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Design
Thnking
Making the creative process effective
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HELL
I am Yasser Abdesselam

O!
I am here because I was paid
to be here.
You can find me at
@lyxdesign
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“The faster we make our ideas

tangible, the sooner we will be able
to evaluate them, refine them, and
zero in on the best solution.”
- Tim Brown, Founder of IDEO
What is Design Thinking
Is it design?
Is it thinking?
Is it art?
Is it science?
Is it a tool?
Is it a method?
Is it a process?
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Definition
Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to
solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for
clients. ... Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination,
intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore possibilities of
what could be—and to create desired outcomes that benefit
the end user (the customer).
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Empathise
Synthesize

Define
Stoke

Ideate
Select

Prototype
Show
Test
Iterate

The Process of Design Thinking

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Activity 1

▫ Draw a vase
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Activity 1

Design a beautiful
way for people to
show their flowers
at home
1. Empathise
Understanding the user is one big step towards understanding the problem
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What is Empathy?
In a general sense, empathy is our ability to see the world
through other people's eyes, to see what they see, feel what
they feel, and experience things as they do. Of course, none
of us can fully experience things the way someone else does,
but we can attempt to get as close as possible, and we do
this by putting aside our own preconceived ideas and
choosing to understand the ideas, thoughts, and needs of
others instead.
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What is Empathy in Design Thinking?

In Design Thinking, empathy is, as explained in
IDEO’s Human-Centred Design Toolkit, a “deep
understanding of the problems and realities of the people
you are designing for”. It involves learning about the
difficulties people face, as well as uncovering their latent
needs and desires in order to explain their behaviours. To do
so, we need to have an understanding of the people’s
environment, as well as their roles in and interactions with
their environment.
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Why Empathise?
The stories that people tell and the things that people say they do—even
if they are different from what they actually do—are strong indicators of
their deeply held beliefs about the way the world is. Good designs are
built on a solid understanding of these kinds of beliefs and values.
Engage to:
▫ - Uncover needs that people have which they may or may not be
aware of
▫ - Guide innovation efforts
▫ - Identify the right users to design for
▫ - Discover the emotions that guide behaviors

Empathise Methodes
▫ Assume a beginner’s mindset
▫ Ask What-How-Why
▫ Ask the 5 whys
▫ Conduct interviews with
empathy
▫ Build empathy with analogies
▫ Use photo and video user-
based studies
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▫ Use personal photo and
video journals
▫ Engage with extreme
users
▫ Story share-and-capture
▫ Bodystorm
▫ Create journey maps
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Assuming a Beginner’s Mindset

▫ As a beginner, we give ourselves the right to make
mistakes which allows us to develop a dual way of
thinking. Thinking as two people with one mind, in this
case only, is an advantage for the next step in design
thinking.
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Asking What-How-Why
With the What-How-Why method, you start with:
▫ Concrete observations: The What
▫ Higher levels of abstraction: The How
▫ the emotional drivers behind people’s behaviours: The
Why
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Asking the 5 whys

The “5 Whys” method is a dead simple method you can use to dig
deep into your users and uncover useful insights about their
behaviour.
Quite literally, it involves asking your users “Why?” whenever they
explain something to you. Each time you ask “Why?”, you will
prompt someone to re-evaluate their position in order to dig a little
deeper into their own reasoning. It may seem a little odd to keep
asking “Why?” at first, but it will bring great insights while allowing
you to dig deeper in order to find the root cause(s) of their behaviours.
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Conducting interviews with empathy

Empathy and Sympathy are two different things:
Sympathy is understanding what your user is thinking or
going through from a distanced position. Empathy is putting
yourself in those people’s positions, virtually living their
lives, asking the very simple questions in details.
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Using photo and video user-based studies

Your memory might be strong, yet you will most certainly
MISS something during the process. Using video records of
the interviews can help you iterate/edit/correct your insights
about how users act or react during the What, How, Why
phase.
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Engage with extreme users

Extreme users, also known as‫ معزة ولو ط ارت‬are some of the
most useful users. That is because they provide you with
extreme unimaginable scenarios and situations or
completely multiply your solution or research by zero and
send you home to cry and think again, in a better more
elaborate way, about the problem.
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Bodystorming
Just like brainstorming, bodystorming is a more-into-action
way of trying to figure out the problem by trying the action
that usually leads to it. Example: If you are trying to solve
the transportation problem, take the worst most disgusting
bus that could ever exit.
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Create empathy maps

