other apps should it link to? How could the environment be designed? The framed problem provides a framework for crafting the best solution for the user.

By framing the problem with a statement narrow enough to bring focus yet broad enough for creativity, the product design team can stay simultaneously focused on design problem-solving and open to innovative possibilities.

Identifying Barriers and Opportunities

When you know the direction you want to go, you can see what’s in front of you. With a clearly defined problem that’s rooted in a user’s purpose, it’s easier to see what barriers are in the way of reaching that end goal. And if the problem is clearly stated at the start of a project, it can act as a lens through which to find additional opportunities that might have gone unnoticed.

Aligning the Team Around Design Problem Solving

Without realizing it, members of a team—stakeholders, designers , developers, and even users—each have a different image in their head of what the end product should be. They are each thinking about it in a slightly different way informed by different mental models . Arguably the biggest impact of framing a problem is how it aligns these varying views.

The best design thinking problem statement examples collect multiple perspectives within a framework that sparks effective conversations and decisions. Once an articulated statement is made, expectations for the team can be managed and efforts are aligned.

Guiding the Project and All Future Decisions

A product team can function without a problem defined—it happens all the time. But when an explicit statement declares what problem needs to be solved, every effort is focused on that single outcome.

A well-framed product design problem statement that is documented as part of a product design brief is a simple tool to weigh options and measure success. A good design problem statement will leave room for creativity, but it ultimately provides a clear lens through which to view each element of the project.

Outlining the problem statement and the design process steps acts as a filter that sifts out superfluous or irrelevant ideas and retains only the ones that meet the need. As the design process progresses, the team should refer to the initial problem statement and ensure that what is being designed still addresses the core problem statement documented in the product design brief.

God gave us ten styluses … let’s not invent another. – Steve Jobs on his distaste for the Apple Newton’s unnecessary stylus pen

Saving Time and Money in the Long Run

With a shared perspective and sign-off on the ultimate purpose of the product, the design process can run more efficiently. There will always be inevitable tangents and dead ends in innovative projects, but even these learnings can be more insightful when everything is driven by finding a solution to a single problem.

Working from a shared understanding of the design problem needing to be solved can also prevent public embarrassment—apart from a failed product. When Juicero launched its extravagant juicing machine, it was met with jabs and jeers because it charged a premium price for what anyone can do with their hands—squeeze fresh juice from a packet. It managed to raise $120 million in investments but suspended sales 16 months after launching.

Ultimately, the product brought very little value to juice-lovers because it solved a non-existent problem. Not every idea should be executed, and a well-framed problem statement can help determine which ones should just stay in the sketchbook.

Helping Connect Emotionally to the User

A problem can’t be defined unless you know who is struggling. By taking the time to conduct research and speak to potential users and ask questions about their current situation and how they feel about it, your team can suddenly step into the shoes of the user.

The emotional engagement needed at the problem framing stage aligns the product with the person it’s meant to serve. The user’s motivations, desires, and fears can create a framework for measuring all ideas and proposals. Seeing a problem from a human perspective will inevitably illuminate intuitive and emotional insights that will make a product more lovable.

How Can a Problem Be Framed?

Even though the benefits of framing a problem are significant, it’s often a skipped step. It’s not uncommon to receive a thoroughly constructed design brief that includes everything from visual direction and functional requirements. And sometimes that’s all you need when you join the team.

But if you’re at the beginning of a project and the visual and functional decisions are already being made, it’s worth taking a step back to define the problem the product is solving. Sometimes there is plenty of time to do this, other times there’s resistance and limited resources. Regardless of where you find yourself, there are methods that can help bring a level of clarity to everyone involved.

If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. – Albert Einstein

The Four Ws: Questions to Answer

Ideally, this is a method that gathers key stakeholders around a pile of Post-its and a large wall. By asking four simple questions, everyone can put their own thoughts up and together synthesize the content to find focus and clarity.

• Who is affected? Who is experiencing the problem? Can this user be further specified (by demographic, persona, motivation, reason for being in the situation)?
• What is the problem? What are the struggles? What task needs to be accomplished? What pain point needs to be relieved?
• Where does it happen? What is the context in which the user experiences the problem? Is it in a physical or digital space? Who else is involved?
• Why does it matter? Why is this problem worth solving? What value does it bring to the user? What value does it bring to the business?

