What is design thinking?

Design thinking is a nonlinear, solution-based innovation framework that puts users first. 

It is based on two key concepts of innovation: 1) as a business model, innovation must be novel and useful; and 2) innovation in is a continuous iterative process, as there is always a better solution to a problem.

The goal of design thinking is for teams to use this approach to understand and satisfy users with the most desirable, feasible and viable solutions to problems. The approach goes beyond the product or service that is offered by the organization and brings in the user early on, helping ensure that there is a solution to their wants and needs.

Design thinking can be used as a part of product development strategy and digital transformation. With a focus on human needs, design thinking helps ensure that the products or solutions are economically sound and driving innovation.

Design thinking has a deep-rooted history, dating all the way back to the 1960s.¹ But it wasn’t until the 1970s that the principles of design thinking started to emerge as a way of thinking. From then until the 1990s, it was an approach that was discussed among designers and became relevant in various different fields.

David Kelley is thought of as a pioneer of design thinking and is credited for creating the term “design thinking.”² Kelley is the founder of IDEO, a global design and consulting firm that's entire foundation is built on the design thinking approach. IDEO went on to popularize design thinking, especially when Tim Brown, the CEO and president of IDEO, published an article about it in the Harvard Business Review.

Separately, IBM® is a pioneer in enterprise design thinking (EDT) which is an offshoot of design thinking aimed at addressing larger scale organizations. EDT, by design, is more scalable than the traditional design thinking approach, but with the same focus on user outcomes and reinvention.

Fast forward to today and design thinking is still playing a significant role in businesses seeking to connect to its customers. Organizations are using design thinking to continuously generate value for users, including integrating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) and as a part of growing sustainability efforts.

The design thinking process works by taking an approach from a human point of view and combining it with what’s technologically and economically feasible. In this ideation approach, a business can bring in creativity from all areas of a business to brainstorm ideas and not silo it to just designers. Some examples of design thinking forward organizations include Google, Airbnb and Apple. However, design thinking can be applied to many different sectors, such as business, government, nonprofit, among others.

What makes design thinking different is its solution-based methodology. The user-centric nature of the approach means that the focus is on the solution to the problem, rather than the problem itself. A company struggling with getting workers into the office would, for example, focus its problem-solving on engaging those employees rather than the problem. Which in this case would be a decrease in productivity. A design thinking team might be made with professionals in a range of different fields such as graphic design, architecture, industrial design, entrepreneurs, researchers and more.

The human-centered design is the crux of design thinking. It’s about the user and engaging different stakeholders across a business to think about asking questions, including: Who will be using the product? How will the product or solution impact the user?

While there are varying methodologies for design thinking, the process as a whole is based on solving problems backed by research and on observing the functions of a product with a user. The user experience is the key to the design thinking approach and should be the foundation to any new product or new solution.

The design thinking process can be implemented in several ways and with various steps ranging anywhere from three to seven. It should also be iterative as opposed to a linear process. Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design³, commonly known as the d.school, pioneered a five-step approach to design thinking. So too did Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar⁴ in the course titled Introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation. The Harvard approach is similar to Stanford’s in that it builds an idea from concrete to abstract thinking and loops back around.

IDEO’s approach to a design thinking framework is broken into a three-step cyclical process: Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation. The focus of this method is on collaboration and working as a team to tackle each phase.

In Enterprise Design Thinking, IBM has its own methodology that consists of hills, playbacks and sponsor users. The hills align across teams. The playbacks align across time. Sponsor users align teams with real-world users and real-world needs. Each component has its own role, but have a common goal to align teams with users and stakeholders, keeping communication channels open throughout the course of a project.

While design thinking frameworks look different across organizations, they share five common steps:

1. Show empathy

2. Gather insights

3. Create ideas

4. Develop in real time

5. Try to implement

One of the first stages of design thinking is to empathize with the users. A company should take the time to understand how its products or solutions are impacting its customers and how they are being affected by said problem. This is going to be one, if not the most important step of user-centered design.

In this first step of design thinking a company needs to hone in on the focus at hand. Stakeholders need to observe where there are roadblocks and figure out where the problems might be. A design team or design thinkers often use tools and frameworks to make these observations about their users.

Most importantly, these observations need to be made without assumptions. The team needs to analyze the observations based on extensive research and synthesize them to get to the crux of the issue. A design-driven company doesn’t just ask what a customer wants rather it’s searching for why they want it.

Once the problem with the product or solution has been identified, the next step is ideation. Organizations should take a three-pronged design-thinking approach that includes design, business strategy and technology. With these three, stakeholders and business leaders can work together to design and build with the point of view of the people at the forefront. In this step, teams must define the problem statement or question.

Then, these creative solutions can be brought to executives, including a chief design officer, chief digital officer or chief marketing officer, depending on the size of the organization. No matter who it is this should be a leader that can address and manage complex problems. In addition, the design lead should be building communication across multiple functions to find possible solutions and address the users' needs.