To store your collected data, you need an Empathy
Map. This map has 4 blocks:
▫ SAY: What are some quotes and defining words
your user said?
▫ DO: What actions and behaviors did you
notice?
▫ THINK: What might your user be thinking?
What does this tell you about his or her beliefs?
▫ FEEL: What emotions might your subject be
feeling?
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Activity 2

GET OUT!
DO!
3 People
120 minutes
2. Define
Understanding the problem is one big step towards the solution
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The Define Stage

In the Define stage you synthesise your observations about your
users from the first stage, the Empathise stage. A great definition of
your problem statement will guide you and your team’s work and
kick start the ideation process (third stage) in the right direction. The
five stages are not always sequential — they do not have to follow
any specific order and they can often occur in parallel and be
repeated iteratively. As such, the stages should be understood as
different modes that contribute to a project, rather than sequential
steps.
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Analysis
Analysis is about breaking down complex concepts and problems
into smaller, easier-to-understand constituents. We do that, for
instance, during the first stage of the Design Thinking process, the
Empathise stage, when we observe and document details that relate
to our users. Synthesis, on the other hand, involves creatively
piecing the puzzle together to form whole ideas. This happens
during the Define stage when we organise, interpret, and make
sense of the data we have gathered to create a problem statement.
What Makes a Good
Problem Statement?
Stating the problem correctly is key to your success in the next stage
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Human Centered
This requires you to frame your problem statement
according to specific users, their needs and the insights that
your team has gained in the Empathise phase. The problem
statement should be about the people the team is trying to
help, rather than focussing on technology, monetary returns
or product specifications.
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Broad enough for creative freedom

This means that the problem statement should not focus too
narrowly on a specific method regarding the implementation
of the solution. The problem statement should also not list
technical requirements, as this would unnecessarily restrict
the team and prevent them from exploring areas that might
bring unexpected value and insight to the project.
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Narrow enough to make it manageable.

On the other hand, a problem statement such as , “Improve
the human condition,” is too broad and will likely cause
team members to easily feel daunted. Problem statements
should have sufficient constraints to make the project
manageable.
How to Define a Problem
Statement
Stating the problem correctly is key to your success in the next stage
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Space Saturate & Group

In space saturate and group, designers collate their observations and
findings into one place, to create a collage of experiences, thoughts,
insights, and stories. The term 'saturate' describes the way in which the
entire team covers or saturates the display with their collective images,
notes, observations, data, experiences, interviews, thoughts, insights,
and stories in order to create a wall of information to inform the
problem-defining process. It will then be possible to draw connections
between these individual elements, or nodes, to connect the dots, and to
develop new and deeper insights, which help define the problem(s) and
develop potential solutions. In other words: go from analysis to
synthesis
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Empathy Mapping
An empathy map consists of four quadrants laid out on a board,
paper or table, which reflect the four key traits that the users
demonstrated/possessed during the observation stage. The four
quadrants refer to what the users: Said, Did, Thought, and Felt.
Determining what the users said and did are relatively easy;
however, determining what they thought and felt is based on
careful observation of how they behaved and responded to
certain activities, suggestions, conversations etc. (including
subtle cues such as body language displayed and the tone of
voice used).
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Point Of View – Problem Statement

A Point Of view (POV) is a meaningful and actionable problem
statement, which will allow you to ideate in a goal-oriented manner. Your POV
captures your design vision by defining the RIGHT challenge to address in the
ideation sessions. A POV involves reframing a design challenge into an actionable
problem statement. You articulate a POV by combining your knowledge about the
user you are designing for, his or her needs and the insights which you’ve come to
know in your research or Empathise mode. Your POV should be an actionable
problem statement that will drive the rest of your design work.
You articulate a POV by combining these three elements – user, need, and
insight. You can articulate your POV by inserting your information about your
user, the needs and your insights in the following sentence:
[User . . . (descriptive)] needs [need . . . (verb)] because [insight. . . (compelling)]
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“How Might We” Questions

For example, you have observed that youths tend not to watch TV
programs on the TV at home, some questions which can guide and
spark your ideation session could be:
▫ How might we make TV more social, so youths feel more engaged?
▫ How might we enable TV programs to be watched anywhere, at
anytime?
▫ How might we make watching TV at home more exciting?
The HMW questions open up to Ideation sessions where you explore
ideas, which can help you solve your design challenge in an innovative
way
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The Why-How Laddering

