Unit 2 : Design Thinking

B. Jagadish Kumar
Assistant Professor
Department of EECE
GITAM Institute of Technology (GIT)
Visakhapatnam – 530045
Email: jbokam2@gitam.edu

Department of EECE, GIT

Course Code and Course Title: 19EID132 & Design Thinking &Product Innovation
1
 UNIT – II
Design Thinking
TOPICS to be covered :
1. Introduction

2. Principles

3. The Process

4. Benefits of Design Thinking

5. Innovation in Design Thinking

6. Case studies
1.Introduction
What is Design Thinking?

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that

draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people,
the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business
success”
Or
Design thinking refers to the Cognitive, Strategic and practical
processes by which design concepts (proposals for new products,
buildings, machines etc.) are developed.
Simply it is a Philosophy & Set of tools to help solve problems Creatively
What is Design Thinking
• Design thinking is both an ideology and a process
that seeks to solve complex problems in a user-
centric way. It focuses on achieving practical
results and solutions that are:
• Technically feasible: They can be developed into
functional products or processes;
• Economically viable: The business can afford to
implement them;
• Desirable for the user: They meet a real human
need.
Design Thinking is about achieving
a deeper understanding of your
users’ functional and emotional
needs
“Design thinking helps you seek
a balance between:
intuition and analytics,
exploration and exploitation,
reliability and validity,
and art and science”
Roger
Martin
Human-centered approach
Design thinking looks at creative problem
solving through lens of human centered Design
ORIGIN OF DESIGN THINKING

✔The concept of design thinking began only with a few

domains under consideration, but is now found to be
applicable to all disciplines.

✔The teaching and acquisition of design thinking skills

has assumed so much importance that it is now being
taught at some of the leading universities of the world.
⮚It is a design methodology that provides a solution
based approach to solving problems.

⮚Its extremely useful in tackling complex problems that

are ill defined or unknown, by understanding the human
needs involved by re-framing the problem in human
centric ways, by creating many ideas in brainstorming
sessions, and by adopting a hands on approach in
prototyping and testing.
⮚ Design thinking helps to gain a balance between the problem
statement and the solution developed.
⮚ Design thinking is the way of resolving issues and dissolving
problematic situations by the help of design.
How Design thinking helps you?

• Design thinking helps people of every profession to arrive at

solutions in a planned, organized, and systematic manner.

• The step-by-step process helps to create solutions with both the

problem statement and the required solution in mind.
Problems that are ill-defined: both problem and
solution are unknown at the beginning. A large part
of problem solving Is actually defining the problem
How to use design thinking in everyday life?
Design thinking can innovate solutions for many everyday
problems in life 5 ways to use design thinking in daily life are:

Visualise the problem

Challenge common assumptions

Reverse thinking

Empathize with audience

Embrace risk and failure

Design thinking mind set:

Design is not so much as a physical process but as a way of

thinking.

This involves ambiguous are inherently subject to concepts

such as emotions, need, motivation and behaviour.

This contrast drastically with a scientific approach that relies

on quantitative research to understand the users need.
It can be understood that design thinking combines two
very different ways of thinking:

1. Analytical thinking
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-l
etters/analytical-skills
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-developm
ent/critical-thinking-skills

2. Creative Thinking
A way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh
perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions (which
may look unsettling at first). Creative thinking can be
stimulated both by an unstructured process such as
brainstorming, and by a structured process such as
lateral thinking.
 Design thinking for mobility

✔Design thinking is a systematic approach to problem

solving.

✔With its focus on customer useful research testing

and risk in activities design thinking is a good match for
communities looking to solve Complex customer
needs.
 2.Principles of Design Thinking
"Ten Commandments of Design Thinking”
• 1. Leave titles at the door! There is no hierarchy during a Design Thinking workshop. Chef
and other rolls are hung on the coat hook.
• 2.Encourage wild ideas! Let your imagination run wild. Any (supposedly) crazy idea and
every idea should be treated equally.
• 3. Go for quantity! Quantity before quality. Selected, analyzed and evaluated later.
• 4. Build on Ideas of others! There is no copyright. Ideas from others should be taken up,
supplemented or changed.
• 5.Think human centred! Design Thinking is first and foremost thinking about people and
not about technology or business goals.
• 6. Be visual and make it tangible! Use drawings, illustrations, photos, videos, prototypes,
etc.
• 7. Avoid criticism! Idea generation and evaluation must be strictly separated.
• 8.Fail early and often! Failure means learning. Often failure means that you have learned a
lot.
• 9.Stay focused! Set yourself limits, stick to the concrete tasks in the Design Thinking
process.
• 10. Let`s have fun! Developing new ideas in a team should be fun. Creativity needs this fun.
 2.Principles of Design Thinking

