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Ideas Made to Matter

Design thinking, explained

Rebecca Linke

Sep 14, 2017

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving process rooted in a set of skills.The approach has been around for decades, but it only started gaining traction outside of the design community after the 2008 Harvard Business Review article [subscription required] titled “Design Thinking” by Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO.

Since then, the design thinking process has been applied to developing new products and services, and to a whole range of problems, from creating a business model for selling solar panels in Africa to the operation of Airbnb .

At a high level, the steps involved in the design thinking process are simple: first, fully understand the problem; second, explore a wide range of possible solutions; third, iterate extensively through prototyping and testing; and finally, implement through the customary deployment mechanisms. 

The skills associated with these steps help people apply creativity to effectively solve real-world problems better than they otherwise would. They can be readily learned, but take effort. For instance, when trying to understand a problem, setting aside your own preconceptions is vital, but it’s hard.

Creative brainstorming is necessary for developing possible solutions, but many people don’t do it particularly well. And throughout the process it is critical to engage in modeling, analysis, prototyping, and testing, and to really learn from these many iterations.

Once you master the skills central to the design thinking approach, they can be applied to solve problems in daily life and any industry.

Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Understand the problem 

The first step in design thinking is to understand the problem you are trying to solve before searching for solutions. Sometimes, the problem you need to address is not the one you originally set out to tackle.

“Most people don’t make much of an effort to explore the problem space before exploring the solution space,” said MIT Sloan professor Steve Eppinger. The mistake they make is to try and empathize, connecting the stated problem only to their own experiences. This falsely leads to the belief that you completely understand the situation. But the actual problem is always broader, more nuanced, or different than people originally assume.

Take the example of a meal delivery service in Holstebro, Denmark. When a team first began looking at the problem of poor nutrition and malnourishment among the elderly in the city, many of whom received meals from the service, it thought that simply updating the menu options would be a sufficient solution. But after closer observation, the team realized the scope of the problem was much larger , and that they would need to redesign the entire experience, not only for those receiving the meals, but for those preparing the meals as well. While the company changed almost everything about itself, including rebranding as The Good Kitchen, the most important change the company made when rethinking its business model was shifting how employees viewed themselves and their work. That, in turn, helped them create better meals (which were also drastically changed), yielding happier, better nourished customers.

Involve users

Imagine you are designing a new walker for rehabilitation patients and the elderly, but you have never used one. Could you fully understand what customers need? Certainly not, if you haven’t extensively observed and spoken with real customers. There is a reason that design thinking is often referred to as human-centered design.

“You have to immerse yourself in the problem,” Eppinger said.

How do you start to understand how to build a better walker? When a team from MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program together with the design firm Altitude took on that task, they met with walker users to interview them, observe them, and understand their experiences.  

“We center the design process on human beings by understanding their needs at the beginning, and then include them throughout the development and testing process,” Eppinger said.

Central to the design thinking process is prototyping and testing (more on that later) which allows designers to try, to fail, and to learn what works. Testing also involves customers, and that continued involvement provides essential user feedback on potential designs and use cases. If the MIT-Altitude team studying walkers had ended user involvement after its initial interviews, it would likely have ended up with a walker that didn’t work very well for customers. 

It is also important to interview and understand other stakeholders, like people selling the product, or those who are supporting the users throughout the product life cycle.

The second phase of design thinking is developing solutions to the problem (which you now fully understand). This begins with what most people know as brainstorming.

Hold nothing back during brainstorming sessions — except criticism. Infeasible ideas can generate useful solutions, but you’d never get there if you shoot down every impractical idea from the start.

“One of the key principles of brainstorming is to suspend judgment,” Eppinger said. “When we're exploring the solution space, we first broaden the search and generate lots of possibilities, including the wild and crazy ideas. Of course, the only way we're going to build on the wild and crazy ideas is if we consider them in the first place.”

That doesn’t mean you never judge the ideas, Eppinger said. That part comes later, in downselection. “But if we want 100 ideas to choose from, we can’t be very critical.”

In the case of The Good Kitchen, the kitchen employees were given new uniforms. Why? Uniforms don’t directly affect the competence of the cooks or the taste of the food.

