Design Thinking Tools

Design Thinking is a methodology, a way of thinking and processing ideas to come up with a innovative solution. In the words of Tim Brown - CEO of IDEO, a global design firm - Design Thinking is a collaborative, human-centered approach that uses a design mindset to solve complex problems.

Two concepts stand out from this sentence: "collaborative" and "human centered." Design Thinking is a methodology made to work in a multidisciplinary team group, is necessary to contribute different ideas and paradigms. On the other hand, its focus is on the human being because, in Design Thinking, the user is at the center of everything. These are aspects that you should remember when putting the methodology into practice.

1. Before Design Thinking: the right mindset
2. Three circles of innovation
3. Stages of Design Thinking
4. Tools for each stage

Preliminary to Design Thinking

Before going into the process, I would like to mention some tips regarding the "mindset" you should have when doing the Design Thinking exercise.

• Commit to empathy: as you will see below, the first stage of Design Thinking is empathy, and the reason is precisely that focus on the human being. You need to care for the user, so much so that any idea is focused on solving their problem or need.
• Co-creation: collaboration is essential, which is why I mentioned the importance of a multidisciplinary team. You must have a teamwork mentality, knowing that you can contribute to an idea, just as others can contribute to yours.
• Demonstrating ideas: not just ideas is the optimal solution, keeping in mind that conceptual ideas eventually need to be turned into something tangible. Here you may find it useful to know the three circles of innovation.

1. Human desirability: Creating a product or service that people want and need.
2. Business viability: you may have a good idea and, the market may want it but may not be willing to pay for it. Keep in mind that you must have a sustainable business model to support the idea. To understand more about this you can read "Business model: what is it and why it's so important".
3. Technical feasibility: it must be possible to do it, there are technical reasons why it is not possible, is not worth doing it.

In the center, where the 3 circles intersect, is where the key to a successful innovative idea lies.

Continuing with the tips...

• Integrate feedback: always seek feedback, listen to comments and opinions that will guide you towards improvement.
• Positivism: trust the process and stay positive.

Stages of Design Thinking

As I said, Design Thinking is a methodology that also has a series of steps to follow, an iterative and non-linear process made up of 5 stages: Empathy - Definition - Ideation - Prototyping - Testing. This process is designed so that you first understand whom you are creating value for, whom you are designing a solution for, and whom you are putting at the center of your design. By understanding the user, you will be able to conceive solutions that solve their needs.

In the figure above, you can see the 5 phases of the process. The first two - Empathy and Definition - are part of the problem space and, the three - Ideation, Prototyping, and Testing - constitute the solution space. An interesting detail I mentioned earlier is that the process is iterative and non-linear. This means that the implementation team can use the outcome of one stage to evaluate and improve an earlier stage. This allows for understanding the problem and redefining it when necessary, as well as creating new insights or alternative findings and solutions that had not been thought of before.

So what do you do at each stage of the process and, what tools can you use? I will explain and list some resources that will help you during the methodology process, so take note.

Tools for empathizing

Design Thinking is human-centered, so the first stage of the process is to empathize with the user. The best way to understand people's needs is to use all five senses. You must talk, listen, observe, truly enter their world, and ask: What are they feeling, what are they thinking, what are their pains, what are their challenges, what do they like?

Some tools you can use are:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Stakeholder map - to visualize the actors involved in a process.
• Cognitive immersion - to experience a specific situation in the same way the user experiences it.
• Covert observation - to observe a group of people without being aware of it to analyze their behavior.

Tools to define

Having understood and gathered all the necessary information, it is time to define the problem to be solved by analyzing the pains and frustrations of your customers. To do this, you can apply the following tools:

• Buyer persona - after the interviews in the first phase, you can analyze similarities between personas and group them into segments.
• Empathy Map - with buyer personas defined, you can further analyze their feelings, perceptions, and pains.
• Customer Journey Map - with this you will understand the customer process and the most important moments in the interaction, to define possible pain points.
• Inside and outside - whether virtual or physical, you should have two separate spaces to move ideas around, whether you consider it should be inside or outside the process. In this case, it is about defining which user needs you to need to consider and which you are not. In a virtual meeting, you can use MURAL or Miro in a face-to-face meeting use post-it notes.
• Cause-effect diagram - also called Ishikawa, is used to find a root cause by analyzing different variables.
• Moodboard: A board or panel of images that explain an idea or concept. Canva, for example, allows you to create these inspiration walls.

Tools for ideation

From this point, you enter the solution space in this stage, use creativity and innovation in a brainstorming focused on solving the previously defined problem.

Some tools you can use are:

• brainstorming
• SCAMPER - involves generating ideas by Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Repurpose, Eliminate and Rearrange.
• 6 thinking hats - the aim would be to discuss an idea from different points of view.
• Storyboard - like creating a comic book, using this tool you can visually capture a user experience and generate more ideas for a solution.

Tools for prototyping and testing

From the brainstorming above, select those with the greatest potential. With an idea selected, it is time to bring it to life by prototyping and testing it with potential users to serve as a guide to the optimal final solution. It is very important to understand that the prototype is not created to sell but to receive feedback and understand which features of the proposed solution solve the user's needs and wants, and which do not.

To prototype you can apply the following tools:

• Value Proposition Canvas - with the canvas you can analyze the characteristics of the product or service, as well as the needs and desires of the customers, in the search for a clear value proposition.
• Virtual or physical mock-up
• Videos
• User-driven prototyping - co-creation workshops with potential users.

For testing you can apply the following tools:

• Surveys
• Qualitative interview - individual interviews with users to see their impressions and feelings about the prototype.
• Focus group - group a number of potential users together to discuss the prototype.
• User testing - the user uses the prototype and any successes or difficulties are noted.

Once testing is complete, it is time to draw conclusions and improve the prototype based on the feedback received.