• five of design thinking’s most important

principles
• 1. User-centricity and empathy
• 2. Collaboration
• 3. Ideation
• 4. Experimentation and iteration
• 5. A bias towards action
 1. User-centricity and empathy

• Design thinking is all about finding solutions that

respond to human needs and user feedback.
People, not technology, are the drivers of
innovation, so an essential part of the process
involves stepping into the user’s shoes and
building genuine empathy for your target
audience.
 2. Collaboration

• The aim of design thinking is to pool a diverse variety of

perspectives and ideas; this is what leads to innovation!
Design thinking encourages collaboration between
heterogeneous, multidisciplinary teams which may not
typically work together.
 Best examples of collaboration and teamwork

• Interactive displays
• Video conferencing
&Social media
• Hot Desking
• Huddle rooms
• Google
• Team building days
 3. Ideation

• Design thinking is a solution-based framework, so the

focus is on coming up with as many ideas and
potential solutions as possible. Ideation is both a core
design thinking principle and a step in the design
thinking process. The ideation step is a designated
judgment-free zone where participants are
encouraged to focus on the quantity of ideas, rather
than the quality.
 Five Ideation Techniques

• 1. Brainstorming
• 2. Crazy Eights
• 3. Brain writing
• 4. Mind Mapping
• 5. Storyboarding
 4. Experimentation and iteration

• It’s not just about coming up with ideas; it’s about turning
them into prototypes, testing them, and making changes
based on user feedback. Design thinking is an iterative
approach, so be prepared to repeat certain steps in the
process as you uncover flaws and shortcomings in the
early versions of your proposed solution.
 Understanding Iteration

• iteration examples:
• Iteration in Computer Programming
• A website could have HTML code that tells it to
repeatedly refresh the page until the user presses a
button.
• An algorithm can be used in a computer program
that tells the program to rearrange a series of
letters until all of the different combinations have
been formed.
• A javascript instruction can tell the computer to
draw a series of asterisks creating a "start tree."
The number of asterisks the computer draws can be
determined by the number that a user inputs.
 5. A bias towards action

• Design thinking is an extremely hands-on approach to

problem-solving favouring action over discussion. Instead of
hypothesizing about what your users want, design thinking
encourages you to get out there and engage with them face-
to-face. Rather than talking about potential solutions, you’ll
turn them into tangible prototypes and test them in real-
world contexts.
According to Christoph Meinel and Larry
Leifer, there are four Rules to design thinking.

• The Human Rule

• The Ambiguity Rule

• The Re-design

• The Tangibility Rule

 3.The Process
• The design thinking process outlines a series
of steps that bring this ideology to life—
starting with building empathy for the user,
right through to coming up with ideas and
turning them into prototypes.
• design thinking doesn’t follow a strictly linear
process. At each stage in the process, you’re
likely to make new discoveries that require
you to go back and repeat a previous step.
 Phases in Process
• Phase 1 “Understand” (Understanding the Problem)

• Phase 2 “Observe”

• Phase 3 “Point-of-View” (Define the problem)

• Phase 4 “Ideate”(Finding and selecting ideas)

• Phase 5 “Prototype”(Develop the prototype)

• Phase 6 “Test”
✔Design thinking is a five-step process, where each step
focuses on a specific goal.

✔For example, it is not recommended to think of solutions, when

the problem is being defined.

✔The problem definition must be written in detail without missing

any point, even if it makes finding a solution difficult.
Iterative (non-linear), collaborative (cross

functional) process and consists of five

main phases.
 Step 1. Empathize

• What? During the empathize phase, you’ll engage with and

observe your target audience.
• Why? The aim of this step is to paint a clear picture of who your
end users are, what challenges they face, and what needs and
expectations must be met.
• How? In order to build user empathy, you’ll conduct surveys,
interviews, and observation sessions.
• For example: You want to address the issue of employee
retention, so you ask each employee to complete an anonymous
survey. You then hold user interviews with as many employees as
possible to find out how they feel about retention within the
company.
There are a few points to be considered while
interviewing the customer.