But during interviews conducted with kitchen employees, designers realized that morale was low, in part because employees were bored preparing the same dishes over and over again, in part because they felt that others had a poor perception of them. The new, chef-style uniforms gave the cooks a greater sense of pride. It was only part of the solution, but if the idea had been rejected outright, or perhaps not even suggested, the company would have missed an important aspect of the solution.

Prototype and test. Repeat.

You’ve defined the problem. You’ve spoken to customers. You’ve brainstormed, come up with all sorts of ideas, and worked with your team to boil those ideas down to the ones you think may actually solve the problem you’ve defined.

“We don’t develop a good solution just by thinking about a list of ideas, bullet points and rough sketches,” Eppinger said. “We explore potential solutions through modeling and prototyping. We design, we build, we test, and repeat — this design iteration process is absolutely critical to effective design thinking.”

Repeating this loop of prototyping, testing, and gathering user feedback is crucial for making sure the design is right — that is, it works for customers, you can build it, and you can support it.

“After several iterations, we might get something that works, we validate it with real customers, and we often find that what we thought was a great solution is actually only just OK. But then we can make it a lot better through even just a few more iterations,” Eppinger said.

Implementation

The goal of all the steps that come before this is to have the best possible solution before you move into implementing the design. Your team will spend most of its time, its money, and its energy on this stage.

“Implementation involves detailed design, training, tooling, and ramping up. It is a huge amount of effort, so get it right before you expend that effort,” said Eppinger.

Design thinking isn’t just for “things.” If you are only applying the approach to physical products, you aren’t getting the most out of it. Design thinking can be applied to any problem that needs a creative solution. When Eppinger ran into a primary school educator who told him design thinking was big in his school, Eppinger thought he meant that they were teaching students the tenets of design thinking.

“It turns out they meant they were using design thinking in running their operations and improving the school programs. It’s being applied everywhere these days,” Eppinger said.

In another example from the education field, Peruvian entrepreneur Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor hired design consulting firm IDEO to redesign every aspect of the learning experience in a network of schools in Peru. The ultimate goal? To elevate Peru’s middle class.

As you’d expect, many large corporations have also adopted design thinking. IBM has adopted it at a company-wide level, training many of its nearly 400,000 employees in design thinking principles .

What can design thinking do for your business?

The impact of all the buzz around design thinking today is that people are realizing that “anybody who has a challenge that needs creative problem solving could benefit from this approach,” Eppinger said. That means that managers can use it, not only to design a new product or service, “but anytime they’ve got a challenge, a problem to solve.”

Applying design thinking techniques to business problems can help executives across industries rethink their product offerings, grow their markets, offer greater value to customers, or innovate and stay relevant. “I don’t know industries that can’t use design thinking,” said Eppinger.

Ready to go deeper?

Read “ The Designful Company ” by Marty Neumeier, a book that focuses on how businesses can benefit from design thinking, and “ Product Design and Development ,” co-authored by Eppinger, to better understand the detailed methods.

Register for an MIT Sloan Executive Education course:

Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services , a five-day course taught by Eppinger and other MIT professors.

• Leadership by Design: Innovation Process and Culture , a two-day course taught by MIT Integrated Design and Management director Matthew Kressy.
• Managing Complex Technical Projects , a two-day course taught by Eppinger.
• Apply for M astering Design Thinking , a 3-month online certificate course taught by Eppinger and MIT Sloan senior lecturers Renée Richardson Gosline and David Robertson.

Steve Eppinger is a professor of management science and innovation at MIT Sloan. He holds the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and has a PhD from MIT in engineering. He is the faculty co-director of MIT's System Design and Management program and Integrated Design and Management program, both master’s degrees joint between the MIT Sloan and Engineering schools. His research focuses on product development and technical project management, and has been applied to improving complex engineering processes in many industries.

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May 18, 2023 Is it time to throw out the standard playbook when it comes to problem solving? Uniquely challenging times call for unique approaches, write Michael Birshan , Ben Sheppard , and coauthors in a recent article , and design thinking offers a much-needed fresh perspective for leaders navigating volatility. Design thinking is a systemic, intuitive, customer-focused problem-solving approach that can create significant value and boost organizational resilience. The proof is in the pudding: From 2013 to 2018, companies that embraced the business value of design had TSR that were 56 percentage points higher than that of their industry peers. Check out these insights to understand how to use design thinking to unleash the power of creativity in strategy and problem solving.

