DT521

Agile & Design Thinking

Design Thinking Phases 1 & 2
Contents
• How to get a good problem statement?
• Understand
• Observe
• Build User Empathy
How to get a good problem statement?
Design Thinking Important Pre-
requisites for good solutions

The design thinking team must have

understood the problem.

The design challenge must be defined to

allow for the development of useful solutions.

The potential solution must fit the defined

design space and design scope.
Types of Problems
Types of Problems

well-defined ill-defined Wicked

Simple Poorly-Defined Complex
 Finding the design challenge
A 'Design Challenge' refers to a task or problem that requires creative thinking and problem-solving skills
to come up with innovative solutions.
Finding Design
Challenge

Customer Experience
Chain when buying a
music subscription
Asking: Take a closer look
Change the
How might we to an existing
Perspective
improve …? product/service

These questions help capture the design challenge: • What does the music behavior of a user look like?
• What if . . .? • How does the customer get information on new
• What might be possible? music offerings?
Example: • What would change behavior? • How and where will the customer install the
• How might we improve the online • What would be an offer if business ecosystems product or service?
booking portal for the car ferry connected with each other? • How does the customer use the product?
from A to B? • What is the impact of a promotion? • How does the customer act when the product
• What will happen afterward? does not work as expected?
• Are there any opportunities where other people • How satisfied is the customer with the entire
only see problems? customer experience chain?
 Drawing up the Design Brief
• Design Brief is the translation of the problem statement into a structured task.

Definition of design • Which activities are to be supported and for whom?

space and design scope: • What do we want to learn about the user?

Description of already • What already exists, and how can elements of it help with our own
existing approaches to solution?
solving the problem • What is missing in existing solutions?

• What are important hints for the team (e.g., at which point more
creativity is demanded or that potential users should really try out a
Definition of the design certain feature)?
principles • Are there any limitations, and which core functions are essential?
Elements

• Whom do we want to involve, and at what point in the design

process?
Definition of scenarios • What does a desirable future and vision look like?
that are associated with
the solution • Which scenarios are plausible and possible?

• By when should a solution have been worked out?

Definition of the next
steps and milestones • Are there steering committee meetings from which we can get
valuable feedback?
Information on • Who must be involved at an early stage?
potential
implementation • What is the culture like for dealing with radical solution proposals, and
challenges how great is its willingness to take risks?
HOW MIGHT WE start, although the problem
is elusive?

Begin with the first iteration even if the ideal starting area has not been found yet.
This way, the problem can often be understood better.
Understand – Observe – Build User Empathy

How can we learn more about a potential user and better

uncover his or her hidden needs?
Understand
• Starting point was not a goal to be achieved but a persona that has needs or is facing the challenge of
having to solve a problem.
• Once the problem has been recognized, the problem statement must be defined at the right level of
comfort.
• Alongside the problem statement, it is important to understand the overall context.

(Draft) / User Profile Canvas

 Create a persona (Draft) / User Profile Canvas
The primary goal  True needs of Potential Users.

Needs and Preferences of Potential users are

different than those originally assumed.
Potential users are sketched out in an initial
iteration.
User who has been sketched out like this actually
exists in the real world
It is worthwhile to improve the persona
iteratively, refining it and digging deeper step by
step.

If time is short, standard personas can be used.

Be cautious when it comes to personas with brief

descriptions. The example of the “persona twins”
shows why
Create a persona (Draft) / User Profile Canvas
Use real people with real names and real properties.

Be specific in terms of age and marital status. Get demographic information from the Internet.

Draw the persona, in life-size, if possible.

Add visualizations to the persona. Use clip outs from magazines for accessories (e.g. watch, car, jewelry).

Identify and describe use cases in which they would use the potential product or services.

List pains and gains of the persona.

Capture the customer tasks (jobs-to-be-done) that the product or service supports.

In so doing, try to take the persona’s habits into account.

Visualization of a Persona
Visualization of a Persona (continued)
Examples to User Profile Canvas

Peter Lilly Marc

 Hook framework
Main Idea:
Product / Service can become a habit for a
user
External
Trigger
Internal
Action
Four Main
Components:
Reward.

Investment.

Reward is the key emotional

element for the user.
Jobs-to-be-done framework
• What is the actual task of a product?

Why would a customer buy my product or service?

• Analysis of
consumer
Adobe Photoshop
Behavior

Instagram
Future user
• The future user method attempts to extrapolate these users’ future
personas.
• It expands the classic persona by analyzing today’s persona and its
development over the last few years. In addition, the future target
group is interviewed at their present age.
• The mindset, motivation, lifestyle, etc. are extrapolated to get a
better idea of the future user.
• It is best to start with the profile of the current user and underpin it
with facts, market analyses, online surveys, personal interviews, and
so forth.
Future user
• How do we map the user of the future?
Develop and Modify the Persona
Develop and Modify the Persona
Develop and Modify the Persona
Develop and Modify the Persona
Observe
Try to be expert and better understand the needs of
users through direct communication and contact.

It is always important to document and visualize these

findings so they can be shared with others at a later
time.

So far, most of those involved in design thinking focus

on the qualitative method of observation.

