Design Thinking

What is Design

 It is the process of envisioning and planning the

creation of objects, interactive systems, buildings,
vehicles, etc.
 It is user-centered, i.e. users are at the heart of the
design thinking approach.
 It is about creating solutions for people, physical
items or more abstract systems to address a need or
a problem.
 What is a Product
 A product is the item offered for sale. A product can be a service or an item. It can be physical or in virtual or cyber
form.
 Every product is made at a cost and each is sold at a price.
 The price that can be charged depends on the market, the quality, the marketing and the segment that is targeted.

Salient features of a product

• A product needs to be relevant: the users must have an immediate use for it. A product needs to be functionally able to
do what it is supposed to, and do it with a good quality.

• A product needs to be communicated: Users and potential users must know why they need to use it, what benefits they
can derive from it, and what it does difference it does to their lives. Advertising and 'brand building' best do this.

• A product needs a name: a name that people remember and relate to. A product with a name becomes a brand. It helps it
stand out from the clutter of products and names.

• A product should be adaptable: with trends, time and change in segments, the product should lend itself to adaptation to
make it more relevant and maintain its revenue stream.
•
What is Product Design

 It is the conceptualization of an idea about the product and the transformation of the idea into a
reality
 To convert it into a reality a specification of the product is prepared
 The specifications are prepared by considering different constraints such as production
process, customer satisfaction etc.
 Product design is a complex process that includes a variety of tasks, ranging from research to
prototyping and testing.
 Product design is human-centered (as all the good things are), but involves more
consideration of the needs of the business and market situation.
Design Paradox
What the customer really needed
What is Design Thinking
What is Design Thinking
 Design Thinking is Out of the Box Thinking
Design thinking is an approach
for creative problem-solving
It is an extension of innovation
that allows you to design
solutions for end users with a
How to culminate an idea into a single problem statement in mind
tangible product

Design Thinking is a non-linear, iterative

process that is extremely useful for tackling
ill-defined, complex, or unknown problems.
Design Thinking is structured to:

 Understand users
 Reframe problems in human-centered ways
 Challenge underlying assumptions
 Redefine problems
 Rapidly create innovative solutions to prototype and test.
 Design Thinking
movement rapidly gaining
ground in the public and
History of Design Thinking private schools
IIT Institute of Design
Launches Design Camp
Increasing interest and
adoption of Design
Hasso Plattner Institute for thinking in industries
IT Engineering founded in
Germany

Stanford D. School started

IDEO formed: modelled a
teaching Design Thinking
version of design thinking
to students
from Stanford D. school
“Wicked Problems” term
coined by Horst Rittle First Design Thinking
Book Published by a
Harvard Professor
Initial efforts to define a
standard for creative and
design work

1960’s 1980’s 2000’s 2010’s 2020’s

Wicked problems are:

 Unique and novel

 Difficult or impossible to solve
 Characterized by incomplete factors and complex interdependencies
 Subject to contradictory evidence
 Dependent on multiple stakeholders, often with conflicting interests
Characteristics of a wicked problem

 There is no definitive formula

 Wicked problems have no stopping rule—there’s no way to know your solution is final
 There is no immediate test of a solution to a wicked problem
 Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there’s no
opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly
 Wicked problems don’t have a set number of potential solutions
 Every wicked problem is essentially unique
 Every wicked problem can be considered a symptom of another problem
 There is always more than one explanation for a wicked problem because the explanations
vary greatly depending on the individual perspective
 Planners/designers have no right to be wrong and must be fully responsible for their
actions
“Design must reflect the practical
and aesthetic in business but above
all.. good design must primarily
serve people.”

THOMAS J. WATSON
Who is a Design Thinker?
 The person who understands the needs and requirements of the customer.
 Understands how the customer engages with the product. How do they use the product? And
based on this innovative solutions are generated.
 They develop a deep understanding to understand customer struggles. i.e. their problems, and
issues and consistently concentrate on potential solutions.