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The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process

Design thinking is a methodology which provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful when used to tackle complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown—because it serves to understand the human needs involved, reframe the problem in human-centric ways, create numerous ideas in brainstorming sessions and adopt a hands-on approach to prototyping and testing. When you know how to apply the five stages of design thinking you will be impowered because you can apply the methodology to solve complex problems that occur in our companies, our countries, and across the world.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that can have anywhere from three to seven phases, depending on whom you talk to. We focus on the five-stage design thinking model proposed by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (the d.school) because they are world-renowned for the way they teach and apply design thinking.

What are the 5 Stages of the Design Thinking Process

The five stages of design thinking, according to the d.school, are:

Empathize : research your users' needs .

Define : state your users' needs and problems.

Ideate : challenge assumptions and create ideas.

Prototype : start to create solutions.

Test : try your solutions out.

Let’s dive into each stage of the design thinking process.

• Transcript loading…

Hasso-Platner Institute Panorama

Ludwig Wilhelm Wall, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs

Empathize: the first phase of design thinking, where you gain real insight into users and their needs.

© Teo Yu Siang and the Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

The first stage of the design thinking process focuses on user-centric research . You want to gain an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. Consult experts to find out more about the area of concern and conduct observations to engage and empathize with your users. You may also want to immerse yourself in your users’ physical environment to gain a deeper, personal understanding of the issues involved—as well as their experiences and motivations . Empathy is crucial to problem solving and a human-centered design process as it allows design thinkers to set aside their own assumptions about the world and gain real insight into users and their needs.

Depending on time constraints, you will gather a substantial amount of information to use during the next stage. The main aim of the Empathize stage is to develop the best possible understanding of your users, their needs and the problems that underlie the development of the product or service you want to create.

Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

Define: the second phase of design thinking, where you define the problem statement in a human-centered manner.

In the Define stage, you will organize the information you have gathered during the Empathize stage. You’ll analyze your observations to define the core problems you and your team have identified up to this point. Defining the problem and problem statement must be done in a human-centered manner .

For example, you should not define the problem as your own wish or need of the company: “We need to increase our food-product market share among young teenage girls by 5%.”

You should pitch the problem statement from your perception of the users’ needs: “Teenage girls need to eat nutritious food in order to thrive, be healthy and grow.”

The Define stage will help the design team collect great ideas to establish features, functions and other elements to solve the problem at hand—or, at the very least, allow real users to resolve issues themselves with minimal difficulty. In this stage, you will start to progress to the third stage, the ideation phase, where you ask questions to help you look for solutions: “How might we encourage teenage girls to perform an action that benefits them and also involves your company’s food-related product or service?” for instance.

Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

Ideate: the third phase of design thinking, where you identify innovative solutions to the problem statement you’ve created.

During the third stage of the design thinking process, designers are ready to generate ideas. You’ve grown to understand your users and their needs in the Empathize stage, and you’ve analyzed your observations in the Define stage to create a user centric problem statement. With this solid background, you and your team members can start to look at the problem from different perspectives and ideate innovative solutions to your problem statement .

There are hundreds of ideation techniques you can use—such as Brainstorm, Brainwrite , Worst Possible Idea and SCAMPER . Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea techniques are typically used at the start of the ideation stage to stimulate free thinking and expand the problem space. This allows you to generate as many ideas as possible at the start of ideation. You should pick other ideation techniques towards the end of this stage to help you investigate and test your ideas, and choose the best ones to move forward with—either because they seem to solve the problem or provide the elements required to circumvent it.

Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

Prototype: the fourth phase of design thinking, where you identify the best possible solution.

The design team will now produce a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the product (or specific features found within the product) to investigate the key solutions generated in the ideation phase. These prototypes can be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments or on a small group of people outside the design team.

This is an experimental phase, and the aim is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages . The solutions are implemented within the prototypes and, one by one, they are investigated and then accepted, improved or rejected based on the users’ experiences.

By the end of the Prototype stage, the design team will have a better idea of the product’s limitations and the problems it faces. They’ll also have a clearer view of how real users would behave, think and feel when they interact with the end product.

Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out

Test: the fifth and final phase of the design thinking process, where you test solutions to derive a deep understanding of the product and its users.

Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified in the Prototype stage. This is the final stage of the five-stage model; however, in an iterative process such as design thinking, the results generated are often used to redefine one or more further problems. This increased level of understanding may help you investigate the conditions of use and how people think, behave and feel towards the product, and even lead you to loop back to a previous stage in the design thinking process. You can then proceed with further iterations and make alterations and refinements to rule out alternative solutions. The ultimate goal is to get as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

Did You Know Design Thinking is a Non-Linear Process?

We’ve outlined a direct and linear design thinking process here, in which one stage seemingly leads to the next with a logical conclusion at user testing . However, in practice, the process is carried out in a more flexible and non-linear fashion . For example, different groups within the design team may conduct more than one stage concurrently, or designers may collect information and prototype throughout each stage of the project to bring their ideas to life and visualize the problem solutions as they go. What’s more, results from the Test stage may reveal new insights about users which lead to another brainstorming session (Ideate) or the development of new prototypes (Prototype).

It is important to note the five stages of design thinking are not always sequential. They do not have to follow a specific order, and they can often occur in parallel or be repeated iteratively. The stages should be understood as different modes which contribute to the entire design project, rather than sequential steps.

The design thinking process should not be seen as a concrete and inflexible approach to design; the component stages identified should serve as a guide to the activities you carry out. The stages might be switched, conducted concurrently or repeated several times to gain the most informative insights about your users, expand the solution space and hone in on innovative solutions.

This is one of the main benefits of the five-stage model. Knowledge acquired in the latter stages of the process can inform repeats of earlier stages . Information is continually used to inform the understanding of the problem and solution spaces, and to redefine the problem itself. This creates a perpetual loop, in which the designers continue to gain new insights, develop new ways to view the product (or service) and its possible uses and develop a far more profound understanding of their real users and the problems they face.

The Take Away

Design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process which focuses on a collaboration between designers and users. It brings innovative solutions to life based on how real users think, feel and behave.

This human-centered design process consists of five core stages Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

It’s important to note that these stages are a guide. The iterative, non-linear nature of design thinking means you and your design team can carry these stages out simultaneously, repeat them and even circle back to previous stages at any point in the design thinking process.

References & Where to Learn More

Take our Design Thinking course which is the ultimate guide when you want to learn how to you can apply design thinking methods throughout a design thinking process. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition), 1996.

d.school, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE , 2010.

Gerd Waloszek, Introduction to Design Thinking , 2012.

Hero Image: © the Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

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How to solve problems using the design thinking process

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you develop solutions in a human-focused way. Initially designed at Stanford’s d.school, the five stage design thinking method can help solve ambiguous questions, or more open-ended problems. Learn how these five steps can help your team create innovative solutions to complex problems.

As humans, we’re approached with problems every single day. But how often do we come up with solutions to everyday problems that put the needs of individual humans first?

This is how the design thinking process started.

What is the design thinking process?

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you tackle complex problems by framing the issue in a human-centric way. The design thinking process works especially well for problems that are not clearly defined or have a more ambiguous goal.

One of the first individuals to write about design thinking was John E. Arnold, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford. Arnold wrote about four major areas of design thinking in his book, “Creative Engineering” in 1959. His work was later taught at Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (also known as d.school), a design institute that pioneered the design thinking process. 

This eventually led Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon to outline one of the first iterations of the design thinking process in his 1969 book, “The Sciences of the Artificial.” While there are many different variations of design thinking, “The Sciences of the Artificial” is often credited as the basis. 

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A non-linear design thinking approach

Design thinking is not a linear process. It’s important to understand that each stage of the process can (and should) inform the other steps. For example, when you’re going through user testing, you may learn about a new problem that didn’t come up during any of the previous stages. You may learn more about your target personas during the final testing phase, or discover that your initial problem statement can actually help solve even more problems, so you need to redefine the statement to include those as well. 

Why use the design thinking process

The design thinking process is not the most intuitive way to solve a problem, but the results that come from it are worth the effort. Here are a few other reasons why implementing the design thinking process for your team is worth it.

