DESIGN THINKING FOR INNOVATION

(23E00404MC)

B. TECH II YEAR - II SEM (2024-25)

DEPARTMENT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERINGOF

CHAITANYA BHARATHI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

(Autonomous Institution – UGC, Govt. of India)
(Affiliated to AICTE, NEW DELHI, And Affiliated to JNTUA ,Anantapuramu Accredited by NBA & NAAC – ‘A’ Grade, and NBA
and Recognized By UGC) VIDYA NAGAR, Pallavolu ,Proddatur – 516352, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA.
UNIT -1
 UNIT-I​

INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN THINKING

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.
Involving five phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—it is most useful to
tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

it’s crucial to develop and refine skills to understand and address rapid changes in users’
environments and behaviors. The world has become increasingly interconnected and complex
since cognitive scientist and Nobel Prize laureate Herbert A. Simon first mentioned design
thinking in his 1969 book, The Sciences of the Artificial, and then contributed many ideas to
its principles. Professionals from a variety of fields, including architecture and engineering,
subsequently advanced this highly creative process to address human needs in the modern
age.

​ Twenty-first-century organizations from a wide range of industries find design

thinking a valuable means to problem-solve for the users of their products and
services. Design teams use design thinking to tackle ill-defined/unknown problems
(aka wicked problems) because they can reframe these in human-centric ways and focus
on what’s most important for users. Of all design processes, design thinking is almost
certainly the best for “thinking outside the box”. With it, teams can do better UX
research, prototyping and usability testing to uncover new ways to meet users’ needs.

ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

The principles of design are the golden guidelines a designer must follow to ensure an
effective composition in any project. Without these rules, it’s common for pieces to look
unbalanced, cluttered, or simply visually unappealing.

In a way, the elements and principles of design are what separate “design” from simply being
“art”. With art, you have freedom of expression to create anything you choose. In design,
each project has a specific purpose, which makes following certain rules more critical.

The principles of design are the rules designers are required to follow to ensure a project
looks good and delivers the right visual experience. Principles of design don’t just improve
the aesthetics of a composition or page; they can also make whatever you’re creating easier to
look at.

The main principles of design often include:

●​ Balance in design
●​ Hierarchy in design
●​ Alignment in design
●​ Unity in design
●​ Emphasis in design
●​ Contrast in design
●​ Repetition in design
●​ Pattern in design
●​ Movement in design
●​ Rhythm in design
●​ Variety in design
●​ Harmony in design
●​ White space in design

The elements of design are the tools you use to create a work of art. Knowing the
fundamental elements and applying them to your piece with a clear understanding will help
you make it powerful enough to convey a message.

Form

Form refers to the positive element over the space of your work. Together with space, it
creates a three-dimensional effect. The 3D objects include pyramids, cubes, and other abstract
forms. You can make a 3D effect by using shadows, color, and overlaid objects.
It’s sometimes interchangeably used with another design element – shape, however, they’re
slightly different. The form is mostly 3D and more realistic, while the shape is
two-dimensional and flat.