For this reason, during the Define stage designers seek to define the
problem, and will generally ask why. Designers will use why to progress
to the top of the so-called Why-How Ladder where the ultimate aim is to
find out how you can solve one or more problems. Your How Might
We questions will help you move from the Define stage and into the next
stage in Design Thinking, the Ideation stage, where you start looking for
specific innovative solutions. In other words you could say that the Why-
How Laddering starts with asking Why to work out How they can solve
the specific problem or design challenge.
3. Ideate
Time to marry your problem to an idea … she will tame it!
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What is Ideation?
Ideation is the process where you generate ideas and solutions
through sessions such as:
Sketching, Prototyping, Brainstorming, Brainwriting, Worst
Possible Idea, and a wealth of other ideation techniques.
Ideation is also the third stage in the Design Thinking process.
Although many people might have experienced a “brainstorming”
session before, it is not easy to facilitate a truly fruitful ideation
session. In this article, we’ll teach you some processes and
guidelines which will help you facilitate and prepare for productive,
effective, innovative and fun ideation sessions.
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What is the ideation stage about?

▫ Asking the right questions and innovate with a strong focus on
your users, their needs, and your insights about them.
▫ Stepping beyond the obvious solutions and therefore increase
the innovation potential of your solution.
▫ Bringing together perspectives and strengths of your team
members.
▫ Uncovering unexpected areas of innovation.
▫ Creating volume and variety in your innovation options.
▫ Getting obvious solutions out of your heads, and drive your team
beyond them.
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Ideation Process
The ideation process starts with the last step of the definition phase;
POV. Your point of view as a designer will help you tackle the issues
from a different angle.
A good problem statement or POV will allow you to ideate in a goal-
oriented manner. Your POV defines the RIGHT challenge to address
in the ideation sessions. It may seem counterintuitive, but d-school
recommends that you construct a more narrowly-focussed problem
statement as this will result in both a greater quantity and higher
quality solutions when you and your team start generating ideas. In
the ideation process, POV should be your guiding statement that
focusses on your insights about your users and their needs.
How to Define your Point Of
View
Your point of view is the equivalent of your expertise in the field projected onto
the problem statement
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Customer Persona
You define the type of person you are designing for –
your user. For instance, you can develop one or more
personas, use affinity diagrams, empathy maps and other
methods, which help you understand and crystallise your
research results – observations, interviews, fieldwork, etc.
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Needs Statement
You extract and synthesise your users’ most
essential needs, which are the most important to fulfill.
Remember that needs should be verbs.
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Insight statement
You work to express insights you developed through the
synthesis of information that you gathered during your
initial Empathise mode. The insight should typically not
simply be a reason for the need, but rather a synthesised
statement that you can leverage in your designing solution.
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Point of View Table

User Need Insight

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POV Madlib
You can articulate a POV by combining these three elements
– user, need, and insight – as an actionable problem
statement that will drive the rest of your design work. It’s
surprisingly easy when you insert your findings in the POV
Madlib below. You can articulate your POV by inserting
your information about your user, the needs and your
insights in the following sentence:

USER NEEDS TO NEED BECAUSE

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POV Characteristics
▫ Provides a narrow focus.
▫ Frames the problem as a problem statement.
▫ Inspires your team.
▫ Guides your innovation efforts.
▫ Informs criteria for evaluating competing ideas.
▫ Is sexy and captures people’s attention.
▫ Is valid, insightful, actionable, unique, narrow,
meaningful, and exciting.
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Succeed your ideation phase

Ideation requires purposefully adopting certain
characteristics, whether they are natural or whether they
need to be encouraged and learnt. Experts and novices alike
need to be constantly self-aware and purposely intend to
adopt some of the following characteristics, which create an
open mind and fertile ground for sparking unconventional
ideas.
“It’s not about coming up with the ‘right’ idea, it’s about
generating the broadest range of possibilities.” 
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Characteristics of a Successful Ideation

▫ Adapting: Be able to switch how you see, understand,
and extend thinking as new input gets generated.
▫ Connecting: Be able to connect seemingly unrelated
concepts, attributes or themes in order to create new
possibilities.
▫ Disrupting: Be able to overturn commonly held beliefs,
assumptions or norms in order to re-think conventional
approaches.
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Characteristics of a Successful Ideation

▫ Flipping: Turn dead-ends or deadlocks into opportunities by
flipping them over or rapidly changing direction towards
greater viability.
▫ Dreaming and Imagining: Be able to visualise a new
picture of reality by turning abstract needs into tangible
pictures or stories, thereby allowing the space required for
inventing bridges to that reality.
▫ Experimental: Be open and curious enough to explore
possibilities and take risks; be willing and eager to test out
ideas and eager to venture into the unknown.
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Characteristics of a Successful Ideation