Hence
 A design thinker should have________?
 Dynamic mindset
 Concerned about the future possibilities and nonexistent solutions
 Iterative (Generate improvements by repetition of process)
 Open-minded and collaborative
Mindset of a Traditional Thinker
Design Thinking vs Traditional Approach to Problem Solving
Design Thinking
Focus on people
Values customer feedback
Based on evidence
Quick and cheap iterative design until
find the best solutions
Low risk and uncertainty in business
Foster collaboration, creativity,
innovation within team
Empowers people
Builds flexibility to quickly adapt and
respond
Ongoing approach to always imporve
Traditional Thinking
Focus on product or service
Values intuition
Based on assumptions
Expensive big design upfront
development
High risk and uncertainty of the business
Promotes teams to work in silos with poor
communication between them
Limits people’s skills and expertise
Rigid and hard to find alternatives when
needed
One shot approach
Let us look at some examples here to better
understand their impact
 Nokia

 Once a leading mobile phone manufacturer, it is an example of a company

that relied heavily on traditional problem-solving methods.
 Despite dominating the mobile phone market in the early 2000s,
Nokia failed to adapt to changing consumer preferences and
emerging technologies.
 Instead of embracing a design thinking approach to understand and
empathize with user needs, Nokia focused primarily on incremental
improvements 📈 to their existing products.
 This approach ultimately led to their decline 📉 as competitors
introduced more innovative 💡 and user-centric smartphones.
Airbnb
 Airbnb, on the contrary, recognized the challenges faced by travelers 🎒in finding
affordable and unique accommodations, as well as the struggles of homeowners in utilizing
their spare space 🏡.
 Instead of following the traditional model of hotels and resorts 🏨, Airbnb applied design
thinking principles to connect these two user groups and create a game-changing
platform👩🏻💻.
 They empathized with travelers and homeowners, creating a user-centric platform for
unique and affordable accommodations.
 Through iterative design thinking, they developed a trusted marketplace, empowering
homeowners and disrupting the hospitality industry.
 Design Thinking Combines Creative and Analytical Thinking

Left Brain Right Brain

Analytical Creative
Rational Holistic
Objective Subjective
Present & Past Present & Future
Facts Feelings
Order/Pattern Spatial
Planned Spontaneous

Design Thinking uses both sides of the brain to solve problems

What is Unique about Design Thinking?
Human-centered
Discover peoples real needs
and wants. Be able to gain
deep insights of their
motivations and share the
feeling of others.
Highly-creative
Looks at situations differently.
Push past obvious solutions
and existing alternatives to get
to breakthrough ideas.
Collaborative
Work as a team to look at the
problem holistically and
implement solutions to
improve peoples experiences.
Iterative
Repeat each phase backwards
and forwards and arrive at each
decisions or desired result after
rounds of learning and discovery.
Hands-on
Ideas are made tangible through
prototyping. Build rough or lo-fi
prototypes to learn how to make
ideas better.
Show, don’t tell
Enable the user to experience
the story through action, words,
thoughts, senses and feelings
rather than pure description.
What Design Thinking is NOT
What are the Benefits of Design Thinking
Design-centric companies include:
Success Story - Nike
SB Line of Shoes
SOLUTION
Activity: Brainstorming of Problems

1. In your respective groups, Brainstorm problems that occur in:

a) Society (e.g. overcrowding in trains)
b) Business & Services (e.g. bad online experience in re-contracting
mobile/broadband service)
c) Situations (e.g. customer complaints, natural disasters)

2. List your ideas on flip chart.

3. Present your findings to the class.
Solution-Based and Problem-Based Thinking?

 Solution-based thinking focuses on finding solutions; coming up with something constructive to

effectively tackle a certain problem. This is the opposite of problem-based thinking, which tends
to fixate on obstacles and limitations.
 Problem-based- Enumerating all the obstacles impeding your progress. That is, considering the
difficulties, something would not function. HOW SCREWED YOU ARE.
 Solution-based- Regardless matter what is happening, you shout, HEY! Let us attempt to produce
ideas, discover a method to work, and choose the best approach to reach our objective, even if it
has negatives.