• Brainstorm for the questions

• The interviewer must have plenty of ‘why’ questions.
• The themes of the questions must not be intermingled.
• The questions must be refined thoroughly so that no
trace of ambiguity is left in them.
 Step 2. Define
• What? Based on what you’ve learned in the
empathize phase, the next step is to define a clear
problem statement.
• Why? Your problem statement sets out the specific
challenge you will address. It will guide the entire
design process from here on out, giving you a fixed
goal to focus on and helping to keep the user in mind
at all times.
• How? When framing your problem statement, you’ll
focus on the user’s needs rather than those of the
business. A good problem statement is human-
centered, broad enough for creativity, yet specific
enough to provide guidance and direction.
• For example: “My employees need to be able to
maintain a healthy lifestyle while working in the
office” is much more user-centric than “I need to keep
my employees healthy and happy in order to boost
retention.”
 Step 3. Ideate

• What? With a clear problem statement in mind, you’ll now aim to

come up with as many ideas and potential solutions as possible.
• Why? The ideation phase gets you thinking outside the box and
exploring new angles. By focusing on quantity of ideas rather than
quality, you’re more likely to free your mind and stumble upon
innovation!
• How? During dedicated ideation sessions, you’ll use a range of
different ideation techniques such as brainstorming, reverse
thinking, and worst possible idea.
• For example: Based on what you’ve learned in the empathize
phase, you hold several ideation sessions with a variety of different
stakeholders. With your problem statement to hand, you come up
with as many ideas as possible for how you might make your
employees happier and thus more likely to stay with the company.
 Step 4. Prototype
What? Having narrowed your ideas down to a select few, you’ll now turn
them into prototypes—or “scaled-down” versions of the product or concept
you want to test.
Why? The prototyping stage gives you something tangible that can be tested
on real users. This is crucial in maintaining a user-centric approach.
How? Depending on what you’re testing, prototypes can take various forms
—from basic paper models to interactive, digital prototypes. When creating
your prototypes, have a clear goal in mind; know exactly what you want
your prototype to represent and therefore test.
For example: During the ideation phase, one idea that came up was to offer
free yoga classes. To prototype this idea, you set up a dedicated yoga room
in the office, complete with mats, water bottles, and hand towels.
Step 5. Test
What? The fifth step in the design thinking process
will see you testing your prototypes on real or
representative users.
Why? The testing phase enables you to see where
your prototype works well and where it needs
improving. Based on user feedback, you can make
changes and improvements before you spend time
and money developing and/or implementing your
solution.
How? You’ll run user testing sessions where you
observe your target users as they interact with your
prototype. You may also gather verbal feedback.
With everything you learn from the testing phase,
you’ll make changes to your design or come up with
a completely new idea altogether!
For example: You decide to test the yoga idea for
two months to see how employees respond. You
find that people enjoy the yoga classes, but are put
off by the fact that they are in the middle of the day
and there is nowhere to shower. Based on this
feedback, you decide to move the yoga classes to
the evening.
Design Thinking Cycle
Difference Between Design Thinking & Linear Analytic Methods
 Tools at Design Thinking Stage
• 1) Empathize : Zoom, Typeform, Creator
• 2) Define : Samply,Userforge,MakeMyPersona
• 3) Ideate : Session Lab, Stormboard,IdeaFlip
• 4) Prototype : Boords,Mockingbird,POP
• 5) Test : UserTesting,HotJar,PingPong
• 6) for the complete process :
Sprintbase,InVision,Mural,Miro.
Business
Benefits
 4.Benefits of Design Thinking
•1 Significantly reduces time-to-market: With its emphasis on
problem-solving and finding viable solutions, Design Thinking can
significantly reduce the amount of time spent on design and
development—especially in combination with lean ...

•2 Cost savings and a great ROI: Getting successful products to

market faster ultimately saves the business money ...

•3 Improves customer retention and loyalty: Design Thinking

ensures a user-centric approach, which ultimately boosts user
engagement and customer retention in the long term.
4.Benefits of Design Thinking

Some of the Business

Benefits
• Simplify complex • Streamline business
problems
• Acute problem processes
• End to end
identification
• Foster integration
• Gain competitive
innovation
• Enhance profits & shareholder advantage
• Reduce
value
• Command brand costs
• Deliver amazing customer
loyalty
• Build high quality software experiences
and
eliminate technical debt
Business benefits
of
Design Thinking
Google and Apple
incorporated
have UX design as a center
piece of their successes.

As per IEEE, up to 15% of IT projects

are abandoned and developers
spend approximately 50% of their
time on rework.
Innovative Ideas = More problem
finding / Less problem solving
1.
Simplification

• Simplicity is the need of the hour. Great design reduces the friction
between the
• Straightforward and aesthetically pleasing products are compelling to use
user and the application.
and more
• Unfortunately some enterprise software developers do not even know
relevant in the mobile first world.
who the end
user is.
2. Acute Problem
Identification

• Design hiking mandates you to determine whether the problem itself

exists to start
• An in-depth understanding of the problem itself enables you to
with and whether it is the right problem to solve.
prioritize the
• The design thinking process does not assume the problem
challenges of the business.
as given.
3. Foster
Innovation
• One of the biggest benefits of design thinking is fostering an innovation
culture in
• In order to innovate, it is necessary to learn what your people’s
your organization.
needs are.
Cross-disciplinary teams tackle the problem from different perspectives
leading to an
• This results
innovative in accumulation of ideas and creating an open culture to
solution.
express ideas
with out hesitation.
Desirabilit
What we are People y Innovatio
traditionally
n
been
Opportunit
y
good at
Feasibility Viability
Technology Business

Innovation does not happen in isolation.