Empathy Map: Putting Yourself in the User’s Shoes

Empathy maps are a common tool used in UX design and can be helpful in many stages throughout a product’s development. Here, at the start, it instantly connects the team to the user to find out what their purpose might be. Depending on the amount of time you have for the problem framing stage, this method can involve user interviews and observational shadowing.

• Hear and see. What kind of comments or concepts does the user encounter? What are others saying that the user is exposed to? What does the user observe others doing around them? (This category illustrates the user’s surroundings.)
• Say and do. What are the user’s comments and behaviors? What are they saying out loud to others? What do they do in practice? (These are things that are explicitly done and can be clearly observed.)
• Think and feel. What does the user think but keep to themself? How do they emotionally react to a situation? What are their desires? (These aren’t always apparent by simply observing a user, but can be revealed through conversational interviews. It takes some digging to understand what is happening on a subconscious level, but this is where great insights can be found.)
• Pains and gains. What frustrations does the user have? What about the experience is unnecessary or disappointing? In contrast, what about the experience is improving the life of the user? What works well? Where or when is the user happiest? (These are the outcomes of the experience.)

The Final Problem Statement

This is a simple but really effective way to bring focus to the insights you’ve uncovered and the ultimate problem you can frame. The design problem statement structure template is like a page from MadLibs, a sentence with blank spaces to fill with your insights. It creates a concise statement rooted in your team’s collective thinking. It’s important to keep the statement specific enough so there is a shared vision for the product, but broad enough to allow for creativity and new insights.

Here are a few design problem statement example formats:

• e.g., “I am a new mum trying to take care of my baby in the best way possible, but I don’t know if I’m doing a good job because I’m always at home alone and don’t have anyone to talk to about it, which makes me feel isolated and alone.”
• e.g., “New mums need a way to connect with other mums because they are often at home alone during the day and feel isolated and alone.”
• e.g., “Our new mum has the problem that she has no one to talk to about the best way to care for her baby when she is at home alone every day. Our solution should deliver a way for her to feel connected to other mums so she feels less isolated and alone.”

Every Good Problem Framing Phase, No Matter How Simple, Should:

• Avoid proposing solutions. It’s easy to think in the tangible terms of features and functionality, but these will only distract from first understanding the fundamental problem.
• Ask why. It’s a simple question to help find insights under the surface. But as Fast Company contributor Tina Seelig writes , asking “why” lets you see a situation from a different angle.
• Reflect. Make time to step back and look for connections and patterns. This is where insights lie that can set a product apart from competitors.
• Keep it universal. Avoid using jargon or any unnecessary complexities. The problem should be simple for anyone to understand, and ideally, to retell. Equipping team members to easily talk about what you are trying to achieve will build confidence and passion within the project.

Forget the Horse, Deliver a Car

What is a design problem statement? Some clients may set a brief that clearly defines the problem to solve. Others might not know about this crucial stage. Therein lies an opportunity for you to lead the client in taking a step back and evaluating why this product will exist. Together you can align the team, craft a framework, and kick off an effective and efficient process.

Perhaps the greatest value of this step is understanding the human psyche. Framing a problem from a customer’s perspective lets you more effectively deliver what people never knew they needed. Dave Thomsen, a former IDEO designer, writes that a human-centric approach leads to great user benefits and purpose.

When designers design a product that deeply connects to a user’s desired purpose, it becomes easier to build a product experience and a brand that connects to people on an emotional level. In turn, these will not only be more successful products but will prove to be more purposeful and meaningful in the lives of the people who use them.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• E-commerce UX: An Overview of Best Practices (with Infographic)
• The Best UX Designer Portfolios: Inspiring Case Studies and Examples
• The Importance of Human-centered Design in Product Design
• Heuristic Principles for Mobile Interfaces
• Anticipatory Design: How to Create Magical User Experiences

Understanding the basics

What is included in a design brief.

A design brief includes a clear design problem statement and the proposed solution to that problem. The brief will also outline the overall design process and expectations between the client and the team. Finally, it should include a basic schedule of deliverables and designate responsibilities.

What is the designing process?

The design process in general is the process by which a problem is identified, understood, and addressed through design. Decisions in the design process should ideally be informed by research, data, and a clear understanding of the target user.

What is design thinking approach?

Design thinking approach is a methodology in which the creative strategies and process-based solutions learned in the field of design can inform creative problem-solving in any field or discipline. The approach is a popular and effective tool in the world of product development.

What does design thinking do?