 Solution-based thinkers accept reality as it is and plan for the solution step by step.
 Solution-based thinkers keep themselves segregated from negative thoughts and sorrows.
Are you a problem-oriented thinker or a solution-
oriented thinker?

Exercise
1. Car tyre nuts
2. Hole in the Boat
3. Boat stuck in a storm
• The Six Step Problem-Solving Model provides a shared, collaborative, and systematic approach to problem-
solving.
• Each step must be completed before moving on to the next step.
• However, the steps are repeatable.
• At any point, the group can return to an earlier step, and proceed from there.
• The goal is not to solve but to evolve, adjusting the solution continually as new challenges emerge, through
repeating the Six-Step Process.
 Step 1) Define the Problem – Identify problems through problem formulation and questioning. The key is asking
the right questions to discover root causes.
 Step 2) Determine the Root Cause – During this process, assumptions are uncovered and underlying problems are
further revealed. Also, this is an opportunity to collect and analyze data.
 Step 3) Develop Alternative Solutions – Decisions are made within the group to determine the appropriate
solution and process through creative selection.
 Step 4) Select a Solution – Once the group has formed solutions and alternatives to the problem(s), they need to
explore the pros and cons of each option through forecasting consequences.
 Step 5) Implement the Solution – Develop an action plan to implement and execute the solution process.
 Step 6) Evaluate the Outcome – This final stage requires an evaluation of the outcomes and results of the solution
process.
 Ask questions such as: Did the option answer the questions we were working on? Did this process address the
findings that came out of the assumptions? • This process helps keep groups on track, and enables a thorough
investigation of the problem and solution search.
 Exercise 2
Designing a Sustainable School Garden:
 Apply design thinking principles to create a sustainable school garden that promotes environmental
awareness, healthy eating habits, and hands-on learning.
 They can ideate, prototype, and iterate on garden layouts, irrigation systems, composting methods, and
plant selection.
 Parental advisory and child protection ads.
 Creating Inclusive Playground Equipment: Students can use design thinking to design inclusive
playground equipment that accommodates children with different abilities. They can empathize with
diverse users, brainstorm inclusive play structures, and develop prototypes that promote accessibility,
social interaction, and fun for all. Reference: "Design Thinking for Inclusive Playgrounds: Engaging
Children and Their Perspectives" by Julia King et al., Children, Youth and Environments Journal.
 Redesigning School Backpacks: Students can use design thinking to reimagine school backpacks for
improved comfort, organization, and ergonomics. They can conduct user research, gather feedback on
pain points, and design prototypes that address issues such as weight distribution, storage
compartments, and adjustable straps.
What is the Design Thinking process?

 As already mentioned, the Design Thinking process is progressive and highly user-centric. Before
looking at the process in more detail, let’s consider the four principles of Design Thinking.

The Four Principles of Design Thinking

 The human rule
 The ambiguity rule
 The redesign rule
 The tangibility rule
 The Five Phases of Design Thinking

 Based on these four principles, the Design Thinking process can be broken down into five steps or
phases, : Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. Let’s explore each of these in more detail.
 Empathise: Understand user needs and how users feel and think. Involves extensive user research to understand
the users and the challenges they face.
Who is my user? What matters to this person?

 Define: Build a problem statement based on your user research findings or describe the user’s needs that you aim
to address.
What are my user’s needs?

 Ideate: Land on a user problem and establish why it’s important to solve. Brainstorm and come up with as many
design solutions as possible.
How can I solve my user’s problem?

 Prototype: Demonstrate the functionality of one or more of your designs in the form of a rough draft.
How can I illustrate my idea?