Shape
When a line encloses an area, or when other visual elements are combined, we get a shape.
Ultimately, everything around us is a shape one way or another, but for a designer, they are
more important since they are the root of the most powerful logos.
A shape can be geometric or organic. The geometric shapes are precise and include shapes
like triangles, squares, etc. Organic shapes have a more natural look with a curvy flow. They
are asymmetrical and irregular elements and are associated with the natural world.
Creating a shape for your design piece demands attention and knowledge since they express a
mood or convey a message based on their form, color, texture, and other attributes. For
example, sharper shapes like squares are more masculine, while triangles direct the attention
of the viewer to a specific point. And, abstract shapes are considered the basic shapes that
provide building blocks for any kind of design composition
Line:
Line refers to the way that two points in space are connected. Whether they’re horizontal
lines, diagonal lines, or vertical lines, lines can help direct the eye toward a certain point in
your composition. You can also create texture by incorporating different types of lines such
as curved or patterned lines instead of just straight lines.
Space: Making proper use of space can help others view your design as you intended. White
space or negative space is the space between or around the focal point of an image. Positive
space is the space that your subject matter takes up in your composition. The spacing of your
design is important because a layout that’s too crowded can overwhelm the viewer’s eye.
Value:
In design, value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. The values of a color are often
visualized in a gradient, which displays a series of variations on one hue, arranged from the
lightest to the darkest. Artists can use the various values of color to create the illusion of mass
and volume in their work.
Color:
Color helps establish a mood for your composition. When light waves strike an object and
reflect back to the optic nerve in a human’s eyes, the sensation they perceive is called color.
Artists and designers use color to depict and describe the subject. Color is used by designers
to portray mood, light, depth, and point of view. Designers use the color wheel and the tenets
of color theory—a set of guidelines for mixing, combining, and manipulating colors—to
create color schemes.
Texture:
 Texture is one of the elements of design that is used to represent how an object appears or
feels. Tactile texture is a physical sense of touch, whether it’s rough, smooth, or ribbed.
Visual texture, on the other hand, refers to the imagined feel of the illustrated texture, which
can create more visual interest and a heightened sensory experience.

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
The principles of design are the rules a designer must follow to create an effective and
attractive composition. The fundamental principles of design are: Emphasis, Balance and
Alignment, Contrast, Repetition, Proportion, Movement and White Space. The seven basic
principles of design are given below

1.​ Emphasis

2.​ Balance and alignment

3.​ Contrast

4.​ Repetition

5.​ Proportion

6.​ Movement

7.​ White space

1. Emphasis ​

The first of the 7 design principles is emphasis, referring to the focal point of a design and the
order of importance of each element within a design. Say you’re creating a poster for a
concert. You should ask yourself: what is the first piece of information my audience needs to
know?

Make a mental outline. Let your brain organize the information and then lay out your design
in a way that communicates that order. If the band’s name is the most essential information,
place it in the center or make it the biggest element on the poster or you could put it in the
strongest, boldest type. Learn about color theory and use strong color combinations to make
the band name pop.

2. Balance and alignment

Never forget that every element you place on a page has a weight. The weight can come from
color, size, or texture. Just like you wouldn’t put all your furniture in one corner of a room,
you can’t crowd all your heavy elements in one area of your composition. Without balance,
your audience will feel as if their eye is sliding off the page.

3. Contrast

Contrast is what people mean when they say a design “pops.” It comes away from the page
and sticks in your memory. Contrast creates space and difference between elements in your
design. Your background needs to be significantly different from the color of your elements
so they work harmoniously together and are readable

As you seek out examples of really strong, effective design, you’ll notice most designs only
feature one or two typefaces. That’s because contrast can be effectively achieved with two
strong fonts (or even one strong typeface in different weights). As you add fonts, you dilute
and confuse the purpose of your design.

4. Repetition ​

If you limit yourself to two strong typefaces or three strong colors, you’ll soon find you’ll
have to repeat some things. That’s ok! It’s often said that repetition unifies and strengthens a
design. If only one thing on your band poster is in blue italic sans-serif, it can read like an
error. If three things are in blue italic sans-serif, you’ve created a motif and are back in
control of your design.

Repetition can be important beyond one printed product. Current packaging design is heavily
embracing beautiful illustrated patterns.

5. Proportion

Proportion is the visual size and weight of elements in a composition and how they relate to
each other. It often helps to approach your design in sections, instead of as a whole.
Grouping related items can give them importance at a smaller size—think of a box at the
bottom of your poster for ticket information or a sidebar on a website for a search bar.
Proportion can be achieved only if all elements of your design are well-sized and thoughtfully
placed. Once you master alignment, balance, and contrast, proportion should emerge
organically.

6. Movement

If you decided the band was the most important piece of information on the page and the
venue was the second, how would you communicate that with your audience?