Design thinking is the process by which teams can apply the insights and process-based creative problem-solving strategies to product development, business, and other fields and professions.

What is problem solving in design?

Problem-solving is one of the main goals of design that characterizes it beyond a more freely creative venture. Designers identify problems to solve and then apply research to making design decisions to address the core problem.

What is a good problem statement?

With a good problem statement, UX designers have a clearly-defined understanding of the user and their core problem. The problem statement should avoid proposing a firm solution in the beginning, which should be uncovered through research and iterative design exploration.

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Jordan DeVos

New York, NY, United States

Member since March 28, 2018

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Design Thinking (DT)

What is design thinking (dt).

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. It is most useful to tackle ill-defined or unknown problems and involves five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

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Why Is Design Thinking so Important?

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

— Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Design thinking fosters innovation . Companies must innovate to survive and remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment. In design thinking, cross-functional teams work together to understand user needs and create solutions that address those needs. Moreover, the design thinking process helps unearth creative solutions.

Design teams use design thinking to tackle ill-defined/unknown problems (aka wicked problems ). Alan Dix, Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, explains what wicked problems are in this video.

Wicked problems demand teams to think outside the box, take action immediately, and constantly iterate—all hallmarks of design thinking.

Don Norman, a pioneer of user experience design, explains why the designer’s way of thinking is so powerful when it comes to such complex problems.

Design thinking offers practical methods and tools that major companies like Google, Apple and Airbnb use to drive innovation. From architecture and engineering to technology and services, companies across industries have embraced the methodology to drive innovation and address complex problems. 

The End Goal of Design Thinking: Be Desirable, Feasible and Viable

The design thinking process aims to satisfy three criteria: desirability (what do people desire?), feasibility (is it technically possible to build the solution?) and viability (can the company profit from the solution?). Teams begin with desirability and then bring in the other two lenses.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

Desirability: Meet People’s Needs

The design thinking process starts by looking at the needs, dreams and behaviors of people—the end users. The team listens with empathy to understand what people want, not what the organization thinks they want or need. The team then thinks about solutions to satisfy these needs from the end user’s point of view.

Feasibility: Be Technologically Possible

Once the team identifies one or more solutions, they determine whether the organization can implement them. In theory, any solution is feasible if the organization has infinite resources and time to develop the solution. However, given the team’s current (or future resources), the team evaluates if the solution is worth pursuing. The team may iterate on the solution to make it more feasible or plan to increase its resources (say, hire more people or acquire specialized machinery).

At the beginning of the design thinking process, teams should not get too caught up in the technical implementation. If teams begin with technical constraints, they might restrict innovation.

Viability: Generate Profits

A desirable and technically feasible product isn’t enough. The organization must be able to generate revenues and profits from the solution. The viability lens is essential not only for commercial organizations but also for non-profits. 

Traditionally, companies begin with feasibility or viability and then try to find a problem to fit the solution and push it to the market. Design thinking reverses this process and advocates that teams begin with desirability and bring in the other two lenses later.

The Five Stages of Design Thinking

Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, commonly known as the d.school, is renowned for its pioneering approach to design thinking. Their design process has five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. These stages are not always sequential. Teams often run them in parallel, out of order, and repeat them as needed.

Stage 1: Empathize —Research Users' Needs

The team aims to understand the problem, typically through user research. Empathy is crucial to design thinking because it allows designers to set aside your assumptions about the world and gain insight into users and their needs.

Stage 2: Define—State Users' Needs and Problems

Once the team accumulates the information, they analyze the observations and synthesize them to define the core problems. These definitions are called problem statements . The team may create personas to help keep efforts human-centered.

Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

With the foundation ready, teams gear up to “think outside the box.” They brainstorm alternative ways to view the problem and identify innovative solutions to the problem statement.

Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

This is an experimental phase. The aim is to identify the best possible solution for each problem. The team produces inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product (or specific features found within the product) to investigate the ideas. This may be as simple as paper prototypes .

Stage 5: Test—Try the Solutions Out

The team tests these prototypes with real users to evaluate if they solve the problem. The test might throw up new insights, based on which the team might refine the prototype or even go back to the Define stage to revisit the problem.

These stages are different modes that contribute to the entire design project rather than sequential steps. The goal is to gain a deep understanding of the users and their ideal solution/product.

Design Thinking Frameworks

There is no single definition or process for design thinking. The five-stage design thinking methodology described above is just one of several frameworks.

