Design

Thinking and
your Research

Tzar Umang
Makerspace Innovhub
Agenda
Importance of Design Thinking

Stages of Design Thinking

Integrating Design Thinking in

your Research

Technology Trends and Global

Challenges
Design
Thinking
Importance, Steps and Application
Introduction
Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach that prioritizes
empathy and experimentation to generate innovative solutions. It's
widely used in product development and business strategy but is
applicable to almost any area. Central to Design Thinking is a deep
understanding of the user's needs, challenges, and context, which is
gained through immersive research techniques.
Understand
What is Empathy and Define?

• Empathy is the ability to understand the

customer to their needs, in design thinking it
is the most crucial and important part of the
process. This is the process where you get all
the possible information you need from your
target user and or customer

• Define, it is the stage to analyze gathered

information to identify patterns and themes
and properly articulate the problem to be
solved.
 Ideation is the step where we generate a wide
Create array of potential solutions to the user centric
problem defined in the Understand stage.

After a plethora of ideas have been

generated, the team then reviews and
clusters the ideas into themes. Voting
Define the problem statement clearly and systems or impact/feasibility matrices can
ensure all participants understand it. be useful tools during this step.

Setup Diverge Converge Prototype Candidates

Encourage participants to think broadly
and generate as many ideas as possible.
Techniques such as brainstorming, mind
mapping, sketching can be used.
TheThe chosen ideas are then turned into
practical concepts, often represented
visually, that can be prototyped and tested.
The goal is to create a low-fidelity
representation of the solutions to
understand whether they could potentially
solve the defined problem.
 • Prototyping is the creation of scaled down
Delivery version of the product or specific features to
investigate the ideas and solutions generated.

Prototypes allow designers to test their ideas

Prototypes can serve as a useful tool for
and concepts with users and stakeholders, gather communicating ideas and facilitating
feedback, and refine the solutions based on the discussions among the design team,
insights gained. stakeholders, and users.

Testing and Refining Identifying Problems Improving Communication

Reducing Risk
Concepts Early and Collaboration

By creating a physical or digital representation
of the product, designers can identify potential
issues and challenges early in the process,
saving time and resources.
By testing and refining the solutions with
prototypes before the full-scale
implementation, organizations can reduce
the risks associated with launching a new
product or service.
 • Testing during this phase the prototypes that were

Delivery created in the previous stage are presented to users

and stakeholders for feedback.

Testing allows designers to validate if their
solutions effectively address the user's needs and
problems that were identified in the Define stage.
By observing how users interact with the prototype
and soliciting their feedback, designers can
evaluate the success of their solution.
Testing with a prototype before moving to full-
scale production helps to reduce risks by
identifying any issues or shortcomings in the
design. It's more efficient and cost-effective to
make changes during the prototype phase than after
the product has been fully developed.

Validate Solution Learn and Iterate Reduce Risk Enhance User Experience

The insights and feedback gained during the
testing process are used to refine and improve
the solution. This might lead to alterations in the
prototype or even the realization that the
problem was not defined correctly.
The feedback from users during testing helps
designers to improve the product's usability and
overall user experience.
Design Thinking in
your Research
How to embed design thinking as part of
your methodology in your Research and
Start Ups
The Mindset and
Culture Prototype and
Test

Create Safe
Encourage
Space for
Collaboration
Creativity
Foster User-
Centric
Culture
Embed
Educate and Design
Train Thinking in
Processes
Leadership
Support

In Design Thinking it is not just about the technical steps

of the process, but it is a mindset and culture that the
whole team should adopt and practice.
Design
Thinking
Canvas
Before you can get your first
customer, it is important to
design your product to be
valuable. Your Value
Proposition is the key product
of Design Thinking…
Thank You
Tzar Umang

info@makerspace.ph

iamtzar.com