4. Higher Profits & Shareholder
Value
Design oriented products and services not only create the amazing
experiences that
customers inexpect, but they also generate higher profits.
A $10.000 investment in our design index of diverse design-centric companies would have yielded returns 228% higher than the same investment
the
S&P over the same amount of time.

$45
K DMI DESIGN CENTRIC $39.922,89
$40 DESIGN
INDEX
K D.INDE CONSCIOUS
APP
$35 X COMPANIES
COCA
LE
K FO
COLA
$30 HERMAN
RD
K
$25
228 MILLER
INTUI
IBM
K
$20 % N
T EWELL
RUBBERMAID
K S&P PROCTER &
NIKE
$15 INDEX GAMBLE
STARW
K STARBUCKS
STEELC
$10 OOD
TARG
ASE
K $17.522,1
WALT
ET
$5 5 DISNEY
K
WHIRLPO
OL

Source: Design Management

Institute

Design Management Institute, in its study on design thinking, discovered that

design
oriented firms such as Apple, Starbucks, Steelcase, and Walt Disney outperforme
S&P
index by 224% over a 10-year period from 2002.
5. Command Brand
Loyalty

• Apple’s products are simple to use, high quality, and beautiful. It

created superb
• Strong customer loyalty results in improved financial
experiences for its customers with significant emphasis on design.
performance.
6. Streamline Business
Processes

• Streamlining a business process plays a critical role in creating

amazing digital
• With insights and feedback learned from users during design thinking
experiences.
sessions, you
• One of our clients, a wholesale distributor, transformed his reverse
have an opportunity to eliminate manual steps and automate possible
logistics business
steps.
process by embracing design thinking.
6. Streamline Business
Processes
An Example
A leading global mining company’s customer support process was
inefficient.

Call Update
s
s

Mining Call Service

Centre Engineer
Workers

Service Engineer approaches site to fix

the issue

• Mine was losing $1M to $2M worth of productivity while critical

machinery was
• Design centered solution cut the response time to
down.
few hours.
7. End to End Integration:
Hardware/
Software/Service Integration

• Customer experience involves hardware, software and

service.
• An incomplete solution that does not integrate the entire workflow of the
end user
• It is important to consider software, hardware and service and ensure all
will result in an incompetent solution which is risky.
are working
together cohesively.
8. Gain Competitive
Advantage
• More ideas = More
innovation.
The design of
The Knowledge
business
Funnel
•
It starts with a question, intuition,
Mystery
curiosity
• Heuristic
Open-ended rule of thumb,
incomplete but
helpful for organizing data
•
Full description of the
Algorithm
observation,
predictive and rational
Source: Roger Martin’s, “The
Design of
Business”.

At the heart of design thinking is abductive logic, which sits squarely between th
data-driven world of analytical thinking and the knowing-without-reasoning worl
intuitive thinking.” - Roger Martin
9. Reduce
Cost

“According to several reports, 50% of developers’ time is spent on

correcting defects
and bugs”.
• With good design, Product Development Costs are
reduced.
• Reduce Project execution Risks and
improve ROI. UX, Change Management
• With simple
becomes easy.
10. Deliver Amazing Customer
Experiences

• Amazing customer experience is one of the key differences between new

generation
• For example, Amazon is not only known for their order fulfillment and
companies such as Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Nike, and old guard.
delivery but
also known for their easier and integrated reverse logistics.
11. Build High Quality Software &
Eliminate
Technical Debt

• Eliminate technical debt that cripples development teams during

maintenance and
• The design thinking process enables Developers to have a deep
scaling of the applications.
understanding of the
user by leveraging storyboards, personas and wireframes.