Hasso-Platner Institute Panorama

Ludwig Wilhelm Wall, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Innovation doesn’t follow a linear path or have a clear-cut formula. Global design leaders and consultants have interpreted the abstract design process in different ways and have proposed other frameworks of design thinking.

Head, Heart and Hand by the American Institution of Graphic Arts (AIGA)

The Head, Heart, and Hand approach by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) is a holistic perspective on design. It integrates the intellectual, emotional, and practical aspects of the creative process.

More than a process, the Head, Heart and Hand framework outlines the different roles that designers must perform to create great results.

© American Institute of Graphic Arts, Fair Use

“ Head ” symbolizes the intellectual component. The team focuses on strategic thinking, problem-solving and the cognitive aspects of design. It involves research and analytical thinking to ensure that design decisions are purposeful.

“ Heart ” represents the emotional dimension. It emphasizes empathy, passion, and human-centeredness. This aspect is crucial in understanding the users’ needs, desires, and experiences to ensure that designs resonate on a deeper, more personal level.

“ Hand ” signifies the practical execution of ideas, the craftsmanship, and the skills necessary to turn concepts into tangible solutions. This includes the mastery of tools, techniques, and materials, as well as the ability to implement and execute design ideas effectively.

Inspire, Ideate, Implement by IDEO

IDEO is a leading design consultancy and has developed its own version of the design thinking framework.

IDEO’s design thinking process is a cyclical three-step process that involves Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation.

© IDEO, Public License

In the “ Inspire ” phase, the team focuses on understanding users’ needs, behaviors, and motivations. The team empathizes with people through observation and user interviews to gather deep insights.

In the “ Ideate ” phase, the team synthesizes the insights gained to brainstorm a wide array of creative solutions. This stage encourages divergent thinking, where teams focus on quantity and variety of ideas over immediate practicality. The goal is to explore as many possibilities as possible without constraints.

In the “ Implement ” phase, the team brings these ideas to life through prototypes. The team tests, iterates and refines these ideas based on user feedback. This stage is crucial for translating abstract concepts into tangible, viable products, services, or experiences.

The methodology emphasizes collaboration and a multidisciplinary approach throughout each phase to ensure solutions are innovative and deeply rooted in real human needs and contexts.

The Double Diamond by the Design Council

In the book Designing Social Systems in a Changing World , Béla Heinrich Bánáthy, Professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley, created a “divergence-convergence model” diagram. The British Design Council interpreted this diagram to create the Double Diamond design process model.

As the name suggests, the double diamond model consists of two diamonds—one for the problem space and the other for the solution space. The model uses diamonds to represent the alternating diverging and converging activities.

© Design Council, CC BY 4.0

In the diverging “ Discover ” phase, designers gather insights and empathize with users’ needs. The team then converges in the “ Define ” phase to identify the problem.

The second, solution-related diamond, begins with “ Develop ,” where the team brainstorms ideas. The final stage is “ Deliver ,” where the team tests the concepts and implements the most viable solution.

This model balances expansive thinking with focused execution to ensure that design solutions are both creative and practical. It underscores the importance of understanding the problem thoroughly and carefully crafting the solution, making it a staple in many design and innovation processes.

With the widespread adoption of the double diamond framework, Design Council’s simple visual evolved.

In this expanded and annotated version, the framework emphasizes four design principles:

Be people-centered.

Communicate (visually and inclusively).

Collaborate and co-create.

Iterate, iterate, iterate!

The updated version also highlights the importance of leadership (to create an environment that allows innovation) and engagement (to connect with different stakeholders and involve them in the design process).

Common Elements of Design Thinking Frameworks

On the surface, design thinking frameworks look very different—they use alternative names and have different numbers of steps. However, at a fundamental level, they share several common traits.

Start with empathy . Focus on the people to come up with solutions that work best for individuals, business, and society.

Reframe the problem or challenge at hand . Don’t rush into a solution. Explore the problem space and look at the issue through multiple perspectives to gain a more holistic, nuanced understanding.

Initially, employ a divergent style of thinking (analyze) . In the problem space, gather as many insights as possible. In the solution space, encourage team members to generate and explore as many solutions as possible in an open, judgment-free ideation space.

Later, employ a convergent style of thinking (synthesize) . In the problem space, synthesize all data points to define the problem. In the solution space, whittle down all the ideas—isolate, combine and refine potential solutions to create more mature ideas.

Create and test prototypes . Solutions that make it through the previous stages get tested further to remove potential issues.