 Test: Share and test your prototyped design with your users and gather their feedback.
What did my users like? What didn’t they like?
Phase 1: Empathise

 Empathy provides the critical starting point for Design Thinking. The first stage of the process is
spent getting to know the user and understanding their wants, needs and objectives.
 This means observing and engaging with people in order to understand them on a psychological and
emotional level. During this phase, the designer seeks to set aside their assumptions and gather real
insights about the user.
 Phase 2: Define
• The second stage in the Design Thinking process is dedicated to defining the problem.

• You’ll gather all of your findings from the empathise phase and start to make sense of them: what difficulties and
barriers are your users coming up against? What patterns do you observe? What is the big user problem that your team
needs to solve?

• By the end of the define phase, you will have a clear problem statement.

• The key here is to frame the problem in a user-centered way; rather than saying “We need to…”, frame it in terms of
your user: “Retirees in the Bay area need…”

• Once you’ve formulated the problem into words, you can start to come up with solutions and ideas — which brings us
onto stage three.
 Phase 3: Ideate

 With a solid understanding of your users and a clear problem statement in mind, it’s time to start working
on potential solutions.

 The third phase in the Design Thinking process is where the creativity happens, and it’s crucial to point
out that the ideation stage is a judgement-free zone!

 Designers will hold ideation sessions in order to come up with as many new angles and ideas as possible.

 There are many different types of ideation technique that designers might use, from brainstorming and
mind-mapping to bodystorming (roleplay scenarios) and provocation—an extreme lateral-thinking
technique that gets the designer to challenge established beliefs and explore new options and alternatives.

 Towards the end of the ideation phase, you’ll narrow it down to a few ideas with which to move forward.
Phase 4: Prototype

 The fourth step in the Design Thinking process is all about experimentation and turning ideas into
tangible products.
 A prototype is basically a scaled-down version of the product which incorporates the potential
solutions identified in the previous stages.
 This step is key in putting each solution to the test and highlighting any constraints and flaws.
 Throughout the prototype stage, the proposed solutions may be accepted, improved, redesigned or
rejected depending on how they fare in prototype form.
Phase 5: Test

 After prototyping comes user testing, but it’s important to note that this is rarely
the end of the Design Thinking process.
 In reality, the results of the testing phase will often lead you back to a previous
step.
 Providing the insights you need to redefine the original problem statement or to
come up with new ideas you hadn’t thought of before.
 What are the benefits of Design Thinking at work

1. Significantly reduces time-to-market

2. Cost savings and a great ROI

3. Improves customer retention and loyalty

4. Fosters innovation

5. Can be applied company-wide]

Whether you’re establishing a Design Thinking culture on a company-wide scale, or simply trying to
improve your approach to user-centric design, Design Thinking will help you to innovate, focus on the user,
and ultimately design products that solve real user problems.
 How Design Thinking transformed the Rotterdam Eye Hospital-

Executives at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital wanted to transform the patient experience from the typically grim,
anxiety-riddled affair into something much more pleasant and personal.

 Empathise
First, they set out to understand their target user — patients entering the hospital for treatment. The hospital CEO,
CFO, managers, staff and doctors established that most patients came into hospital with the fear of going blind.
 Define
Based on their findings from the empathise stage, they determined that fear reduction needed to be a priority. Their
problem statement may have looked something like the following: “Patients coming into our hospital need to feel
comfortable and at ease.”
 Ideate
Armed with a deep understanding of their patients and a clear mission statement, they started to brainstorm potential
solutions.
As any good design thinker would, they sought inspiration from a range of both likely and unlikely sources. They
looked to flagship airline KLM and supermarket chain Albert Heijn to learn about scheduling, for example, while
turning to other medical organizations for inspiration on operational excellence.
 Prototype
In the prototyping stage, the team presented the most promising ideas they had come up with so far to those in charge
of caregiving at the hospital. These teams of caregivers then used these insights to design informal, small-scale
experiments that could test a potential solution and see if it was worthy of wide-scale adoption.
 Test
The testing phase consisted of running the aforementioned experiments and seeing if they took off. As Dirk
Deichmann and Roel van der Heijde explain, the “transition to formal adoption of these ideas tended to be more
gradual. If an idea worked, sooner or later other groups would ask if they could try it too, and the best ideas spread
organically.”
 The outcome
By adopting a Design Thinking approach, the Rotterdam Eye Hospital were able to get to the heart of their users’
needs and find effective solutions to fulfil them. In doing so, they have greatly improved the user experience: patient
intake has risen 47%, and the hospital has since won several awards for safety, quality and design.
 5 EXAMPLES OF DESIGN THINKING IN BUSINESS

