Design Thinking: The Journey from an Idea to a Product

Design Thinking is an innovative problem solving process wherein products and services are conceived and developed, using a feedback-based iterative process. Although the process is divided into various predefined steps, the stages tend to overlap and don’t necessarily follow a sequence. This enables flexibility in conception and design and permits product designers to adopt a solution-oriented approach.

Stages in Design Thinking

Design Thinking is divided into six distinct stages which aren’t necessarily followed sequentially, especially in early-stage ventures. The steps in Design Thinking are quite straightforward. The flow is seen in the figure below.

Empathize

The success of a product highly depends on the designer’s ability to understand customer requirements, identifying pain points and unmet needs. Therefore, it is essential to commence any Design Thinking process by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and understand their requirements. This stage employs various tools such as interviews, surveys and observing focus groups.

Define

The common goal of a design process is not to sell a product, but to sell a solution. In the second phase of design thinking, one defines the customer problem that needs to be solved. The problems or ‘painpoints’ of the target group are identified based on the findings of the empathize phase.

Ideate

At this point in the design process, the target group, problem statement and painpoints have already been identified. The primary goal of this phase is to devise possible solutions to the problem. The ideation phase is where one has the opportunity to generate a wide range of ideas. The group participating in this phase is encouraged to think outside the box and conjure unusual solutions. Commonly used techniques for ideation include Brainstorming, Mind-mapping, Storyboarding, Brainwriting (6-3-5), Brainswarming and Idea Sketching. The key point to remember in this phase is that ideas are formulated without judging their quality.

Prototype

Once sufficient ideas are generated, ones with the biggest potential are shortlisted. The commonly used technique to shortlist ideas is by using the Idea funnel or Innovation funnel method. Using this method, ideas are evaluated against certain predefined criteria and are subsequently shortlisted. Idea funneling can also be viewed as an intermediate stage between Ideation and Prototyping.

A prototype is essentially a scaled-down model of the final product which allows the product developers to provide something tangible for the customers to see and feel. It can be likened to giving the users a taste of what they can expect in the final product. 3D printing is a very efficient method of prototyping. It imparts more flexibility in design of new products. In this phase of design, the designers and users get a feel of the ensuing Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Test

Until this point, the design process was primarily based on assumptions and gut feeling. In the test phase, the product designers receive first feedback on their prototype. Feedback from users enables designers to reiterate their design, problem statement and solution. The non-linearity of Design Thinking is facilitated by user feedback.

Implement

The final phase of Design Thinking is to materialize all efforts taken in previous phases and bring the vision to life. This is the point when the product is finally launched into the market.

In a nutshell,

The process of Design Thinking can be split into two parts - a) The Problem Space, where one is interested in the 'what' and 'why' and b) The Solution Space, where one reflects on the 'how' of the solution.

The common pattern in both the spaces is that identification of problems and solution involves divergent thinking. This encourages creativity and strong analysis. On the other hand, convergent thinking enables consolidation of ideas and providing a strong foundation to the product. The figure below summarizes the Design Thinking process.