Iterate . As the team progresses through the various stages, they revisit different stages and may redefine the challenge based on new insights.

Design thinking is a non-linear process. For example, teams may jump from the test stage to the define stage if the tests reveal insights that redefine the problem. Or, a prototype might spark a new idea, prompting the team to step back into the ideate stage. Tests may also create new ideas for projects or reveal insights about users.

Design Thinking Mindsets: More than a Process

A mindset is a characteristic mental attitude that determines how one interprets and responds to situations . Design thinking mindsets are how individuals think , feel and express themselves during design thinking activities. It includes people’s expectations and orientations during a design project.

Without the right mindset, it can be very challenging to change how we work and think.

The key mindsets that ensure a team can successfully implement design thinking are.

Be empathetic: Empathy is the ability to place yourself, your thinking and feelings in another person’s shoes. Design thinking begins from a deep understanding of the needs and motivations of people—the parents, neighbors, children, colleagues, and strangers who make up a community. 

Be collaborative: No one person is responsible for the outcome when you work in a team. Several great minds are always stronger than just one. Design thinking benefits from the views of multiple perspectives and lets others’ creativity bolster your own.

Be optimistic: Be confident about achieving favorable outcomes. Design thinking is the fundamental belief that we can all create change—no matter how big a problem, how little time, or how small a budget. Designing can be a powerful process no matter what constraints exist around you.

Embrace ambiguity: Get comfortable with ambiguous and complex situations. If you expect perfection, it is difficult to take risks, which limits your ability to create radical change. Design thinking is all about experimenting and learning by doing. It gives you the confidence to believe that new, better things are possible and that you can help make them a reality. 

Be curious: Be open to different ideas. Recognize that you are not the user.

Reframe: Challenge and reframe assumptions associated with a given situation or problem. Don’t take problems at face value. Humans are primed to look for patterns. The unfortunate side effect of these patterns is that we form (often false and sometimes dangerous) stereotypes and assumptions. Design thinking aims to help you break through any preconceived notions and biases and reframe challenges.

Embrace diversity: Work with and engage people with different cultural backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking and working. Everyone brings a unique perspective to the team. When you include diverse voices in a team, you learn from each other’s experiences, further helping you break through your assumptions.

Make tangible: When you make ideas tangible, it is faster and easier for everyone on the team to be on the same page. For example, sketching an idea or enacting a scenario is far more convenient and easy to interpret than an elaborate presentation or document.

Take action: Run experiments and learn from them.

Design Thinking vs Agile Methodology

Teams often use design thinking and agile methodologies in project management, product development, and software development. These methodologies have distinct approaches but share some common principles.

Similarities between Design Thinking and Agile

Iterative process.

Both methodologies emphasize iterative development. In design thinking, teams may jump from one phase to another, not necessarily in a set cyclical or linear order. For example, on testing a prototype, teams may discover something new about their users and realize that they must redefine the problem. Agile teams iterate through development sprints.

User-Centered

The agile and design thinking methodologies focus on the end user. All design thinking activities—from empathizing to prototyping and testing—keep the end users front and center. Agile teams continually integrate user feedback into development cycles.

Collaboration and Teamwork

Both methodologies rely heavily on collaboration among cross-functional teams and encourage diverse perspectives and expertise.

Flexibility and Adaptability

With its focus on user research, prototyping and testing, design thinking ensures teams remain in touch with users and get continuous feedback. Similarly, agile teams monitor user feedback and refine the product in a reasonably quick time.

In this video, Laura Klein, author of Build Better Products , describes a typical challenge designers face on agile teams. She encourages designers to get comfortable with the idea of a design not being perfect. Notice the many parallels between Laura’s advice for designers on agile teams and the mindsets of design thinking.

Differences between Design Thinking and Agile

While design thinking and agile teams share principles like iteration, user focus, and collaboration, they are neither interchangeable nor mutually exclusive. A team can apply both methodologies without any conflict.

From a user experience design perspective, design thinking applies to the more abstract elements of strategy and scope. At the same time, agile is more relevant to the more concrete elements of UX: structure, skeleton and surface. For quick reference, here’s an overview of the five elements of user experience.

Design thinking is more about exploring and defining the right problem and solution, whereas agile is about efficiently executing and delivering a product.

Here are the key differences between design thinking and agile.