▫ Recognise Patterns: Seek to spot common threads of
meaning, and ways of seeing, doing and behaving; be
able to recognise attributes or shared values across a
spectrum of influence and input; and finally be able to
utilize these commonalities to build solutions.
▫ Curiosity: Be willing to ask uncomfortable, silly or even
crazy questions. Be willing to explore and experience, in
order to understand and learn something new and
different.
4. Prototype
Time to make the product!
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Introduction
One of the best ways to gain insights in a Design
Thinking process is to carry out some form of prototyping.
This method involves producing an early, inexpensive, and
scaled down version of the product in order to reveal any
problems with the current design
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What is prototyping?
Prototyping refers to an initial stage of a product release in
which developmental evolution and product fixes may occur
before a bigger release is initiated. These kinds of activities
can also sometimes be called a beta phase or beta testing,
where an initial project gets evaluated by a smaller class of
users before full development.
Types of Prototyping
How, what and how much?
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Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Low-fidelity prototyping involves the use of basic models or
examples of the product being tested. For example, the
model might be incomplete and utilise just a few of the
features that will be available in the final design, or it might
be constructed using materials not intended for the finished
article, such as wood, paper, or metal for a plastic product. 
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Low-Fidelity Prototyping Techniques

▫ Storyboarding.
▫ Sketching
▫ Card sorting.
▫ 'Wizard of Oz'.
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Low-Fidelity Prototyping Pros

▫ Quick and inexpensive.
▫ Possible to make instant changes and test new iterations.
▫ Disposable/throw-away.
▫ Enables the designer to gain an overall view of the product using minimal time
and effort, as opposed to focusing on the finer details over the course of slow,
incremental changes.
▫ Available to all; regardless of ability and experience, we are able to produce
rudimentary versions of products in order to test users or canvas the opinions of
stakeholders.
▫ Encourages and fosters design thinking.
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Low-Fidelity Prototyping Cons

▫ An inherent lack of realism. Due to the basic and sometimes sketchy nature of
low-fi prototypes, the applicability of results generated by tests involving
simple early versions of a product may lack validity.
▫ Depending on your product, the production of low-fi prototypes may not be
appropriate for your intended users. For instance, if you are developing a
product bound by a number of contextual constraints and/or dispositional
constraints (i.e. physical characteristics of your user base, such as users with
disabilities) then basic versions that do not reflect the nature, appearance or feel
of the finished product may be of scant use; revealing very little of the eventual
user experience.
▫ Such prototypes often remove control from the user, as they generally have to
interact in basic ways or simply inform an evaluator, demonstrate or write a
blow-by-blow account of how they would use the finished product.
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High-Fidelity Prototyping
High-fidelity prototypes are prototypes that look and operate
closer to the finished product. For example, a 3D plastic
model with movable parts (allowing users to manipulate and
interact with a device in the same manner as the final
design) is high-fi in comparison to, say, a wooden block.
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High-Fidelity Prototyping Pros

▫ Engaging: the stakeholders can instantly see their vision
realised and will be able to judge how well it meets their
expectations, wants and needs.
▫ User testing involving high-fi prototypes will allow the
evaluators to gather information with a high level of
validity and applicability. The closer the prototype is to
the finished product, the more confidence the design
team will have in how people will respond to, interact
with and perceive the design.
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High-Fidelity Prototyping Cons

▫ They generally take much longer to produce than low-fi prototypes.
▫ When testing prototypes, test users are more inclined to focus and comment
on superficial characteristics, as opposed to the content (Rogers, Preece, and
Sharp, 2011).
▫ After devoting hours and hours of time producing an accurate model of how a
product will appear and behave, designers are often loathed to make changes.
▫ Software prototypes may give test users a false impression of how good the
finished article may be.
▫ Making changes to prototypes can take a long time, thus delaying the entire
project in the process. However, low-fi prototypes can usually be changed
within hours, if not minutes, for example when sketching or paper
prototyping methods are utilised.
Guidelines for Prototyping
Optimal way of doing it!
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Just Start Building

Design Thinking has a bias towards action: that means if
you have any uncertainties about you are trying to achieve,
your best bet is to just make something. Creating a
prototype will help you to think about your idea in a
concrete manner, and potentially allow you to gain insights
into ways you can improve your idea.
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Don’t spend too much time

