What is Design Thinking
Design thinking is a creative process that provides a framework for people to solve problems. It takes a human-centered, iterative, approach to think of as many solutions as possible to combine the best aspects of each idea into the most viable solution. There are five phases to design thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The empathy phase works to understand the ins and outs of the problem, the people affected, and the context of the issue at hand. This phase is important for the designers of the product because it helps define the needs of the users. The define phase helps establish a clear problem statement that all further action will be made from. The next phase, ideation, is all about brainstorming creative solutions that can potentially be a solution to the issue. The important part about this phase is to write down every idea that comes to mind- it doesn’t matter how far-fetched or impossible they may be. This phase is not about finding the correct solution, it is about generating many ideas that could potentially be a solution. Ideation is extremely collaborative and creative, and it should result in a vast amount of information that can be synthesized in the prototype phase. The prototype phase is the creation of a product that incorporates one or more of the ideas that were generated in the ideation process. It usually results in a minimum viable product that the designers can use to make improvements and adjustments to- until a final product is reached during the testing phase. During the testing phase, feedback is collected to refine the product into an optimal solution. This phase is iterative in itself, as a new feature may be added or changed multiple times and needs to be tested at each point of change to see how users will respond. Failure must be embraced at this phase to reach the most viable solution.
The most important aspect of design thinking is being comfortable with ambiguity and not jumping to a conclusion. The process of experimentation allows designers to fully understand all aspects of an issue before attempting to solution. Oftentimes, the final product addresses needs that were unknown prior to the empathize phase.
Origins of Design Thinking
The way of design thinking has been around since the 1960s; however, the term was coined by Tim Brown in 2008 and has had a major buzz around it ever since. The concept of design thinking was created because massive companies sometimes fail in creativity which can cause them obstacles to creating new products that meet the many needs of their consumers. Creativity was less prominent in the education system in the 20th century which is why many large companies value order and logic over creativity, leading them to issues with new product generation and maintaining a competitive edge. The leaders of these older companies were educated with the less creative curriculum which causes them to take these principles into leadership roles in their companies. Design thinking completely disrupts this way of thinking and many of the younger companies are much more successful because of their ability to identify unmet needs in a specific market. Trailblazers of this design thinking concept, such as Tim Brown and Roger Martin, have shifted the view of large organizations to focus on creativity in problem-solving rather than logic. This has led to huge breakthroughs and created a new value in the ambiguity of problem-solving.
Design Thinking in AI
With artificial intelligence becoming more and more prominent in products, services, and society, it is neat to see how human-centered design thinking plays a key role in the development of new AI offerings. Design thinking provides a thoughtful approach to AI solutions because it allows companies/designers to understand users’ needs on a very deep level which results in offerings that will have a greater success rate in reality. A key consideration of AI is the user experience (UX). Depending on the offering, the UX can look different- it could be an app interface, the ease of use of voice command, etc. People who are hired as UX designers are hired to perform the process of design thinking, gather information, and apply it to the creation of the user interface, usability features, and many other aspects of the design. More and more companies are hiring for UX specialists because of the pivotal role they play in product development. I think we will continue to see this trend for the next decade as AI becomes increasingly popular and user needs are less and less known, but still prominent. The role of these design thinkers and UX specialists will be to discover these unmet needs even if the consumers themselves are not aware of them.
Conclusion
Overall, design thinking and AI pair seamlessly. Both of these concepts will be around for many years to come. Design thinking is a science and an art. It allows designers and developers to fully understand the problems and pain points that users face and solve these issues with creative solutions. Design thinking provides an effective way to foster innovation, create confidence in ambiguity, and learn impactfully.
Mary – I really like the term “design thinking.” I’ve never heard it before and I feel like it could be a key term for MIS students to know. I am curious, however, if there are any examples out there combining AI and design thinking. Let’s discuss this in class.
I have always loved abstract ideas such as those that come out of the design thinking framework. As you mentioned, it oftentimes helps us realize just how little we know and pushes us to solve those problems in new and creative ways. It will be interesting to watch how AI impacts that.
Love this design thinking framework, as it is here to stay (whether people know the official term or not!). UX is definitely forefront in any business that deals product consumption because they are the one who’s doing the consuming. I wonder if AI will ever be able to predict UX patterns on its own.
Hi Mary, I really enjoyed reading your take on design thinking. This is the first I have been exposed to design thinking and it reminds me of the agile framework we discussed in systems. This methodology of design thinking not only makes sense in terms of developing products or services but like you said as a general mindset to solve all types of problems.
Hey Mary! This is my first time reading about design thinking I really enjoyed reading! It is continuous innovation and with the use of AI and how impactful data is when design thinking these go together seamlessly. I’m curious to see what these would like look together in the future. Not only for big companies; I could see this being applied to people’s daily lives and finances.
Hi Mary! Great post. I honestly didn’t know much about design thinking, but I enjoyed reading about it throughout your post. I like how you stated that to excel in design thinking, you must be comfortable with experimentation and not fully jump into conclusions/a singular solution. I feel like I’ve had so many problems handed to me and I just pick the quickest solution out there, when there’s probably one that is wayyy more efficient or effective at solving the problem.
As Pierce said in his comment above, design thinking really does pair with the agile methodology extremely well. You have to be accustomed to experiencing in handling change, and design thinking could help that!
Hey Mary! I think this was a really great blog post to read! It really covered the depths of generations and kind of exposed a generation gap. I was reading Joseph’s blog post earlier and he touched on how TikTok is impacting our generation by acting as a pocket pouch of 24/7 dopamine. The generation that is seemingly leading the workforce now grew up in an age where creativity was not a priority, let alone considered a reason for success. Now, it seems as if the after effects are really being exposed. It is hard to stay relevant in a society that is longing for continuous change and iteration, without continuously improving and innovating!
I confess that I find design thinking fascinating. My one regret upon leaving BC is that I didn’t get to take the design thinking class from my former student who had spent many years at Apple then had come back to teach. I hear there’s a good one at UGA too, though.