Design Sprint: A Condensed Version of Design Thinking

A design sprint is a 5-day intensive workshop where cross-functional teams aim to develop innovative solutions.

The design sprint is a very structured version of design thinking that fits into the timeline of a sprint (a sprint is a short timeframe in which agile teams work to produce deliverables). Developed by Google Ventures, the design sprint seeks to fast-track innovation.

In this video, user researcher Ditte Hvas Mortensen explains the design sprint in detail.

Learn More about Design Thinking

Design consultancy IDEO’s designkit is an excellent repository of design thinking tools and case studies.

To keep up with recent developments in design thinking, read IDEO CEO Tim Brown’s blog .

Enroll in our course Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide —an excellent guide to get you started on your design thinking projects.

Questions related to Design Thinking

You don’t need any certification to practice design thinking. However, learning about the nuances of the methodology can help you:

Pick the appropriate methods and tailor the process to suit the unique needs of your project.

Avoid common pitfalls when you apply the methods.

Better lead a team and facilitate workshops.

Increase the chances of coming up with innovative solutions.

IxDF has a comprehensive course to help you gain the most from the methodology: Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide .

Anyone can apply design thinking to solve problems. Despite what the name suggests, non-designers can use the methodology in non-design-related scenarios. The methodology helps you think about problems from the end user’s perspective. Some areas where you can apply this process:

Develop new products with greater chances of success.

Address community-related issues (such as education, healthcare and environment) to improve society and living standards.

Innovate/enhance existing products to gain an advantage over the competition.

Achieve greater efficiencies in operations and reduce costs.

Use the Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide course to apply design thinking to your context today.

A framework is the basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text. There are several design thinking frameworks with slight differences. However, all the frameworks share some traits. Each framework: 

Begins with empathy.

Reframes the problem or challenge at hand.

Initially employs divergent styles of thinking to generate ideas.

Later, it employs convergent styles of thinking to narrow down the best ideas,

Creates and tests prototypes.

Iterates based on the tests.

Some of the design thinking frameworks are:

5-stage design process by d.school

7-step early traditional design process by Herbert Simon

The 5-Stage DeepDive™ by IDEO

The “Double Diamond” Design Process Model by the Design Council

Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) by Frog Design

The LUMA System of Innovation by LUMA Institute

For details about each of these frameworks, see 10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview .

IDEO’s 3-Stage Design Thinking Process consists of inspiration, ideation and implementation:

Inspire : The problem or opportunity inspires and motivates the search for a solution.

Ideate : A process of synthesis distills insights which can lead to solutions or opportunities for change.

Implement : The best ideas are turned into a concrete, fully conceived action plan.

IDEO is a leader in applying design thinking and has developed many frameworks. Find out more in 10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview .

Design Council's Double Diamond diagram depicts the divergent and convergent stages of the design process.

Béla H. Bánáthy, founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program, created the “divergence-convergence” model in 1996. In the mid-2000s, the British Design Council made this famous as the Double Diamond model.

The Double Diamond diagram graphically represents a design thinking process. It highlights the divergent and convergent styles of thinking in the design process. It has four distinct phases:

Discover: Initial idea or inspiration based on user needs.

Define: Interpret user needs and align them with business objectives.

Develop: Develop, iterate and test design-led solutions.

Deliver: Finalize and launch the end product into the market.

Double Diamond is one of several design thinking frameworks. Find out more in 10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview .

There are several design thinking methods that you can choose from, depending on what stage of the process you’re in. Here are a few common design thinking methods:

User Interviews: to understand user needs, pain points, attitudes and behaviors.

5 Whys Method: to dig deeper into problems to diagnose the root cause.

User Observations: to understand how users behave in real life (as opposed to what they say they do).

Affinity Diagramming: to organize research findings.

Empathy Mapping: to empathize with users based on research insights.

Journey Mapping: to visualize a user’s experience as they solve a problem.

6 Thinking Hats: to encourage a group to think about a problem or solution from multiple perspectives.

Brainstorming: to generate ideas.

Prototyping: to make abstract ideas more tangible and test them.

Dot Voting: to select ideas.

Start applying these methods to your work today with the Design Thinking template bundle .

For most of the design thinking process, you will need basic office stationery:

Pen and paper

Sticky notes

Whiteboard and markers

Print-outs of templates and canvases as needed (such as empathy maps, journey maps, feedback capture grid etc.) You can also draw these out manually.

Prototyping materials such as UI stencils, string, clay, Lego bricks, sticky tapes, scissors and glue.