Movement is controlling the elements in a composition so that the eye is led to move from
one to the next and the information is properly communicated to your audience. Movement
creates the story or the narrative of your work: a band is playing, it’s at this location, it’s at
this time, here’s how you get tickets. The elements above—especially balance, alignment,
and contrast—will work towards that goal, but without proper movement, your design will be
DOA.

7. White space ​
All of the other principles of design deal with what you add to your design. White space (or
negative space) is the only one that specifically deals with what you don’t add. White space is
exactly that—the empty page around the elements in your composition. For beginning
designers it can be a perilous zone. Often simply giving a composition more room to breathe
can upgrade it from mediocre to successful.

White space isn’t sitting there doing nothing—it’s creating hierarchy and organization. Our
brains naturally associate ample white space around an element with importance and luxury.
It’s telling our eyes that objects in one region are grouped separately from objects elsewhere.

Even more exciting, it can communicate an entirely different image or idea from your main
design that will reward your audience for engaging with it. The logo above uses active
negative space to communicate multiple ideas in one fun, creative design.

History of design thinking

The origins of design thinking lie in the development of psychological studies on creativity in
the 1940s and the development of creativity techniques in the 1950s. The first notable books
on methods of creativity are published by William J. J. Gordon (1961) and Alex Faickney
Osborn (1963).
Cognitive scientist and Nobel Prize laureate Herbert A. Simon was the first to mention
design as a way of thinking in his 1969 book, The Sciences of the Artificial. He then went on
to contribute many ideas throughout the 1970s which are now regarded as principles of
design thinking

Raymond Loewy was named the father of design in the 20th century because, during his life,
he contributed many creative designs that shaped our lives during the 1980s.

Top 10 Materials Industry Trends

1.​ Sustainable Materials

2.​ Smart & Responsive Materials
3.​ Nanotechnology
4.​ Additive Manufacturing
5.​ Lightweighting
6.​ Material Informatics
7.​ Advanced Composites
8.​ Graphene & 2D Materials
9.​ Surface Engineering
10.​Materials Management 4.0
1. Sustainable Materials

The immense volume of waste generated during the use and production of materials forces
governments to draft various environmental regulations. Practically all industries face
challenges while rearranging their internal processes from the perspective of materials’
lifecycle. Companies in the construction, automotive, packaging, and manufacturing sectors
are integrating sustainable materials to lower their carbon footprint. Eventually, these efforts
aim to lessen the burden of waste on the planet. Sustainable materials also provide a boost for
circular systems and allow for the implementation of a circular economy.

2. Responsive & Smart Materials

In order to comply with the requirements of certain industrial use cases, novel materials
currently in development possess application-specific characteristics. Advancements in
materials science enable smart materials with programmable properties that behave or
respond to stimuli from external factors. Emerging startups design materials and products
with diverse qualities, from thermo-, electro-, and photo-chromism to piezoelectricity, shape
memory, self-healing, and phase-change attributes, among other characteristics.

3. Nanotechnology

Advancements in nanotechnology show that the characteristics of materials at a nanoscale

differ from those of their bulk equivalents. The proliferation of nanofibers, nanotubes,
allotropes, quantum dots (QD), and other nanomaterials enable an almost infinite source of
value-addition. This includes a strengthened performance of industrial products, retained at
an atomic level. By leveraging the nanomaterials, modern companies secure their competitive
edge, specifically in the electronics, energy, mobility, and manufacturing sectors.

4. Additive Manufacturing

Emerging additive manufacturing facilities strive to evolve beyond traditional thermoplastics

and apply materials that offer greater flexibility, customization, and functionality while
producing lesser waste. The progress of 3D printing technologies, in turn, spurs the upgrades
in metals, alloys, ceramics, fibers, and their compounds. It also encourages the appearance of
completely new and durable polymer filaments with improved conductance, melting, and
chemical resistance, among other properties.

