TOPIC 8

DESIGN THINKING
METHODOLOGY
Topic 8: Design Thinking Methodology
LO1: Explain the Research Process in Design
Thinking tool.
LO2: Identify the needs of the stakeholders through
the user-centric approach.
LO3: Classify and re-define innovation challenges by
asking the right inquiries, and not necessarily
focusing on the correct answers.
LO4: Create a rapid prototype to bring their
thoughts into reality as fast as reasonably expected,
and obtain feedback.
 8.1 WHAT IS DESIGN THINKING?

➢ Design Thinking is an iterative

process in which we seek to
understand the user, challenge
assumptions, and redefine
problems in an attempt to
identify alternative strategies
and solutions that might not be
instantly apparent with our initial
level of understanding.
➢ It provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.
➢ It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-
on methods.
8.2 DESIGN THINKING PHASES:

Five-phase model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford,

which is also known as d.school who is at the forefront of applying and teaching Design
Thinking
8.2.1 DESIGN THINKING PHASES:

1. Empathize:
➢ The foundational principle of human centered design is that you should truly
understand the people who experience a problem before you design a solution
to serve them.
➢ Empathy is about understanding the problem by immersing yourself in the
community that will be affected by your design.
➢ This stage, and the design process as a whole, is about asking questions instead
of making assumptions about why things are the way they are.
➢ This is the most important part of the process, focusing on participatory action
research — not just documenting the user, but engaging them in the
brainstorming, modeling, and prototyping as well.
2. Define:
➢ After learning as much as you can
about the issue you’re looking to
solve, define the problem by focusing
on the key action that you want to
accomplish.
➢ Most often people try to define
problems as a mix of problem and
solution. Some examples of the
statements we’ve heard are “We need
more money.” “We need to pass a
law.” “We need to build more jails.”
➢ As a human centered designer, you should always be asking why. Why
do we need more jails? What are we really trying to accomplish? The
answer might be something like, “We need a way to maintain public
safety.”
➢ The way you define the problem should be phrased in a way that
allows for creativity in how it could be addressed.
3. Ideate
- it’s brainstorm time.
- come up with as many solutions to the problem
you defined as possible.
- best done in teams where each team member
writes down the ideas they have one at a time
and place them on a board for everyone to see.
- this isn’t the time to judge whether ideas are
good or bad, practical or outlandish.
- sometimes an impractical idea scaled back
slightly can become exactly the type of novel
solution that you’re looking for.
4. Prototype

- Designers put ideas to action by creating low-cost experiments to test

their ideas. These experiments or prototypes can be created for physical
products, virtual interfaces, processes or systems. In any of these
situations, the goal is to create something you can test with those who
live with the problem in order to see if it works.
4. Prototype
- For physical and virtual
products, this is often a model
of the designs you have in
mind.
- In the case of services, build
out a model with actionable
steps and a workflow that can
be simulated either in the real
world or through role-play.
Given that it’s a prototype, it’s
considered a work in progress,
not a final solution.
5. Test and Iterate:
- This is where designers identify flaws,
weaknesses, and gaps in the design,
improving it along the way.
- The person who lives with the problem
is asked to test the model or the
prototype repeatedly and see if it
addresses all aspects of a problem.
- It is important when testing that you
are not trying to defend your solution.-
EXAMPLE:
https://www.ubongo.org/case-study/co-creating-videos-for-better-letter-learning/

➢ Akili and Me was a series launched on TV and radio in Tanzania and Kenya in 2016, to a
resounding response from kids and parents alike.
➢ The series was developed through human centered design to ensure high engagement
and effectiveness for a target audience of 3-6 year olds in East Africa.
EXAMPLE:
https://www.ubongo.org/case-study/co-creating-videos-for-better-letter-learning/