A space to work in.

You can conduct design thinking workshops remotely by:

Using collaborative software to simulate the whiteboard and sticky notes.

Using digital templates instead of printed canvases.

Download print-ready templates you can share with your team to practice design thinking today.

Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that helps teams better identify, understand, and solve business and customer problems.

When businesses prioritize and empathize with customers, they can create solutions catering to their needs. Happier customers are more likely to be loyal and organically advocate for the product.

Design thinking helps businesses develop innovative solutions that give them a competitive advantage.

Gain a competitive advantage in your business with Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide .

The evolution of Design Thinking can be summarised in 8 key events from the 1960s to 2004.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Herbert Simon’s 1969 book, "The Sciences of the Artificial," has one of the earliest references to design thinking. David Kelley, founder of the design consultancy IDEO, coined the term “design thinking” and helped make it popular.

For a more comprehensive discussion on the origins of design thinking, see The History of Design Thinking .

Some organizations that have employed design thinking successfully are:

Airbnb: Airbnb used design thinking to create a platform for people to rent out their homes to travelers. The company focused on the needs of both hosts and guests . The result was a user-friendly platform to help people find and book accommodations.

PillPack: PillPack is a prescription home-delivery system. The company focused on the needs of people who take multiple medications and created a system that organizes pills by date and time. Amazon bought PillPack in 2018 for $1 billion .

Google Creative Lab: Google Creative Lab collaborated with IDEO to discover how kids physically play and learn. The team used design thinking to create Project Bloks . The project helps children develop foundational problem-solving skills "through coding experiences that are playful, tactile and collaborative.”

See more examples of design thinking and learn practical methods in Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide .

Innovation essentially means a new idea. Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that helps teams develop new ideas. In other words, design thinking can lead to innovation.

Human-Centered Design is a newer term for User-Centered Design

“Human-centred design is an approach to interactive systems development that aims to make systems usable and useful by focusing on the users, their needs and requirements, and by applying human factors/ergonomics, and usability knowledge and techniques. This approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.”

— ISO 9241-210:2019(en), ISO (the International Organization for Standardization)  

User experience expert Don Norman describes human-centered design (HCD) as a more evolved form of user-centered design (UCD). The word "users" removes their importance and treats them more like objects than people. By replacing “user” with “human,” designers can empathize better with the people for whom they are designing. Don Norman takes HCD a step further and prefers the term People-Centered Design.

Design thinking has a broader scope and takes HCD beyond the design discipline to drive innovation.

People sometimes use design thinking and human-centered design to mean the same thing. However, they are not the same. HCD is a formal discipline with a specific process used only by designers and usability engineers to design products. Design thinking borrows the design methods and applies them to problems in general.

Design Sprint condenses design thinking into a 1-week structured workshop

Google Ventures condensed the design thinking framework into a time-constrained 5-day workshop format called the Design Sprint. The sprint follows one step per day of the week:

Monday: Unpack

Tuesday: Sketch

Wednesday: Decide

Thursday: Prototype

Friday: Test

Learn more about the design sprint in Make Your UX Design Process Agile Using Google’s Methodology .

Systems Thinking is a distinct discipline with a broader approach to problem-solving

“Systems thinking is a way of exploring and developing effective action by looking at connected wholes rather than separate parts.”

— Introduction to Systems thinking, Report of GSE and GORS seminar, Civil Service Live

Both HCD and Systems Thinking are formal disciplines. Designers and usability engineers primarily use HCD. Systems thinking has applications in various fields, such as medical, environmental, political, economic, human resources, and educational systems.

HCD has a much narrower focus and aims to create and improve products. Systems thinking looks at the larger picture and aims to change entire systems.

Don Norman encourages designers to incorporate systems thinking in their work. Instead of looking at people and problems in isolation, designers must look at them from a systems point of view.

In summary, UCD and HCD refer to the same field, with the latter being a preferred phrase.

Design thinking is a broader framework that borrows methods from human-centered design to approach problems beyond the design discipline. It encourages people with different backgrounds and expertise to work together and apply the designer’s way of thinking to generate innovative solutions to problems.

Systems thinking is another approach to problem-solving that looks at the big picture instead of specific problems in isolation.

The design sprint is Google Ventures’ version of the design thinking process, structured to fit the design process in 1 week.

There are multiple design thinking frameworks, each with a different number of steps and phase names. One of the most popular frameworks is the Stanford d.School 5-stage process.