Focus on problem solving

As human beings, we often don’t go out of our way to find problems. Since there’s always an abundance of problems to solve, we’re used to solving problems as they occur. The design thinking process forces you to look at problems from many different points of view. 

The design thinking process requires focusing on human needs and behaviors, and how to create a solution to match those needs. This focus on problem solving can help your design team come up with creative solutions for complex problems. 

Encourages collaboration and teamwork

The design thinking process cannot happen in a silo. It requires many different viewpoints from designers, future customers, and other stakeholders . Brainstorming sessions and collaboration are the backbone of the design thinking process.

Foster innovation

The design thinking process focuses on finding creative solutions that cater to human needs. This means your team is looking to find creative solutions for hyper specific and complex problems. If they’re solving unique problems, then the solutions they’re creating must be equally unique.

The iterative process of the design thinking process means that the innovation doesn’t have to end—your team can continue to update the usability of your product to ensure that your target audience’s problems are effectively solved. 

The 5 stages of design thinking

Currently, one of the more popular models of design thinking is the model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (or d.school) at Stanford. The main reason for its popularity is because of the success this process had in successful companies like Google, Apple, Toyota, and Nike. Here are the five steps designated by the d.school model that have helped many companies succeed.

1. Empathize stage

The first stage of the design thinking process is to look at the problem you’re trying to solve in an empathetic manner. To get an accurate representation of how the problem affects people, actively look for people who encountered this problem previously. Asking them how they would have liked to have the issue resolved is a good place to start, especially because of the human-centric nature of the design thinking process. 

Empathy is an incredibly important aspect of the design thinking process.  The design thinking process requires the designers to put aside any assumptions and unconscious biases they may have about the situation and put themselves in someone else’s shoes. 

For example, if your team is looking to fix the employee onboarding process at your company, you may interview recent new hires to see how their onboarding experience went. Another option is to have a more tenured team member go through the onboarding process so they can experience exactly what a new hire experiences.

2. Define stage

Sometimes a designer will encounter a situation when there’s a general issue, but not a specific problem that needs to be solved. One way to help designers clearly define and outline a problem is to create human-centric problem statements. 

A problem statement helps frame a problem in a way that provides relevant context in an easy to comprehend way. The main goal of a problem statement is to guide designers working on possible solutions for this problem. A problem statement frames the problem in a way that easily highlights the gap between the current state of things and the end goal. 

Tip: Problem statements are best framed as a need for a specific individual. The more specific you are with your problem statement, the better designers can create a human-centric solution to the problem. 

Examples of good problem statements:

We need to decrease the number of clicks a potential customer takes to go through the sign-up process.

We need to decrease the new subscriber unsubscribe rate by 10%. 

We need to increase the Android app adoption rate by 20%.

3. Ideate stage

This is the stage where designers create potential solutions to solve the problem outlined in the problem statement. Use brainstorming techniques with your team to identify the human-centric solution to the problem defined in step two. 

Here are a few brainstorming strategies you can use with your team to come up with a solution:

Standard brainstorm session: Your team gathers together and verbally discusses different ideas out loud.

Brainwrite: Everyone writes their ideas down on a piece of paper or a sticky note and each team member puts their ideas up on the whiteboard. 

Worst possible idea: The inverse of your end goal. Your team produces the most goofy idea so nobody will look silly. This takes out the rigidity of other brainstorming techniques. This technique also helps you identify areas that you can improve upon in your actual solution by looking at the worst parts of an absurd solution. 

It’s important that you don’t discount any ideas during the ideation phase of brainstorming. You want to have as many potential solutions as possible, as new ideas can help trigger even better ideas. Sometimes the most creative solution to a problem is the combination of many different ideas put together.

4. Prototype stage

During the prototype phase, you and your team design a few different variations of inexpensive or scaled down versions of the potential solution to the problem. Having different versions of the prototype gives your team opportunities to test out the solution and make any refinements. 

Prototypes are often tested by other designers, team members outside of the initial design department, and trusted customers or members of the target audience. Having multiple versions of the product gives your team the opportunity to tweak and refine the design before testing with real users. During this process, it’s important to document the testers using the end product. This will give you valuable information as to what parts of the solution are good, and which require more changes.

After testing different prototypes out with teasers, your team should have different solutions for how your product can be improved. The testing and prototyping phase is an iterative process—so much so that it’s possible that some design projects never end.