5. Lightweighting

Various industries, from aerospace to mobility, search for innovative ways to diminish excess
weight and consequently provide superior fuel efficiency and handling. This drives research
into materials like aluminum, magnesium, and titanium, as well as high-strength plastics and
carbon fiber. These materials offer industries the option to reduce their environmental and
operational burdens arising from their heavier parts. Moreover, lightweighting innovations in
the materials industry also provide safety and reliability levels on par with heftier equivalents.
6. Material Informatics

Big companies today employ a data-driven approach to materials, enhanced by principles of

informatics and computational techniques, as well as ML and AI. This allows them to arrange
and model materials data in a meticulous manner. In addition to optimizing the ability to
reliably derive scientific insights from complex materials data, informatics also accelerates
the timelines for research and development (R&D), saving time and labor.

7. Advanced Composites

The rapid increase in the number of industrial applications also results in the development of
a variety of composite or hybrid materials. In pursuit of improving performance and
regulatory compliance as well as reducing costs, emerging startups innovate within resins,
fibers, substrates, matrices, and finishes to build custom composites. These composite
solutions provide advanced and user-specific applications, primarily for the infrastructure,
energy, industry 4.0, and mobility markets.

8. Graphene & 2D Materials

Breakthroughs in nanotechnology allow materials science companies to configure pathways

for 2D, or single-layer, materials. Possessing inherent thermal conductivity and mechanical
strength, 2D materials endow industrial applications with enhanced capabilities. However, a
majority of 2D materials, such as germanene, silicene, stanene, and phosphorene, are still
under development, excluding graphene. As the first 2D material successfully
commercialized, graphene improves tensile strength, intra-sheet strength, surface
durability, electron mobility, flexibility, and thermal resistance. The sectors utilizing graphene
include electronic displays, supercapacitors, automotive, construction paints, and plastic
manufacturing.

9. Surface Engineering

Exposed to continuous wear and tear, corrosion, UV rays, and other harmful factors,
industrial surfaces require coatings that demonstrate improved durability. This is essential for
protecting automotive, industrial, agricultural, marine, and manufacturing assets, as well as
for increasing productivity. Besides, engineering innovations offer the possibility to grant
surfaces the properties of hydrophobicity and omniphobicity, self-cleaning, and smoothing.
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, surface engineers work to undertake efforts to master
antimicrobials for more reliable protection in both industrial and non-industrial sites.

10. Materials Management 4.0

Industry 4.0 is inducing the implementation of its practices in materials management,

handling, and processing. Spanning autonomous mining and advanced automated fabrication
to robotic manipulations and cloud computing, the materials sector is being rapidly digitized
and interconnected. As a result, the development of new materials comes in parallel with their
industrial adaptation through the fourth generation of industrial technologies.
UNIT -2
 UNIT-2 DESIGN THINKING PROCESS

The Five Phases of Design Thinking

These five phases are not always sequential, in that they do not necessarily need to follow
any specific order and can repeat iteratively to hone and refine our solutions through the
process. Avoid the perception that phases are innately hierarchical or linear; rather, they are a
journey, sometimes with side stops or shortcuts, but with direction and a destination in mind.

The short form of the design thinking process can be articulated in five steps or phases:
empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test.