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. It contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. It is important to note the five stages of design thinking are not always sequential. They do not have to follow a specific order, and they can often occur in parallel or be repeated iteratively. The stages should be understood as different modes which contribute to the entire design project, rather than sequential steps.

For more details, see The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process .

IDEO is a leading design consultancy and has developed its own version of the design thinking framework and adds the dimension of implementation in the process.

IDEO’s framework uses slightly different terms than d.school’s design thinking process and adds an extra dimension of implementation. The steps in the DeepDive™ Methodology are: Understand, Observe, Visualize, Evaluate and Implement.

IDEO’s DeepDive™ Methodology includes the following steps:

Understand: Conduct research and identify what the client needs and the market landscape

Observe: Similar to the Empathize step, teams observe people in live scenarios and conduct user research to identify their needs and pain points.

Visualize: In this step, the team visualizes new concepts. Similar to the Ideate phase, teams focus on creative, out-of-the-box and novel ideas.

Evaluate: The team prototypes ideas and evaluates them. After refining the prototypes, the team picks the most suitable one.

Implement: The team then sets about to develop the new concept for commercial use.

IDEO’s DeepDive™ is one of several design thinking frameworks. Find out more in 10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview .

Literature on Design Thinking (DT)

Here’s the entire UX literature on Design Thinking (DT) by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Design Thinking (DT)

Take a deep dive into Design Thinking (DT) with our course Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide .

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and General Electric, have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including Stanford d.school, Harvard, and MIT. What is design thinking, and why is it so popular and effective?

Design Thinking is not exclusive to designers —all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? Well, that’s because design work processes help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, businesses, countries and lives. And that’s what makes it so special.

The overall goal of this design thinking course is to help you design better products, services, processes, strategies, spaces, architecture, and experiences. Design thinking helps you and your team develop practical and innovative solutions for your problems. It is a human-focused , prototype-driven , innovative design process . Through this course, you will develop a solid understanding of the fundamental phases and methods in design thinking, and you will learn how to implement your newfound knowledge in your professional work life. We will give you lots of examples; we will go into case studies, videos, and other useful material, all of which will help you dive further into design thinking. In fact, this course also includes exclusive video content that we've produced in partnership with design leaders like Alan Dix, William Hudson and Frank Spillers!

This course contains a series of practical exercises that build on one another to create a complete design thinking project. The exercises are optional, but you’ll get invaluable hands-on experience with the methods you encounter in this course if you complete them, because they will teach you to take your first steps as a design thinking practitioner. What’s equally important is you can use your work as a case study for your portfolio to showcase your abilities to future employers! A portfolio is essential if you want to step into or move ahead in a career in the world of human-centered design.

Design thinking methods and strategies belong at every level of the design process . However, design thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. What’s special about design thinking is that designers and designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques in solving problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, and in our lives.

That means that design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees , freelancers , and business leaders . It’s for anyone who seeks to infuse an approach to innovation that is powerful, effective and broadly accessible, one that can be integrated into every level of an organization, product, or service so as to drive new alternatives for businesses and society.

You earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you complete the course. You can highlight them on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website .

All open-source articles on Design Thinking (DT)

What is design thinking and why is it so popular.

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Personas – A Simple Introduction

• 1.5k shares

Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem and Interpret the Results

• 1.3k shares

What is Ideation – and How to Prepare for Ideation Sessions

• 1.2k shares

Stage 3 in the Design Thinking Process: Ideate

• 4 years ago

Stage 4 in the Design Thinking Process: Prototype

• 3 years ago

Affinity Diagrams: How to Cluster Your Ideas and Reveal Insights

Stage 1 in the Design Thinking Process: Empathise with Your Users

Empathy Map – Why and How to Use It

What Is Empathy and Why Is It So Important in Design Thinking?

10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks: A Quick Overview

Define and Frame Your Design Challenge by Creating Your Point Of View and Ask “How Might We”

• 1.1k shares

Design Thinking: Get Started with Prototyping

5 Common Low-Fidelity Prototypes and Their Best Practices

Design Thinking: New Innovative Thinking for New Problems

Test Your Prototypes: How to Gather Feedback and Maximize Learning

The History of Design Thinking

The Ultimate Guide to Understanding UX Roles and Which One You Should Go For

Stage 5 in the Design Thinking Process: Test

What Are Wicked Problems and How Might We Solve Them?

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