After designers take the time to test, reiterate, and redesign new products, they may find new problems, different solutions, and gain an overall better understanding of the end-user. The design thinking framework is flexible and non-linear, so it’s totally normal for the process itself to influence the end design. 

Tips for incorporating the design thinking process into your team

If you want your team to start using the design thinking process, but you’re unsure of how to start, here are a few tips to help you out. 

Start small: Similar to how you would test a prototype on a small group of people, you want to test out the design thinking process with a smaller team to see how your team functions. Give this test team some small projects to work on so you can see how this team reacts. If it works out, you can slowly start rolling this process out to other teams.

Incorporate cross-functional team members : The design thinking process works best when your team members collaborate and brainstorm together. Identify who your designer’s key stakeholders are and ensure they’re included in the small test team. 

Organize work in a collaborative project management software : Keep important design project documents such as user research, wireframes, and brainstorms in a collaborative tool like Asana . This way, team members will have one central source of truth for anything relating to the project they’re working on.

Foster collaborative design thinking with Asana

The design thinking process works best when your team works collaboratively. You don’t want something as simple as miscommunication to hinder your projects. Instead, compile all of the information your team needs about a design project in one place with Asana. 

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Design Thinking 101

July 31, 2016 2016-07-31

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In This Article:

Definition of design thinking, why — the advantage, flexibility — adapt to fit your needs, scalability — think bigger, history of design thinking.

Design thinking is an ideology supported by an accompanying process . A complete definition requires an understanding of both.

Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.

The design-thinking framework follows an overall flow of 1) understand, 2) explore, and 3) materialize. Within these larger buckets fall the 6 phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement.

Conduct research in order to develop knowledge about what your users do, say, think, and feel .

Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users.  Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience frustration?’ The goal is to gather enough observations that you can truly begin to empathize with your users and their perspectives.

Combine all your research and observe where your users’ problems exist. While pinpointing your users’ needs , begin to highlight opportunities for innovation.

Consider the onboarding example again. In the define phase, use the data gathered in the empathize phase to glean insights. Organize all your observations and draw parallels across your users’ current experiences. Is there a common pain point across many different users? Identify unmet user needs.

Brainstorm a range of crazy, creative ideas that address the unmet user needs identified in the define phase. Give yourself and your team total freedom; no idea is too farfetched and quantity supersedes quality.

At this phase, bring your team members together and sketch out many different ideas. Then, have them share ideas with one another, mixing and remixing, building on others' ideas.

Build real, tactile representations for a subset of your ideas. The goal of this phase is to understand what components of your ideas work, and which do not. In this phase you begin to weigh the impact vs. feasibility of your ideas through feedback on your prototypes.

Make your ideas tactile. If it is a new landing page, draw out a wireframe and get feedback internally.  Change it based on feedback, then prototype it again in quick and dirty code. Then, share it with another group of people.

Return to your users for feedback. Ask yourself ‘Does this solution meet users’ needs?’ and ‘Has it improved how they feel, think, or do their tasks?’

Put your prototype in front of real customers and verify that it achieves your goals. Has the users’ perspective during onboarding improved? Does the new landing page increase time or money spent on your site? As you are executing your vision, continue to test along the way.

Put the vision into effect. Ensure that your solution is materialized and touches the lives of your end users.

This is the most important part of design thinking, but it is the one most often forgotten. As Don Norman preaches, “we need more design doing.” Design thinking does not free you from the actual design doing. It’s not magic.

“There’s no such thing as a creative type. As if creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to feel like work.”  - Milton Glaser

As impactful as design thinking can be for an organization, it only leads to true innovation if the vision is executed. The success of design thinking lies in its ability to transform an aspect of the end user’s life. This sixth step — implement — is crucial.

Why should we introduce a new way to think about product development? There are numerous reasons to engage in design thinking, enough to merit a standalone article, but in summary, design thinking achieves all these advantages at the same time.

Design thinking:

• Is a user-centered process that starts with user data, creates design artifacts that address real and not imaginary user needs, and then tests those artifacts with real users
• Leverages collective expertise and establishes a shared language, as well as buy-in amongst your team
• Encourages innovation by exploring multiple avenues for the same problem

Jakob Nielsen says “ a wonderful interface solving the wrong problem will fail ." Design thinking unfetters creative energies and focuses them on the right problem. 