1.​ Empathize – To empathize is to truly understand how an issue or reality impacts another
person. A core stage in the design thinking process, we gain empathy through exploratory
interviews with people affected, by shadowing them in their real lives, or by recreating
conditions experienced by those people to better understand their perspective (e.g. living on
$2 a day to understand poverty, or taping your joints to understand what it feels like to have
arthritis). Empathy requires active listening and rapport-building for a deep understanding
that can transcend innate personal bias or preconceived notions.
2.​ Define – The second stage of the design thinking process asks “designers” to synthesize the
information collected during the empathize phase in order to identify insights about the
problem or issue being considered. While designers might have an idea what the issue is
before the empathy phase, the design thinking process encourages them to “deep dive” during
the empathy phase to generate true insights that might have been overlooked if the problem
was defined before the research began.
3.​ Ideate – To ideate is to generate a stream of ideas over a concentrated period of time; ideas
can be good, bad, and everything in between but should build on the ideas of others in the
conversation. Brainstorming is the most common form of ideation, but many other strategies
exist. A good ideation session includes a diverse group of people with different perspectives
and interests.
4.​ Prototype – Prototyping involves creating a low-stakes manifestation of an idea to share with
others for feedback, essentially a rough draft or minimal viable product (MVP). Prototypes
might take the form of a drawing, storyboard, blueprint/outline, video, mock-up, model, or
role play (for a process), for example. Creating the prototype helps the designer think through
the idea and helps the audience understand and provide feedback on the idea.
5.​ Test – In this last phase of the iteration, the designer introduces the prototype to stakeholders
and constituents to generate specific and robust feedback . The testing process includes
various methods such as A/B version testing, user interviews, focus groups, direct and
indirect observation, and user feedback to guide the next iteration of a product or service.
Innovation lifecycle: the seven steps of implementation

Taking an innovation from the first spark through to a finished product involves seven steps:

1.​ Strategic direction

2.​ Inspiration

3.​ Ideation

4.​ Proof of concept

5.​ Pilot

6.​ Roll out & production

7.​ Measurement & feedback

1. Strategic direction

Before any of your employees can turn their ideas into viable proposals, they need to
understand the strategic direction of the company. This should be the first step.
Not only does an innovation strategy help guide a company’s creative efforts - it also
provides helpful limitations for innovative thinking. Having an innovation strategy is also a
key part of promoting a creative and enabling workplace culture.

2. Inspiration

With the company’s strategic direction in place, the next step is for those within the company
to find inspiration for innovative services and solutions.

Inspiration can come at any time, and to anyone within the business. Having a supportive
workplace culture helps with inspiration in many ways, including through
encouraging information sharing and the cross-pollination of ideas.

3. Ideation

Blackboard, whiteboard, post-it notes, stone tablets - however you dream up your best ideas,
you need to do what you can to capture them, nurture them, and flesh them out.

For your people to do their best creative work, they need two things: the right tools (including
ideation software), and time and space to think.

4. Proof of concept

Once you’ve got a great idea, you need to turn it into a proof of concept - an exercise to test a
design idea or assumption, and prove its viability.

This is where you need to get the right people involved. For example, testing a new product
design may require input from those people sourcing materials, overseeing production lines,
marketing, and engineering.

Having a collaborative workplace culture makes this process a lot easier. If employees are
actively encouraged to contribute to proofs of concept, the resulting innovations will benefit
from a wider range of expertise and input.

5. Pilot

If your proof of concept is approved, you’ll then be able to move to the pilot stage. Here,
you’re testing the idea in practice, but with a limited run.
As with every stage of the implementation process, it’s crucial to collect and analyze
information at the pilot stage in order to inform future innovation. An innovative workplace
culture can help facilitate this, as employees are more likely to learn from past mistakes.

6. Rollout & production

If your pilot proves successful, management and leadership may approve it for rollout and
production. As with all other steps in the process, a workplace culture that embraces
innovation can help speed up this process.

This step doesn’t just involve a question of scaling - it may also involve transforming core
company skills and capabilities to cater for this new product or service.

7. Measurement & feedback

Finally, every step of the innovation process should be evaluated and analyzed, with the key
lessons communicated to employees in clear terms. This helps to optimize the
implementation process for the future.

By building an innovative company culture, this process of measurement and feedback

becomes a lot easier for staff. Rather than glossing over the tougher discussions, innovators
are encouraged to have frank discussions about past shortfalls and avoid these in the future.

Design Thinking for Social Innovation

Social innovation is a means to develop and implement innovative and effective solutions to
solve environmental or social issues.

It is a new perspective that provides systematic and practical solutions that can be applied to
ongoing social issues. The needs of society are given priority in order to improve things like
infrastructures, housing, and healthcare.

