Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving.
Design thinking has a human-centered core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes. When you sit down to create a solution for a business need, the first question should always be what’s the human need behind it?
Why Is Design Thinking Important?
- It can help you or your team surface unmet needs of the people you are creating for.
- It reduces the risk associated with launching new ideas.
- It generates solutions that are revolutionary, not just incremental.
- It helps organizations learn faster.
3 Essential Pillars of Design Thinking
- Empathy — Understanding the needs of those you’re designing for.
- Ideation — Generating a lot of ideas. Brainstorming is one technique, but there are many others.
- Experimentation — Testing those ideas with prototyping.
Done Right, Design Thinking…
- Captures the mindsets and needs of the people you’re creating for.
- Paints a picture of the opportunities based on the needs of these people.
- This leads you to innovative new solutions starting with quick, low-fidelity experiments that provide learning and gradually increase infidelity.
Areas Where Design Thinking Can Apply
- Product design
- Service and experience design
- Business design
- Leadership
- Organizational change