The above process will feel abstruse at first. Don’t think of it as if it were a prescribed step-by-step recipe for success. Instead, use it as scaffolding to support you when and where you need it. Be a master chef, not a line cook: take the recipe as a framework, then tweak as needed.

Each phase is meant to be iterative and cyclical as opposed to a strictly linear process, as depicted below. It is common to return to the two understanding phases, empathize and define, after an initial prototype is built and tested. This is because it is not until wireframes are prototyped and your ideas come to life that you are able to get a true representation of your design. For the first time, you can accurately assess if your solution really works. At this point, looping back to your user research is immensely helpful. What else do you need to know about the user in order to make decisions or to prioritize development order? What new use cases have arisen from the prototype that you didn’t previously research?

You can also repeat phases. It’s often necessary to do an exercise within a phase multiple times in order to arrive at the outcome needed to move forward. For example, in the define phase, different team members will have different backgrounds and expertise, and thus different approaches to problem identification. It’s common to spend an extended amount of time in the define phase, aligning a team to the same focus. Repetition is necessary if there are obstacles in establishing buy-in. The outcome of each phase should be sound enough to serve as a guiding principle throughout the rest of the process and to ensure that you never stray too far from your focus.

The packaged and accessible nature of design thinking makes it scalable. Organizations previously unable to shift their way of thinking now have a guide that can be comprehended regardless of expertise, mitigating the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. This doesn’t just apply to traditional “designery” topics such as product design, but to a variety of societal, environmental, and economical issues. Design thinking is simple enough to be practiced at a range of scopes; even tough, undefined problems that might otherwise be overwhelming. While it can be applied over time to improve small functions like search, it can also be applied to design disruptive and transformative solutions, such as restructuring the career ladder for teachers in order to retain more talent. 

It is a common misconception that design thinking is new. Design has been practiced for ages : monuments, bridges, automobiles, subway systems are all end-products of design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a human-centric creative process to build meaningful and effective solutions.

In the early 1900's husband and wife designers Charles and Ray Eames practiced “learning by doing,” exploring a range of needs and constraints before designing their Eames chairs, which continue to be in production even now, seventy years later. 1960's dressmaker Jean Muir was well known for her “common sense” approach to clothing design, placing as much emphasis on how her clothes felt to wear as they looked to others. These designers were innovators of their time. Their approaches can be viewed as early examples of design thinking — as they each developed a deep understanding of their users’ lives and unmet needs. Milton Glaser, the designer behind the famous I ♥ NY logo, describes this notion well: “We’re always looking, but we never really see…it’s the act of attention that allows you to really grasp something, to become fully conscious of it.”

Despite these (and other) early examples of human-centric products, design has historically been an afterthought in the business world, applied only to touch up a product’s aesthetics. This topical design application has resulted in corporations creating solutions which fail to meet their customers’ real needs. Consequently, some of these companies moved their designers from the end of the product-development process, where their contribution is limited, to the beginning. Their human-centric design approach proved to be a differentiator: those companies that used it have reaped the financial benefits of creating products shaped by human needs.

In order for this approach to be adopted across large organizations, it needed to be standardized. Cue design thinking, a formalized framework of applying the creative design process to traditional business problems.

The specific term "design thinking" was coined in the 1990's by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin, and encapsulated methods and ideas that have been brewing for years into a single unified concept.

We live in an era of experiences , be they services or products, and we’ve come to have high expectations for these experiences. They are becoming more complex in nature as information and technology continues to evolve. With each evolution comes a new set of unmet needs. While design thinking is simply an approach to problem solving, it increases the probability of success and breakthrough innovation.

Learn more about design thinking in the full-day course Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking .

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What is Design Thinking, and how is it used to problem solve?

• 27 Feb 2024

Stuck in a rut, struggling to find innovative solutions? Traditional problem-solving methods might leave you feeling frustrated and limited. Enter design thinking : a human-centered approach that unlocks creativity and fosters innovative solutions to complex challenges.

This blog will equip you with the knowledge and tools to use design thinking effectively, empowering you and your team to tackle any obstacle head-on. Let’s dive in and explore the transformative power of design thinking.

