The Five Design Thinking Process
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Involving five phases — Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test — it is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.
Empathize
The Design Thinking process starts with empathy. In order to create desirable products and services, you need to understand who your users are and what they need. What are their expectations in relation to the product you’re designing? What challenges and pain-points do they face within this context?
During the empathize phase, you’ll spend time observing and engaging with real users (or people who represent your target group) — conducting interviews, seeing how they interact with an existing product, and generally paying attention to facial expressions and body language.
As the first step in the Design Thinking process, the empathize phase encourages you to set your assumptions aside. Armed with first-hand insights, you’ll be able to design with real users in mind. That’s what Design Thinking is all about!
Define
In the second stage of the Design Thinking process, you’ll define the user problem that you want to solve. First, you’ll gather all of your findings from the empathize phase and start piecing them together. What common themes and patterns did you observe? What user needs and challenges consistently came up?
Once you’ve synthesized your findings, you’ll formulate what’s known as a problem statement. A problem statement — sometimes called a point of view (POV) statement — outlines the issue or challenge that you will seek to address.
As with anything in the Design Thinking process, the problem statement keeps the user in focus. Rather than framing your problem statement as a business goal — “We need to increase gym membership among over-50s by 30%” — you’ll frame it from the user’s perspective: “Over-50s in London need flexible, affordable access to sports facilities in order to keep fit and healthy.”
By the end of the define phase, you will have a clear problem statement which will guide you throughout the design process. This will form the basis of your ideas and potential solutions.
Ideate
The third stage in the Design Thinking process consists of ideation — or generating ideas. By this point, you know who your target users are and what they want from your product. You also have a clear problem statement that you’re hoping to solve. Now it’s time to come up with possible solutions.
The ideation phase is a judgement-free zone where the group is encouraged to venture away from the norm, to explore new angles, and to think outside the box. You’ll hold ideation sessions in order to generate as many ideas as possible — regardless of whether or not they’re feasible! For maximum creativity, ideation sessions are often held in unusual locations.
Throughout this stage of the Design Thinking process, you’ll continuously refer back to your problem statement. As you prepare to move on to the next phase, you’ll narrow it down to a few ideas which you’ll later turn into prototypes to be tested on real users.
Prototype
In the fourth stage of the Design Thinking process, you’ll turn your ideas from stage three into prototypes. A prototype is essentially a scaled-down version of a product or feature — be it a simple paper model or a more interactive digital representation.
The aim of the prototyping stage is to turn your ideas into something tangible which can be tested on real users. This is crucial in maintaining a user-centric approach, allowing you to gather feedback before you go ahead and develop the whole product. This ensures that the final design actually solves the user’s problem and is a delight to use!
Test
The fifth step in the Design Thinking process is dedicated to testing: putting your prototypes in front of real users and seeing how they get on. During the testing phase, you’ll observe your target users — or representative users — as they interact with your prototype. You’ll also gather feedback on how your users felt throughout the process.
The testing phase will quickly highlight any design flaws that need to be addressed. Based on what you learn through user testing, you’ll go back and make improvements. Remember: The Design Thinking process is iterative and non-linear. The results of the testing phase will often require you to revisit the empathize stage or run through a few more ideation sessions before you create that winning prototype.