After the ideation process comes the product development process, an organization is likely to create a range of solutions and troubleshoot the viability of each one. This step can include several rounds of prototype testing and experimentation.

The prototyping stage is about being open to ideas and to not focus on letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. There are going to be innovative solutions that work and ones that don’t. A good design doesn’t just appear and will likely require several rounds of development before being implemented.

This final phase is implementation and where all the work leading up to this point comes together. This step serves as an extension to the development phase and product design testing continues. A repeat of the previous step is normal during the implementation process. Unless the organization troubleshoots solutions there is no way to know how well a solution might work in the real-world.

In this stage the design team should share all results with business leaders and other stakeholders. This is also the time when design teams should reflect on innovation management strategies used during the design thinking process and evaluate the approach. Teams should be able to reflect and learn from this experience and bring the attributes to future design thinking.

The design thinking process all starts with finding the right mindsets. Each individual on a design thinking team has their own thoughts and feelings and express their emotions during design thinking activities in different ways.

Therefore, it’s important to have the right mindset to change how users work and think. Some key mindsets to consider:

• Be empathetic 
• Work collaboratively 
• Stay positive 
• Embrace the unknown
• Challenge assumptions
• Be creative

Be empathetic

As discussed in a previous section, having empathy toward the user is key to understanding how a customer is feeling. Teams should put themselves in a user’s shoes to understand the problem. Design thinking requires a deep understanding of people and their motives.

Work collaboratively

One of the many draws of the design thinking process is that it is a collaborative effort. Organizations should bring in multiple perspectives and be open-minded to new ideas.

Stay positive

Organizations should be optimistic about achieving something great. The road to a successful outcome might not be simple, but having the right mindset can be powerful.

Embrace the unknown

Teams should be prepared to take risks and to fail at times. By being too afraid to fail, a team is limiting its ability to be creative and make an impactful change. The whole design process is about making significant changes and experimenting with solutions.

Challenge assumptions

When faced with a problem teams shouldn’t jump to the most obvious conclusion and instead try to reframe assumptions. A design thinking approach should help breakdown the walls of preconceived ideas and biases and help teams rethink problems and solutions organically.

Be creative

Teams shouldn’t be afraid to put ideas to paper. This might mean sketching ideas or roleplaying scenarios to understand a customer interaction. A creative outlet during design thinking can sometimes be more effective than a traditional presentation.

Challenge: With COVID-19 came a large influx of online car shoppers and has since made the online experience even more important, as some have had to cease in-person operations. As a result, Audi sought a true digital transformation and smarter experiences for customers prepurchase and postpurchase.

Approach: Audi worked with IBM Consulting® to co-create a strategy roadmap for transformation following the user focused IBM Garage™ Methodology. The teams worked to create customer-centric tools to enhance the user experience and deliver innovations to the Audi website that have the user at the forefront.

Challenge: GE Healthcare⁵ is a global medical technology brand that found many children were upset while undergoing diagnostic imaging. They were found to be crying during long procedures while they lay in a dark, cold room.

Approach: The GE Healthcare team took the design thinking approach and observed children in various imaging settings. They did extensive user research and hospital pilots to find a solution. The company launched a solution called the “Adventure Series” that was an initiative focused on making the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines more kid-friendly.

Challenge: The passenger air travel industry is very competitive making it hard to stand out from other premium carriers. Etihad Airways wanted to find a way to create memorable travel experiences that users would want to repeat.

Approach: Etihad Airways enlisted IBM to help simplify the customer experience while providing more choices through the invention of a new platform for all digital services. As a result the airline reinvented its web check-in solution, ultimately appeasing its customers and personalizing the entire experience.

Challenge: The convenient foods division of PepsiCo, Inc, known for iconic brands like Cheetos and Lay’s potato chips, was looking to optimize productivity across its massive systems and better service retailers.

Approach: With IBM, Frito-Lay co-created two new solutions built on a Salesforce platform to improve the user experience. The company and IBM took a human-focused design approach with IBM Garage to conduct user research and create personas to examine every pain point. The process included interviewing managers and shadowing merchandisers to understand what was happening on the frontlines.

With design thinking comes many different questions regarding what the approach is and how it works within an organization. Commonly asked questions include: 

• What prerequisites do I need to practice design thinking?
• Who uses design thinking?
• What is a design thinking framework? 
• How does design thinking differ from innovation? 

There are no prerequisites for design thinking, but it’s important that the organization picks the right method for its industry.

The approach can be used by anyone looking to solve a problem. The design thinking approach is meant to be used in nondesign related situations and is meant to broaden the perspective on a problem.

A design thinking framework is the fundamental parts to a system. Design thinking offers several frameworks with varying differences. All seem to have these five traits; empathy, insight, ideation, prototyping and implementation.

Design thinking is a methodology that organizations use to solve problems and ideally lead to innovation. Innovation is the new idea or method itself.