“Sufficient amount of messy code may bring whole engineering department

to a
stand-still”, - Sven Johann & Eberhard Wolff, INFOQ
5. Innovation in Design Thinking
Innovation with design thinking demands critical thinking
because we must understand our assumptions that frame
our ideas and shape our design.
Three reasons
why innovation with design thinking demands critical thinking

1.Critical thinking does not hinder–

but rather augments–innovative thinking

2.Design thinking is the art of mindful restraint

3.Find invaluable insights hidden in plain sight

1.Critical thinking does not hinder–
but rather augments–innovative thinking
Critical thinking is a key ingredient in evaluating and improving our
ideas, regardless of how we label them. It should not be confused
with being argumentative. If used effectively, critical thinking can
help us acquire vital insight about the user experience and
strengthen our design assumptions.

When we seek to design and deliver innovative solutions, it’s not

enough to just have new or creative ideas.
To drive growth and profitability, the new or creative ideas have to be
useful and relevant. Critical thinking provides a vigorous and crucial
perspective when evaluating these ideas and transforming them
when necessary.
 2.Design thinking is the art of mindful restraint
Exhibiting mindful restraint is at the heart of design thinking because
it eliminates conscious and unconscious bias. This is especially
important when it comes to empathy. The more knowledge we enjoy
and the more credentials someone has, the more assumptions we
may make. If these assumptions are left untested or remain
unfiltered, the solutions built on them risk failure when presented or
consumed by actual users.
Critical thinking gives us the tools to remove perceived success.
This capability is especially important as we become more critical,
not less, when examining our own assumptions. When we design,
our human instincts crave validation based on our prior knowledge,
justification of our prior decisions, and support of earlier conclusions
or beliefs. In the process, we may deny ourselves the opportunity to
design inside-out—rather than outside-in.
 3.Find invaluable insights hidden in plain sight

Invaluable insight is best discovered in areas hidden from plain sight.

When critical thinking blends with design thinking, we not only design
human-centered models for understanding the problem, but also
present alternative ways of looking at a problem.

Similarly, to identify and understand the logical connection between

each idea, we should become active design thinkers, not passive
recipients of information. Through critical thinking, we are
encouraged to rigorously question ideas and assumptions, rather
than accepting them without deeper reflection. In turn, design
thinkers apply critical thinking to determine whether their
ideas and findings represent a realistic picture of the user
experience.
 3.Find invaluable insights hidden in plain sight
“asynchronous design” is restrictive because it is typically formed
through separate steps in a “design and think” or “think and design”
approach. Instead, design must be viewed as a “synchronous”
process, where we observe the situation and identify needs and
opportunities while applying thinking that thoroughly represents the
reality of our intended target users. With synchronous design, we no
longer separate design from thinking; we become a critical thinker in
the design.
Case
Studies
From near collapse to
conquering the
market
• Airbnb attributes its market dominance to user-centred
design.
• When they about to go bust at $200 revenue per week Airbnb discovered
that all of
• Airbnb decided to replace the amateur photos with high-quality
the photos for their listings were low quality and unattractive
photos and it
worked.
“Going out to meet
in the real world is almost always
customers
the best way to wrangle their
problems and come up with
clever solutions”
Joe Gebbia of Airbnb with First
Round.
Thrilling Guest
Experience
• Hyatt wanted to stay away from crowded luxury hospitality industry by
creating
• During Design thinking process they figured out that guests were waiting
amazing experience for its guests.
at airport
• Hyatt moved the agents to airport where they could complete
for shuttle bus.
the process.
• ‘more approachable, less hiding’ approach of interaction between guests
and hotel
• Customers were thrilled to have such
staff.
experience.
IBM’s success with Blue
Mix
• IBM’s revenue was down 14% year over year and it was the 14th
consequent quarter
• IBM has used design thinking to spur innovation and trained all of its
of losses.
employees and
• By working with developers, IBM exceeded the expectations on BlueMix
trained over 8000 executives.
Product
development and it became a huge success in the market.
Getting
Started
Getting Started With
Design

• Establish a Design Centre of Excellence

(CoE).
• Partner with design consulting
firms.
• Activate feedback loop and leverage existing channels such as app
stores, portals,
• Create dedicated websites where customers can submit ideas, discuss
and websites.
features, and
• Connect with your customers by actively seeking feedback from
engage with customer support.
them through
• Work closely with Marketing &
reviews, feedback on your website, forums, and personal visits.
Sales.
Measuring
ROI
Measuring Design
ROI

• Measuring how design thinking impacts your organization is vital

to getting
• Few Direct & Indirect ways to measure creative
continued support.
effort are.
• # New Ideas
generated
• Customer Support
costs
• Application Maintenance
costs
• Employee
engagement
•
Sales
•
Risk
• Organizational Change
Management
“In the modern world of
business, it is useless to be a
creative original thinker unless
you can also sell what you
create. Management cannot be
expected to recognize a good
idea unless it is presented to
them by
David M
a good salesman”
Ogilvy