➢ After production of the first season of Akili and Me, a rigorous evaluation
awas conducted and found that watching the show has particularly strong
effects on early numeracy, fine motor skills, and English language learning.
➢ After just 1 month of watching Akili and Me, viewers aged 4-6 were
significantly outperforming their classmates in the control group (who
watched alternative preschool cartoons) by 8.2% in drawing skills, 9.7% in
shape knowledge, 11.7% in number recognition, 24.0% in counting, and
12.5% in English language skills.
➢ The impacts on emergent literacy skills, however, were not significant.
EXAMPLE:
➢ Results indicated that most children participating in the study were at
such a low level of early literacy (unable to identify a single letter) that
content needed to start at a much more basic level and focus on
developing the first steps of early literacy.
THE CHALLENGE:
1. help kids with the first critical steps of pre-literacy, so that they can
develop a strong foundation for further literacy learning.
2. to develop a model for this that would be adaptable to different
languages.
The Process:
Human Centered Design (HCD) process is used to design a solution.
I. Target users:
1. Tanzanian kids aged 3-6
2. and their parents.
II. Steps:
1. empathize,
2. define,
3. ideate,
4. prototype,
5. test.
The Process:
Empathize:
➢ Before starting with the kids, we did an exercise to help our team
better understand what a child goes through to learn new letters. Team
members had to teach each other Amharic letters.
➢ They were then assessed on their Amharic letter learning, similarly to
how we assess children on their early literacy.
➢ We also each sat down with a child to try and teach them a letter face
to face. This helped each person see the child’s process and ask them
questions about their learning.
The Process:

Define:
Prior to the workshop extensive research into literacy acquisition
pathways were made to better understand what early indicators would
be best to target a measure.
➢ we were able to clearly define what we were trying to achieve: (1) for
children to be able to correctly point out the letter they had learn
when given a choice among letters and (2) for children to be able to
make the sound of the letter.
Rapid Ideation, Prototyping and Testing:

The three stages were combined into a rapid cycle for 2 days of rapid
prototyping:
➢ developed over 18 prototypes for letter learning.
Ideas were quickly turned into prototypes and tested with children.
Starting with low fidelity prototypes through plays where acting out was
performed what could happen in a video for children, then assessed them to
test their learning.
➢ The next iterations were mid-fidelity prototypes of quickly produced videos
(1-2 hours production time) which were also tested with children, then
iterated upon and tested again with different sets of children.
➢ And finally, roughly animated content was produced and tested with the
children.
By the end of the two days, the content was developed that consistently
helped children identify the letter taught among a group of letter, and that also
stimulated them to say the letter sound out loud while watching.
High Fidelity Ideation, Prototyping and Testing:
After achieving these strong initial outcomes from rapid
prototyping, a month was spent creating high fidelity prototypes teaching
letters a and b. These were fully animated videos of TV broadcast quality,
teaching letter name, shape and sound.

Then did a small scale study for 1-week was done with a treatment
group watching the videos daily, and a control group watching other
cartoons. At the end of the week, the children in the treatment group
improved significantly in being able to identify the letters taught and pick
out words with the correct first letter sound.
Conclusion:

This intensive, Human-Centered research allowed to design for very

young kids, who do not yet have the language ability to say what they need
for learning. Though the process may seem intense, it has helped quickly in
developing highly effective and engaging learning, by having the usersact
as guide so that their needs can be addresed.
EXAMPLE 2

https://uxdesign.cc/human-centered-design-explained-with-examples-
707133acf8b4
SOURCES:

➢ https://www.ubongo.org/case-study/co-creating-videos-for-better-letter-
learning/
➢ •https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-
and-why-is-it-so-popular
➢ •Gerd Waloszek, Introduction to Design Thinking, 2012:
https://experience.sap.com/skillup/introduction-to-design-thinking/
➢ •Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition), 1996:
➢ •https://monoskop.org/images/9/9c/Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_A
rtificial_3rd_ed.pdf
➢ •https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-
thinking-process
➢ •https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/what-is-design-thinking-