DESIGN THINKING

(KMBN 106)
UNIT-2
DESIGN THINKING EXERCISES AND
WORKSHOP
 Why?

Help designers to understand user

and identify their challenges and
needs.
 How?
• The Six thinking Hats
• Mind Mapping
• Deconstruction
• The Five Whys or “Nine
Whys”
• Thumbnail Sketching
 Six Thinking Hats
Proven problem-solving
technique.
Dr. Edward de Bono
Each of the Six thinking hat
has represented different
direction or type of thinking
which is identified by a color.
Allows examining the problem
thoroughly.
Reduces confusion and keeps
thinking on track.
 WHITE HAT RED HAT
•Information •Emotions
•Facts •Feelings
•Data •Hunches
•Intuition

YELLOW HAT
•Benefits GREEN HAT
•Logic •Creativity
•Positive Vision •New Ideas
•Feasibility
•Growth
•Options

BLACK HAT
•Critic
•Risks BLUE HAT
•Obstacles •Overview
•Caution •Control
•Decision
•Process
 Mind Mapping
•Tony Buzan, Chairperson of
Brain Foundation , USA
•Note-taking system that
uses images, colors, words
and numbers are arranged in
a connected, radiant and
hierarchical structure.
•Improve the quality of
Learning, thinking and
working.
 The Five Whys or “Nine Whys”
• Uses recursive
questioning to
help designers
better understand
the root cause of
the problem.
 Deconstruction
• The act of breaking something down
into its separate parts in order to understand
its meaning, especially when this is different
from how it was previously understood
• Revisit their understanding of the core
problems for the purpose of clarifying it.
 Thumbnail Sketching

• Thumbnail sketching is an effective method for focusing on

the overarching aspects of an idea, circumventing the need to
dwell on minute details. These sketches are small, quick, and
abundant, encouraging the creation of a multitude of diverse
options. The main aim is to produce a wide variety of potential
designs or concepts rapidly.

• Allows for rapid exploration of ideas.

• Encourages creativity and iteration.
• Saves time by quickly visualizing ideas.
 Design Thinking workshop

• A Design Thinking workshop is a hands-on, activity-based

session built around the Design Thinking process.

Design Thinking workshop focuses on:

Empathy: Getting to grips with a real user problem and building

empathy for the target users / customers.

Ideation, innovation, and problem-solving: Generating as many

ideas and potential solutions as possible.

Prototyping and testing: Building low-fidelity prototypes of the

ideas generated, ready for testing on real or representative users.
 Design Thinking workshop

• Design Thinking can be applied to all areas of business, and a

Design Thinking workshop can therefore be useful for everyone—
from marketing, product, and sales.
• Why run a Design Thinking workshop:

 Teach people how to problem-solve

 Foster innovation and teamwork

 Secure a competitive advantage

Design Thinking workshops are incredibly fun and engaging. They

bring together a diverse group of people from different departments
and provide a rare opportunity to get hands-on with the problem.
 Design Thinking workshop: Step-by-step

• Phase 1: Planning and preparation:

 Scope out the challenge and set objectives
 Prepare the workshop location
 Plan your agenda
 Gather all necessary materials
• Phase 2: Executing your Design Thinking workshop:
 Introduction and briefing (15 minutes)
 Ice-breaker activity (20 minutes)
 Introduction to Design Thinking (20 minutes)
 Building empathy for the user (1 hour)
 Define a problem statement (1 hour)
 Ideation part 1: Generate ideas and potential solutions (1 hour)
 Ideation part 2: User journey mapping (1 hour)
 Prototype and test ideas (1 hour)
 Debrief and outline next steps (15 minutes)
SCOPES as a tool to brainstorm to frame the Problem
When you want to work on real project using Design Thinking, begin the
process with a specific and purposeful situation or problem to solve called
Design Challenge.
 What are Wicked Problems?
Wicked problems are problems with many interdependent factors making them seem impossible to solve.
Because the factors are often incomplete, in flux, and difficult to define, solving wicked problems
requires a deep understanding of the stakeholders involved, and an innovative approach provided by
design thinking. Complex issues such as healthcare and education are examples of wicked problems.
The term “wicked problem” was first coined by Horst Rittel, design theorist and professor of design
methodology at the Ulm School of Design, Germany. In the paper “Dilemmas in a General Theory of
Planning,” he describes ten characteristics of wicked problems:
• There is no definitive formula for a wicked problem.
• Wicked problems have no stopping rule, as in there’s no way to know your solution is final.
• Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false; they can only be good-or-bad.
• 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 is no opportunity to learn
by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
• Wicked problems do not 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 theorist and academic Richard Buchanan connected design thinking to wicked problems in his
1992 paper “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.” Design thinking’s iterative process is extremely
useful in tackling ill-defined or unknown problems—reframing the problem in human-centric ways,
creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and
testing.
 Case study: Design thinking exercise
(fictional bank case study)
• Whole Bank is a fictional bank that wants to become more
technological and user-friendly. They want to offer an alternative
to credit/debit card systems for people who travel, so that their
clients might choose other options to physical cards that might
get lost, stolen, damaged, or not accepted at some places.
• Whole Bank customers already have access to an application
where they can have all their financial information stored and
make a series of operations. The task is to create a new feature
on this application that would allow customers to pay for things
using the mobile app.
 Case study: Design thinking exercise
• After rushing over some questions and ideas, I decided to take an approach
on the different situations in which people travel, with the objective to
tackle the specific problems or concerns associated. More specifically:
couples, solo travelers, families and people who travel for work. I selected 5
persons from my environment with different backgrounds and ages.
• Following a design thinking workshop I made a year ago, I asked a lot of
“Why’s”. I realized it’s really hard to guide people to give you the answers
you are looking for.
• Over the interviews, I detected that most of the concerns were common to
every group:
• Lack of trust towards mobile paying applications against the trust and
convenience of credit cards. People are used to it.
• Safety issues.
• Difficulties when finding ATM’s, or having to share expenses/ask a friend
for money because there is no ATM available.
• Information. People want to know what they are paying, the currency
change, commission fees, etc.
 Case study: Design thinking exercise
Main problem to solve:
• I wanted to focus on offering clients a mobile payment method
that would be as easy, trustable and convenient to use as a
credit card, while having additional features to put at ease their
main concerns when traveling, so that users can focus on
enjoying the trip.
• *convenient = fast to use, no need to push a lot of buttons,
preferably no need for wifi.
How did I plan on solving this problem:
• I started sketching, summarizing, mapping and going back and
forth through the things that I wanted from the app. In the end
I just picked a solution and sketched to show the way I wanted
the app to perform. I didn’t spend too much time on this step.
Case study: Design thinking exercise

I focused on an ideal interaction between the app and the

store/trade, where every store could just send the payment
information to the phone by proximity, triggering the launch
of the application to show the payment information.
Case study: Design thinking exercise

When interacting with a store or trade, the vendor should be

able to send the payment info to the user’s phone directly
from their data phone, so that the app can interact with any
merchant that supports credit cards, and be assured that the
payment has been made successfully.
Case study: Design thinking exercise

Could it be possible to divide a payment between

friends directly during the payment? The app would detect
other phones by proximity and ask if you want to share
expenses. In this case, everybody should probably need to
have the same app installed. *crazy idea*
Case study: Design thinking exercise
 Case study: Design thinking exercise
Anyway, I tried to sketch roughly how the interaction would
work. The payment info would appear directly on the phone
without the need of opening the app (ideally), with info
about price, merchant and address, currency change (if
applicable), and symbols indicating the transaction is safe,
possible and whether it’s free of commissions or not. Swipe
for credentials, payment accepted, merchant receives
confirmation. That’s it! Other options include checking a
map of ATM’s, checking and organizing your receipts and
sharing them to your email (for work trips), editing or
changing the credit card (although this info is on the main
app), and access to some monetary tips about the country
you are traveling to. Magic.
 Case study: Design thinking exercise
Please notice that feasibility was not taken into consideration
for this exercise.
Conclusions:
If I had to take something from this exercise, would be user
interviews. I learned that making the right questions is vital to
the final product, because you are taking them as a basis for
the ideation process.