Design Thinking

Such is its importance in the modern workplace, problem-solving is a phrase that now exists in the Italian lexicon. Moreover, job applicants like to mention problem-solving as a key competency in their CVs and job interviews. In order to deepen your understanding of problem-solving, Design Thinking is something you need to read more about, as well as put into practice.

Design thinking is a human-centred problem solving process which results in better products, improved services to customers and smarter internal processes within an organisation. Central to the idea of design thinking is a focus on the user - the user experience and user's needs.

All products and services can be continuously improved to meet the ever evolving demands of users. The most progressive (and profitable) companies and organisations have a philosophy of continuous improvement and they put the customer, ie. the user, at the heart of key decisions.

In exercising design thinking you combine what is preferable from a human perspective with what is viable from an economic and technological point of view. It's important to understand that design thinking is not just about creating new innovative gadgets. Quite often it's about improving the way people do things, ie. making processes smarter.

Developed by David Kelley, an American engineer who founded an innovation company called IDEO, the design thinking process has five phases.

Phase 1: Empathise

Observe how people use your products or services. Gather information on the user experience. Watch and listen to understand. It's a good idea to interview users. Be careful to avoid any unconscious bias in your interview questions.

Phase 2: Define the problem

Look at all the findings you gathered from the empathise stage. Do you notice any patterns? What problem(s) do you need to solve? By the end of this step you should have a clear Problem Statement: For example; Patients are getting stressed because of poor communication at their local health clinic.

Phase 3: Ideate

Now that you have a deeper understanding of your users and a clear problem statement in mind, you can start to get creative and focus on solutions. The ideation stage must be a judgement-free zone with space for all sorts of ideas. Hold ideation group sessions to come up with as many new ideas as possible. Mindmapping, brainstorming and bodystorming (roleplay scenarios) are very useful ideation techniques. Ideation also sometimes involves challenging established beliefs and exploring new options and alternatives. Towards the end of this phase, you’ll reduce your ideas to a few with which to move forward.

Phase 4: Prototype

Now you're at the experimentation stage where your turn your ideas into tangible products or actual processes. For example: Create clearer signage in the waiting areas of your local clinic and insist all admin and clinical staff wear name badges which include their job title.

Phase 5: Test

Now you have to test your prototypes on users. Although this is the last stage, your testing should generate feedback, from which you may return several times to the prototyping phase. The first mouse for an Apple computer was made by David Kelley and his team at IDEO. As you can imagine, they prototyped and tested various versions of the mouse on users several times before settling on the final design. It's important to remember that testing can sometimes result in negative feedback. Instead of thinking that you have failed because your design isn't as perfect as you had first imagined, consider feedback objectively and as something highly valuable which can help you adapt and improve your final product or process.

As well as helping create actual products, the design thinking process can also be applied to all kinds of frustrating experiences that have a negative impact on the quality of our daily lives. These include:

• queuing at the post office
• teenagers' negative experiences of high school
• office space
• the planning and design of our cities
• Poorly designed websites
• the behaviour of staff and passengers on public transport systems
• how hospital staff talk to patients
• the citizen's experience of municipal offices
• barriers to effective communication
• irresponsible car parking
• traffic
• the lack of disabled friendly facilities
• dangerous driving
• barriers to reporting problems
• Slow service in restaurants
• packaging that pollutes our environment

In my chaotic home city of Rome the list of everyday processes that can quickly benefit from the application of design thinking is endless.  There has never a been a better time to invest your curiosity and efforts in Design thinking.

Finally, if this topic interests you,why not look at the following TED talk on Design thinking.