Design Thinking Topic Post

Design thinking is a process that UX design teams use to help better understand their users, find and define problems, and create real and intuitive solutions to those problems so that they can move on to prototyping and testing. Design thinking is what teams use to think outside of the box and solve pesky problems that aren’t easily defined or found.

Design thinking is usually defined in five separate stages; empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.

Empathize

The empathize stage is about researching your user’s needs and helping you understand the problems you’re working to solve. You can do this by reaching out and speaking with experts to learn more about the problems or the area where the problem is. This is done through observation and of course, empathizing, with the users to better understand their motivations and the experiences they have with your product, etc. A very large amount of data is obtained in this stage to use in the next stage, define.

Define

The define stage is where and when you state your user’s needs and the problems they have. As previously mentioned, its time to gather the information and data you learned from the empathize stage. You’ll analyze the observations you’ve made and use them to define the problems your team has found. You should try to define those problems as problem statements, which are clear descriptions of the problems, as well as keeping your focus on the user. This stage will help you and your team gather and propose the best ideas and establish features and functions. You should be asking questions that will help you in the next stage, ideate.

Ideate

In the ideate stage, you’ll challenge assumptions and create ideas. This is where you’ll start thinking outside of the box and create fresh and intuitive solutions to the problems you’ve established in previous stages. You’ll also be able to view those problems from a new angle. There are a tons of ways to ideate like Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea. They are usually used to push free thinking and gather as many ideas or solutions as possible.

Prototype

The prototype stage is where you’ll start creating solutions to your team’s problems, preferably the best solutions. You’ll want to design and present multiple cost-friendly, smaller versions of your app or product that may focus on specific features, so you can investigate the solutions you brainstormed in the last stage. You’ll be weeding out solutions that don’t work properly, etc. By the end of this stage, you’ll have a more concise idea of how your users would react to certain situations.

Test

The final stage, test, is where you’ll try out your solutions and redefine your problems, so you can go back to previous stages and make better and more detailed decisions within those stages.