GE (General Electric)

 Diagnostic imaging has revolutionized healthcare, yet GE Healthcare saw a problem in how pediatric patients
reacted to procedures.
 Many children were observed crying during long procedures in cold, dark rooms with flickering fluorescent
lights.
 Considering this, GE Healthcare’s team observed children in various environments, spoke to experts, and
interviewed hospital staff to gain more insight into their experiences.
 After extensive user research, hospital pilots, and reiteration, GE Healthcare launched the “Adventure Series.”
This redesign initiative focused on making magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines more child-friendly.
 The “Pirate Adventure” transforms MRI machines from dark, black holes to pirate ships with
scenery of beaches, sandcastles, and the ocean.
 By empathizing with children’s pain points, GE Healthcare was able to craft a creative solution
that was not only fun but increased patient satisfaction scores by 90 percent.
 This also yielded unexpected successes, including improved scan quality of pediatric patients,
and ultimately saved customers time and resources.
 Oral B
 Design thinking not only succeeds at finding effective solutions for companies but also at putting
initiatives to the test before implementation.
 When Oral B wanted to upgrade its electric toothbrush, it enlisted designers Kim Colin and Sam Hecht
to help.
 The company’s request was to add more functions for electric toothbrush users, such as tracking
brushing frequency, observing gum sensitivity, and playing music.
 While clarifying the problem, however, Colin and Hecht pointed out that brushing teeth was a neurotic
act for many people.
 Users didn’t want additional functionality and, in many cases, thought it could potentially cause more
stress. Instead, they recommended two solutions that could improve user experience without adding
gimmicks.

The solution
 Their first recommendation was to make the toothbrush easier to charge, especially while
users were on the road.
 Another was making it more convenient for users to order replacement heads by
allowing toothbrushes to connect to phones and send reminder notifications.
 Both proposals were successful because they focused on what users wanted rather than
what the company wanted to roll out.
Netflix
 During the company’s inception, its main competitor, Blockbuster, required customers to drive to brick-
and-mortar stores to rent DVDs.
 The process was the same for returns, which was a major pain point for many.
 Netflix eliminated that inconvenience by delivering DVDs directly to customers’ homes with a
subscription model.
Solution-
 When the company realized DVDs were becoming outdated, it created an on-demand streaming service
to stay ahead of the curve. This also inadvertently eliminated the inconvenience of having to wait for
DVDs.
 Subsequently, in 2011, Netflix took its design thinking one step further and responded to customers’ need
for original, provocative content that wasn’t airing on traditional networks.
 Later, in 2016, it improved its user experience by adding short trailers to its interface.
 Each of Netflix’s major updates was in response to customers’ needs and driven by an effective design
thinking process.
 Airbnb
 Another household name, Airbnb, started by only making around $200 a week.
 Its founders recognized that the advertising pictures hosts were posting online weren’t of a high enough
quality, which often deterred customers from renting rooms.
 To empathize with customers, the founders spent time traveling to each location, imagining what users look for
in a temporary place to stay.

