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“Put simply, design thinking is a discipline that uses the designer’s
sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is
technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can
convert into customer value and market opportunity.”
Tim Brown
CEO of IDEO
Genentech, Starbucks, Apple, Southwest Airlines, Google, and
Nintendo are proof - market leaders achieve advantage via
innovation. Design thinking is an approach to innovation that draws
from the designer’s toolkit, taking a human-centered approach
to enable the cultivation and development of ideas into tangible
strategies and offerings. It accelerates innovation to help create
better solutions for the challenges facing business and society.
The reason design thinking is called “human-centered” is that it starts
with the people for whom you’re designing. You begin by examining
the needs, dreams, and behaviors of people you want to affect with
your solution. This is the ‘Desirability’ lens and you will continue to
view the world through this lens throughout the design process.
Start Here
DESIRABILITY
FEASIBILITY VIABILITY
© IDEO
Once you have identified a range of what is desirable, you begin to
view solutions through the lenses of ‘Feasibility’ (what is technically
and organizationally feasible) and ‘Viability’ (what is financially
viable). These two lenses are introduced carefully during the
later phases of the design thinking process. True breakthrough
solutions will hit the overlap of all three lenses; amazing new
ExperiencePoint + IDEO ExperienceInnovation
strategies, processes, products, services, and environments require
a combination of Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability.
In the words of Tim Brown, the CEO of the celebrated innovation and
design firm IDEO, “Design has become too important to be left to
designers.” Indeed, in today’s environment of intense competition
and rapid change, a pervasive culture of innovation is critical to an
organization’s success. Design thinking is exhilaratingly difficult,
but it can be learned. And the best way to become skilled at design
thinking is through experience.
WELCOME TO EXPERIENCEINNOVATION
ExperienceInnovation is an educational game created by
ExperiencePoint in collaboration with IDEO. ExperienceInnovation
provides meaningful experience with design thinking - you will
collaborate and compete to solve a realistic and complex challenge
while engaging with the terms, techniques, and thought patterns
of successful innovators. The challenge will feel somewhat familiar
and yet is deliberately different from your “day-job”; when learning
something new, experience shows it’s best to avoid the strong
assumptions we all carry about our own context and what will and
won’t work.
Before engaging in ExperienceInnovation, it’s important to
understand the Design Thinking Innovation Process. A caveat, and
it’s a big one: for the purposes of learning and discussion, the phases
and steps of the process are presented here as linear. In practice,
design thinking is not nearly so orderly. Often key findings in later
steps will necessitate circling back to earlier ones. Living the process
can feel at times chaotic, but it is a “focused chaos” from which truly
innovative solutions will emerge.
The three main phases of the design thinking process are INSPIRE,
IDEATE, and IMPLEMENT. INSPIRE focuses on the problems and
opportunities that motivate the search for a solution. IDEATE
involves generating a number of ideas that will shape your final
solution. And IMPLEMENT bridges the project room and reality, with
a focus on evolving ideas into successful solutions.
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DESIGN THINKING INNOVATION PROCESS
INSPIRE IDEATE
ABSTRACT
Frame
Opportunities
Form Insights
CONCRETE
Observe People
Define the Challenge
Note that the process will move your team from a concrete challenge
and observations about people, to abstract thinking as you uncover
insights and themes, and then back to the concrete with tangible
solutions. Contrast this approach with traditional problem solving:
a concrete issue typically yields discussion and analysis of concrete
options, which in turn leads to the selection of (hopefully) the best
option. Unfortunately, traditional problem solving often results in
traditional solutions. Such solutions at best provide incremental
innovation, and at worst are ill-fitting and ineffective.
Design thinking’s deliberate journey into the abstract enables
deep connection with underlying and enduring truths, expands the
boundaries on acceptable ideas, and thus increases the likelihood of
a truly innovative outcome.
INSPIRE
The INSPIRE phase starts with Defining the Challenge. The initial
challenge will inform the rest of the process and should be phrased
in a human-centered way with a sense of possibility.
Next, you will use qualitative research techniques to Observe Users
with the objectives of developing deep empathy for your users,
questioning assumptions, and inspiring new solutions. Finally,
you will Form Insights from your qualitative research data. By
synthesizing and interpreting the data, you will uncover and bring
ExperiencePoint + IDEO ExperienceInnovation
IMPLEMENT
Brainstorm Ideas
Try Experiments
© ©IDEO
IDEO
clarity to previously hidden meaning. Great insights translate
individual stories into overarching truths about your users.
IDEATE
With key insights in mind, you’ll likely see your design challenge
in a new light and therefore its time to Frame Opportunities.
An opportunity area is a stepping stone to idea generation. The
framing of an opportunity space should be narrow enough to
ensure you address the initial challenge, yet broad enough to allow
for truly innovative solutions. To suggest a mindset of possibility,
opportunities should start with the phrase “HOW MIGHT WE...?”
(which is often abbreviated on sticky notes as HMW).
Next, you Brainstorm Ideas, flexing your creativity as you answer
the HMW question. Creativity is a science and by following specific
brainstorming rules, you will increase both the quality and quantity of
your ideas. Indeed, IDEO has seven sacred rules for idea generation.
IMPLEMENT
Too frequently innovative ideas die before they reach the real
world. One method for increasing both their lifespan and ultimate
effectiveness is to Try Experiments. The best experiments do not
test an idea as much as help evolve it. Experiments make an idea real
and therefore help communicate its value and potential.
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CASE: BANK OF AMERICA
“KEEP THE CHANGE”
Define the Challenge
The Bank of America asked IDEO to expand the number of products
that could better serve their existing customer base as well as to
attract new customers with an emphasis on boomer women with kids.
Observe Users
In the field, the team observed the specific behavior of people
“rounding up” their bill payments in order to reduce anxiety around
their potential lack of finances. This behavior exemplified the
common desire for, and struggle around, saving that was felt by
many mothers and people in general.
© Copyright 2010 IDEO
Form Insights
Several insights emerged from the research:
• A mother’s age does not define her financial behavior. Instead
the life stage of her children becomes the defining factor.
• Many people round up their bill payments for speed,
convenience and peace of mind.
• Many moms had difficulty saving what money they had, whether
due to a lack of resources or willpower.
© Copyright 2010 IDEO
ExperiencePoint + IDEO ExperienceInnovation
Frame Opportunities
Through a combination of these insights, IDEO framed the following
opportunity area:
“How might we integrate savings into people’s everyday lives to help
them save effortlessly?”
Brainstorm Ideas
A number of ideas were generated. Originally coined “Round Up” to
reflect the key behavior, “Keep the Change” allowed customers to
save while they spent - the product rounds up purchases made with
a Bank of America Visa Check card to the nearest dollar, transferring
the difference from the individual’s checking account into their
savings account automatically.
Try Experiments
Bank of America did several small pilots before launching “Keep
the Change”. Since inception the program has helped more than 12
million customers save more than $3.1 billion.
© Copyright 2010 IDEO. Courtesy of Bank of America
EXPERIENCEINNOVATION AWAITS YOU
Are you ready to re-think thinking? ExperienceInnovation is an
important first step that will provide a true taste of the innovation
process. With practice, your design thinking skills will help you:
• see new opportunities consistently
• connect deeply with customers
• transform insights and data into actionable ideas
• create and implement new solutions with business impact,
faster and more effectively
In summary, design thinking will help you effect meaningful change.
We look forward to your participation in ExperienceInnovation!
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