Documentation is done by means of idea boards, vision

boards, daily story based on photos, mind maps, mood
pictures, and photos of life situations and people.

All this is important information we can use to create

and revise personas and to build up empathy for the
user.
 How to discover user needs
• How can we carry out a need-finding Journey?
• Innovation only works when we have recognized the needs of our users and developed a deep understanding of
them.
• It can be achieved when we are where they are, especially when we witness the part of their life we want to
improve.
Empathy map
• Empathy card can be used here that addresses the
following areas:
• Hearing,
• Thinking and
• Feeling,
• Seeing,
• Speaking
• Doing,
• Frustration,
• Desires.
• We also suggest speaking to experts who know
the persona well and, of course, being active
yourself and doing what the user is doing.
 AEIOU
• To obtain initial knowledge on the user
• capture all the events in our environment.
• Get out of the design thinking rooms and
speak to potential users, walk in their shoes,
do what they do.
• Depending on the situation, it is useful to
adapt the questions individually to the
respective observations.
• The AEIOU catalog of questions and the
associated instructions help participants
establish contact with initial potential users.
• Experience has taught us that it helps the
groups if a design thinking facilitator or
somebody with need-finding experience
accompanies first contact of potential users.
 Critical Assumptions
• Critical Assumptions are facts or characteristics that must be true in the real world for the idea to be successful.
• We should ask ourselves about which assumptions we know least and which are most critical for our idea.
• If these assumptions do not exist in everyday life, we have built our solution idea on a mental castle in the air.
Need-Finding Interview
• Every interview should have a logical sequence:
• Introduction
• Introduce yourself
• Clarify reason for interview.
• Create atmosphere in which the user feels comfortable.
• Actual beginning
• Let interviewee introduce himself/herself.
• Use open questions.
• Upon answers go deeper.
• Create Reference
• Try to find a real example that the person remembers well.
• Bring the user closer to the topic and the problem.
• Continue to build trust by expressing that the answers of the interviewee are important.
• Be patient to continue asking open questions about experiences if you did not reach the real
problems.
Need-Finding Interview
• Grand Tour
• Deepen other critical topics.
• Try to go to the bottom of details if possible.
• We will reach our goal when hidden things comes to light.
• Reflection
• Pause for a moment to come to the end of interview.
• Express gratitude to the important and critical information.
• Summarize main topics
• Wrap-up
• Thanks interviewee again.
• Give him the opportunity to ask a questions.
• Answer his question and reflect on it with the most important findings and approach.
Need-Finding Interview
• After each interview and each observation, we should ask ourselves some key questions:
• Where did the person reveal the biggest problems?
• What is the need behind the problem?
• What innovation would make everyday life easier for this person?
• This is also referred to as situation-inspired ideation. We outline the ideas and thoughts
that emerge directly during the need-finding.
Need-Finding Interview
Involve Lead Users as Innovators
• Lead Users: users or customers
leading the trend.
• lead users are users who have the
needs and requirements earlier than
the mass market and hope for a
particularly high benefit and
competitive edge from the possible
satisfaction of the need or solution of
the problem.
• Can help to identify future customer
needs.
• Can be drawn upon as another source
for understanding customer needs,
and their experience can be
integrated in the empathy mode of
design thinking.
Involve Lead Users as Innovators
• When selecting lead users and adapting the
solution to the needs of the lead users, you
may find that there is a gap between the
needs of the lead users, early adopters, and
the early majority.
• So, it is then important not to forget the
needs of the early majority.
The 6 WH questions
• The WH questions help in the divergent
phase to gain a basic overview and in-depth
insights.
• WH questions help to get better
information, thus comprehend the problem
or situation better.
• Especially in the first few design thinking
phases, the WH questions are of vital
importance.
• They help us make concrete observations in
a specific situation and thus discover more
emotions and motives.
How to build User Empathy
 Empathy is the ability and willingness to recognize and
understand the thoughts, emotions, motives, and personality
traits of another person.
 Design thinking is an empathetic, optimistic, and creative way
of working to shape the future.

We listen actively and ask To recognize critical needs, we It is important to ask questions
about words that can be adopt the perspective of the user. with an open mind and put our
understood in different ways. personal experiences and
values to the side as much as
possible.
Mindfulness as the basis of empathy and
innovation success
Mindfulness is a basic capability of our brain, but our ambition to
multitask makes us suppress this condition too often in our everyday
lives.
Empathy in UX design and the digital
environment
• In the digital environment, empathy has become a
pivotal element for linking context with emotions.
• Usually, emotional states such as love, laughter, joy,
surprise, sorrow, and anger are used.
• Facebook is a good example.
• With such emoticons, comprehensive data analyses on
content can be carried out. So far, Like buttons have
been integrated on product and service sites many,
many times throughout the world. This data was only
binary but has already yielded deep insights into user
behavior and preferences.
• Emoticons can be easily entered on smart watches and
mobile devices, which increases the comment rate
considerably.
• Simplicity is becoming more and more pivotal!
• Pay heed to the cultural context in UX because it can
strongly affect how the user perceives the offer.
Thank You