Their solution?
 Invest in a high-quality camera and take pictures of what customers want to see, based on their travel
observations.
 For example, showing every room rather than a select few, listing special features like a hot tub or pool in the
description, and highlighting the neighborhood or areas in close proximity to the residence.
 The result? A week later, Airbnb’s revenue doubled.
 Instead of focusing on reaching a bigger audience, Airbnb’s founders used design thinking to determine why
their existing audience wasn’t utilizing their services.
 They realized that rather than focusing on traditional business values, like scalability, they needed to simply
put themselves in users’ shoes to solve business problems.
 UberEats

 The go-to food delivery service app UberEats attributes its success to its ability to reiterate quickly and
empathize with customers.
 A prime example of this is UberEats’s Walkabout Program, where designers observe cities in which the
company operates.
 Some elements they inspect are food culture, cuisine, infrastructure, delivery processes, and
transportation.
 One of the innovations that came from their immersive research is the driver app, which focuses on
delivery partners’ pain points around parking in highly populated urban areas.
 To address this, the driver app provides step-by-step directions from restaurant to customer to ensure
smoother delivery processes.
 Understanding that pain points vary between geographic locations helps UberEats implement effective
upgrades to its service that solve problems in specific locations.
User Centered Design (UCD)

 It is an approach to design that puts users’ needs front and center, and follows an iterative design process that focuses
on the user’s needs every step of the way.

 The main goal of UCD is to create a product that is highly desirable and functional to the user.
What are the differences between user-centered design and
design thinking?
Usability and its Importance

 Usability is a measure to which a product can help a user achieve the set goals effectively,
efficiently, and satisfactorily in a specified environment.
 This can be attained through a user-friendly interface design.
 It is easy for you to learn, and supports your tasks and goals in a more efficient and effective
manner.
 Devoid of usability can cost you time, effort and can significantly influence a system's success or
failure.
There are five key principles that guide user-centered design and four main
steps that make up the UCD process.

The main principles of UCD are:

 Early involvement of end-users
 A clear understanding of the context of use and user needs
 Regular collection, analysis, and incorporation of user feedback
 Employing a user-centric approach to product development and delivery
procedures
 Utilizing an iterative design process with a continual goal to improve user
experience
 The UCD Process

Create
Create design Evaluate
Understand Specify solutions: Step three
is all about Evaluate Designs
Understand the Specify user and
user and context of business storyboarding, Finally, you conduct
use: This first step is requirements: Here journey mapping, usability testing
all about researching , you establish why wireframing, (preferably with
your users’ the product is designing mockups actual users) to test
behaviors, problems, beneficial for the and user flows, the effectiveness of
and goals as well as user, and find testing out different preliminary designs,
how they might metrics to measure UI elements, as well and determine what
interact with your what success looks as determining is working well and
product. like to them. effective information what needs
architecture to improvement
design a product that
solves users’
problems
The process to follow to formulate the requirements better

 Understand the context of its use

 Specify user requirements
 Design a solution
 Evaluate against requirements
Techniques that can help the product team to design a better user
experience:
1. Research- The goal during this stage is to understand who we design for.
 Creating personas
 Specify the context of use and scenarios of interactions

2. Concept Ideation
 User journey mapping
 Storyboarding

3. Validation
 Observe how users interact with your product
What’s important to remember about UCD?

 UCD is about turning empathy concepts into specific product requirements

 No guessing, no personal opinions

 Involving all team members in product design

 UCD and business

How UCD can change lives
 Yono
 Paytm, Gpay, Phonepay…..
 Kapkids
 Razerpay
 IDEO Chicaco partnership with money think
 Trello
 Apple
 Mailchimp
 Duolingo
 Spotify
 Fitbit
Human-Centred Design (HCD)

 “human-centred design (HCD) is an approach that puts human needs, capabilities, and behaviour first, then
designs to accommodate those needs, capabilities, and ways of behaving”.
 Human-Centred Design (HCD), aka universal design, is a design philosophy that aims to include all humans as
possible users of a product.
 It ensures that the design matches the needs and capabilities of all users.
 This approach is often used while designing solutions to problems that exist across physical, economical and
social interactions”.
 The goal of HCD is to make every user feel that the experience was designed just for them, no matter who
they are, where they live, or what they do for a living.
 The core of HCD is deep empathy.
 Designers must let go of their inherent biases and assumptions based on their own experiences and be more
perceptive of how others might experience the product.
Principles of Human-Centred Design
 People-centred
Who will be using this product? When, where, and how will it most likely happen?