Design Thinking has evolved over the years for social innovation focused on bettering
society with a more human-centered approach to solving problems.
The Four Phases of Design Thinking for Social Innovation

There are four phases to Design Thinking for social innovation. They are as follows:

1) Discovery Phase

The discovery of social problems is the primary phase research. It enables researchers to
deeply understand problems and identify people, their needs, and the barriers they face.

This phase builds on the foundation of empathy by helping teams empathize with each other
and gain new insights. In addition, questioning gives members a more profound perception of
necessary solutions to pursue out of all the research.

2) Defining Phase

Defining the problem is the second phase of the Design Thinking methodology for social
innovation. This is where the problem is determined and focused around bringing out a
human-centered, valuable, and actionable question that aims to bring focus and clarity to the
design space.

This is where we ask the question that defines the problem and the impact on people. We are
not defining solutions in this phase, we are exploding the exploration of the problem in a
deeper more meaningful way, with the focus on the impact the problem has on people.

3) Development Phase

Development is the third phase of the Design Thinking methodology for social innovation. In
this stage, the participants develop an idea based on the results generated in the earlier steps.

In this phase we begin to inform the problem within the main idea with all the best views in
mind. This can be done with a few tools or using a simple storyboard as the medium. The
goal is to begin to explore the how to solve what has been learned.
4) Delivery Phase

Delivery is the final stage in the methodology. It starts with communicating the ideas within
the team and to the people involved. Be it a community, a region, or even a country.The
delivery phase requires that we maintain openness in order to revisit where appropriate the
prior phases. While the goal is to deliver a solution, you want to stay open to the possibility
that something may have been missed, or that reality isn’t matching the design on paper.

TEN TOOLS FOR DESIGN THINKING

1. Visualization is about using images. It’s not about drawing; it’s about visual thinking. It
pushes us beyond using words or language alone. It is a way of unlocking a different part of
our brains that allows us to think nonverbally and that managers might not normally use.
2. Journey mapping (or experience mapping) is an ethnographic research method that
focuses on tracing the customer’s “journey” as he or she interacts with an organization while
in the process of receiving a service, with special attention to emotional highs and lows.
Experience mapping is used with the objective of identifying needs that customers are often
unable to articulate.
3. Value chain analysis examines how an organization interacts with value chain partners to
produce, market, and distribute new offerings. Analysis of the value chain offers ways to
create better value for customers along the chain and uncovers important clues about
partners’ capabilities and intentions.
4. Mind mapping is used to represent how ideas or other items are linked to a central idea
and to each other. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas to
look for patterns and insights that provide key design criteria.
5. Rapid concept development assists us in generating hypotheses about potential new
business opportunities.
6. Assumption testing focuses on identifying assumptions underlying the attractiveness of a
new business idea and using available data to assess the likelihood that these assumptions
will turn out to be true. These assumptions are then tested through thought experiments,
followed by field experiments, which subject new concepts to four tests: value creation,
execution, scalability, and defensibility.
7. Prototyping techniques allow us to make abstract new ideas tangible to potential partners
and customers. These include storyboarding, user scenarios, experience journeys, and
business concept illustrations — all of which encourage deep involvement by important
stakeholders to provide feedback.
8. Customer co-creation incorporates techniques that allow managers to engage a customer
while in the process of generating and developing new business ideas of mutual interest.
They are among the most value-enhancing, risk-reducing approaches to growth and
innovation.
9. Learning launches are designed to test the key underlying value-generating assumptions
of a potential new-growth initiative in the marketplace. In contrast to a full new-product
rollout, a learning launch is a learning experiment conducted quickly and inexpensively to
gather market-driven data.
10. Storytelling is exactly how it sounds: weaving together a story rather than just making a
series of points. It is a close relative of visualization—another way to make new ideas feel
real and compelling. Visual storytelling is actually the most compelling type of story. All
good presentations—whether analytical or design-oriented — tell a persuasive story.