Design Thinking has a bias towards action: that means if
you have any uncertainties about you are trying to achieve,
your best bet is to just make something. Creating a
prototype will help you to think about your idea in a
concrete manner, and potentially allow you to gain insights
into ways you can improve your idea.
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Remember what you’re testing for

All prototypes should have a central testing issue. Do not
lose sight of that issue, but at the same time, do not get so
bound to it so as to lose sight of other lessons you could
learn from.
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Build with the user in mind

Test the prototype against your expected user behaviours
and user needs. Then, learn from the gaps in expectations
and realities, and improve your ideas.
5. Test
Made it? Test it …
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“If you’re not prepared to be wrong,

you’ll never come up with
something original.”
- Sir Ken Robinson, Senior Advisor for Education &
Creativity at the Getty Museum, L.A.
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Conducting a User Test

Testing can be undertaken throughout the progress of a Design
Thinking project, although it is most commonly undertaken
concurrently with the Prototyping stage.
When conducting a user test on your prototype, it is ideal to utilise a
natural setting (i.e., the normal environment in which your users
would use the prototype). If testing in a natural setting proves difficult,
try to get users to perform a task, or play a role, when testing the
prototype. The key is to get users to be using the prototype as they
would in real life, as much as possible.
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Improve Your Test Results

Conducting a test is not as simple as getting the user and the
prototype in the same room and watching what happens. In
order to achieve the best learning results from each test, here
are some areas of a test that you should take into
consideration:
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The prototype
Remember that you are testing the prototype, not the user.
Your prototype should be designed with a central question in
mind — a question that you will put to the test in the testing
stage.
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Context and scenario

As much as possible, try to recreate the scenario in which
your users are most likely to be using the product. This way,
you can learn more about the interaction (or disruptions)
between the user, the prototype and the environment, as well
as how problems might arise as a result of that interaction.
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How you interact with the user

Make sure your users know what the prototype and test are
about, but do not over-explain how the prototype works.
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How you observe and capture feedback

While collecting feedback, make sure you are not disrupting
the user’s interaction with the prototype. Find a way to
collect feedback in a way that freely allows you to observe
what is happening (for example, by having a partner in the
test, or by recording an audio or video of the test).
Guidelines for Test Planning
Best way to get results …
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Let your users compare alternatives

Create multiple prototypes, each with a change in variable,
so that your users can compare prototypes and tell you
which they prefer (and which they don’t). Users often find it
easier to elucidate what they like and dislike about
prototypes when they can compare, rather than if there was
only one to interact with.
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Show, don’t tell: let your users experience the
prototype
Avoid over-explaining how your prototype works, or how it
is supposed to solve your user’s problems. Let the users’
experience in using the prototype speak for itself, and
observe their reactions.
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Ask users to talk through their experience

When users are exploring and using the prototype, ask them
to tell you what they’re thinking. This may take some
getting used to for most users, so it may be a good idea to
chat about an unrelated topic, and then prompt them by
asking them questions such as, “What are you thinking right
now as you are doing this?”
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Observe
Observe how your users use — either “correctly” or
“incorrectly” — your prototype, and try to resist the urge to
correct them when they misinterpret how it’s supposed to be
used. User mistakes are valuable learning opportunities.
Remember that you are testing the prototype, not the user.
▫
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Ask follow up questions

Always follow up with questions, even if you think you
know what the user means. Ask questions such as, “What do
you mean when you say ___?”, “How did that make you
feel?”, and most importantly, “Why?”
End goal of Testing
Why do we do it?
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Desirable

Viable Feasible
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Desirability
Desirability relates to the focus on people; it’s what puts
the “human” in human-centred design. If a solution is to be
desirable, it has to appeal to the needs, emotions, and
behaviours of the people we are designing for.
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Feasibility
Feasibility is about technology. Is your design solution
technically possible, or does it depend on a technology
that’s yet to be invented (or good enough for regular use)?
While we should never base designs on technical
specifications, our design solutions need to be practical and
implementable without incurring huge costs.
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Viability
Business viability: will your design solution work as a
business? Is there an appropriate business model behind
your solution, or would it collapse after a few years without
investor or donor contributions? Design Thinking is not
about making a profit, but good design solutions should
always be self-sustaining — Design Thinking is a long-term
process that should ideally continue supporting and
improving itself way beyond the project deadline.
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THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find me at
▫ @lyxdesign
▫ abdesselamyasser@gmail.com