 Solve the root problem:

What are the symptoms of the problem? What is the fundamental problem causing the symptoms?

 Everything is a system:
What do I want the users to achieve by using my product? How can I improve the overall user experience?

 Small and simple interventions:

What can be improved? What is working well with the users?
Design Thinking Stages
1. Clarify

 This first phase is dedicated to collecting data and observing your customers to clarify the problem and
how you might solve it.
 Rather than develop products based on assumptions, you conduct user research and assess customer
needs to determine what prospective buyers want.

Two types of customer’s pain points-

 Explicit: These are pain points users can describe; they’re aware of what frustrates them about their
current experience.
 Latent: These are pain points users can’t describe and might not even know exist.

To determine your customers’ pain points, observe people using your product and conduct user
interviews.
2. Ideate

 During this stage, you can apply different design thinking tools, such as systematic inventive
thinking (SIT) or brainstorming, to overcome cognitive fixedness.
 SIT’s five thinking patterns subtraction, division, multiplication, task unification and attribute
dependency.
 Cognitive fixedness is a mindset in which you consciously or unconsciously assume there’s only one
way to interpret or approach a situation.

 Once you’ve overcome cognitive fixedness, the goal is to generate dozens of ideas to
amplify creativity and ensure no one gets attached to a potential solution before it’s been tested.
3. Develop

 The develop phase is when you combine and critique the ideas you’ve brainstormed to create a range of
possible solutions.
 Three characteristics of human-centered design that are vital to consider when critiquing ideas are
desirability, feasibility, and viability.
1. Desirability: Does this innovation fulfill user needs, and is there a market for it?
2. Feasibility: Is this functionally possible? Does the organization have the resources to produce this
innovation? Are there any legal, economic, or technological barriers?
3. Viability: Is this innovation sustainable? Can the company continue to produce or deliver this product
profitably over time?

Answers to these questions are presumed during the prototyping stage

4. Implementation

 The implementation phase keeps the project plan on track with careful monitoring and control
processes to ensure the final deliverable meets the acceptance criteria set by the customer.
 It is crucial to communicate your innovation’s value to internal and external stakeholders,
including colleagues and consumers, to bring it to market successfully, encourage adoption, and
maintain growth.
 This phase is typically where approved changes are implemented.
What are the key differences?

 Design Thinking (DT) looks at the bigger picture. While it also requires abundant knowledge of the user, it also
takes into account the technical feasibility of the product and the goals of the business. DT aims to identify and
solve rather complex problems that may have an impact on product design, organizational policies and
processes.

 UCD, as suggested by the name, puts the focus solely on a target group of users in the design process. UCD
aims to understand and design for a predicted user group of the end product.

 HCD methodology aims to include all humans as possible users of a product. This means that the design and
research phase should focus on all humans as potential users of the product, and not just a specific target group.
HCD is all about inclusivity and accessibility.
Design Thinking vs User- Centered Design vs Human-
Centered Design
What do they have in common?
 User: It is key for UX designers to understand the feelings, fears, limitations and frustrations of
their users. It is good to look past the overt needed of the users and have a deep understanding of
what the user needs. Empathising with your user is pivotal, no matter which design methodology
you choose to follow.

 Problem Solving: All 3 of the design frameworks discussed here share a common optimistic
approach to problem-solving, and view user problems as opportunities for improvement.

 Iteration: The processes for DT, HCD, and UCD are not linear. They heavily rely on the design
team learning from their mistakes and making constant improvements based on feedback at all
stages.