What IS design thinking?

Design thinking isn’t just for designers. It’s a flexible framework for anyone seeking solutions that are:

• Desirable : meeting the needs and desires of users.
• Feasible : practical and achievable within constraints.
• Viable : sustainable and commercially viable.

Forget linear problem-solving — design thinking is iterative and collaborative . It involves five key stages:

• Empathize : Understand your users deeply through observation, interviews, and empathy exercises.
• Define : Clearly define the problem based on user insights, not assumptions.
• Ideate : Brainstorm a wide range of potential solutions, thinking outside the box.
• Prototype : Build low-fidelity prototypes to test and refine your ideas quickly.
• Test : Gather feedback from users and iterate on your prototypes based on their responses.

Think of it like building a product: you start with understanding your users’ needs, then explore various possibilities, test them, and refine your approach based on real-world feedback.

How can design thinking help you solve problems?

The beauty of design thinking lies in its versatility. It can be applied to various scenarios, from developing new products and services to improving internal processes and even tackling social challenges .

Here are just a few examples:

• A company struggling with customer retention might use design thinking to understand their customers’ frustrations and develop solutions to improve satisfaction.
• A non-profit organization might use design thinking to design a more effective educational program by understanding the needs of both students and teachers.
• A team facing communication challenges within their department might use design thinking to develop a more collaborative work environment.

Putting design thinking into practice

Ready to unleash the power of design thinking? Here are some tips to get you started:

• Assemble a diverse team : Bring together individuals with different perspectives and backgrounds to generate richer ideas.
• Start small : Choose a manageable problem to tackle first and experiment with the design thinking process.
• Emphasize empathy : Put yourself in your users’ shoes and understand their needs deeply.
• Embrace failure : View setbacks as opportunities to learn and iterate.
• Build prototypes : Don’t wait for everything to be perfect. Get your ideas out there and test them early and often.
• Iterate and improve : Based on user feedback, continuously refine your solutions until they truly address the problem.

Resources to help you on your design thinking journey

Remember, you don’t have to navigate the design thinking journey alone. Here are some resources to help you:

• The Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) : A comprehensive website offering free articles, courses, and tools related to design thinking.
• IDEO U : An online learning platform with design thinking courses and resources from the renowned design firm IDEO.
• Stanford d.school : The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, offering courses, workshops, and resources on design thinking.

Bonus Tip: If you’re looking for a user-friendly platform to create and share your prototypes, try Biteable . Create engaging video presentations, explainer animations, and even interactive prototypes – perfect for testing your design thinking solutions with users.

Unlock better solutions with design thinking

By embracing the human-centered approach of design thinking, you can unlock new possibilities and tackle problems with creativity and innovation. Start your design thinking journey today and see how it can transform your problem-solving approach for the better.

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Design Thinking: How it works [Theory, Practice & Examples]

So you’ve heard of Design Thinking , but it sounds a bit like hocus-pocus? Imagine standing at the entrance of a sleek, futuristic museum, greeted by a door that refuses to budge. Frustration mounts as you struggle to figure out how to open it, but then, a child approaches, effortlessly pushes the door, and you follow suit, feeling a blend of awe and embarrassment. That moment captures the essence of design thinking—a concept that, like that perplexing door, may initially seem locked, yet holds the key to unlocking innovation, creativity, and problem-solving potential in today’s complex world. In a hurry? Skip the theory and get straight to the 5 stages of design thinking .

Design thinking, a term that has surged in popularity, transcends the realm of aesthetics and reaches into the very core of how we tackle challenges , both big and small. It’s a methodology that isn’t confined to designers alone but is a powerful tool for anyone seeking novel solutions, whether in business, education, healthcare, or even personal life. Design thinking isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a dynamic and transformative approach that promises to reshape how we approach problems and create solutions.

Design Thinking: A Definition

Design thinking is a transformative problem-solving approach that puts human needs and experiences at its core. At its essence, it’s a structured methodology that empowers individuals and organizations to tackle complex challenges by fostering empathy, creativity, and innovation. Unlike traditional problem-solving methods, design thinking is not confined to a linear path; instead, it encourages dynamic and iterative thinking to arrive at innovative solutions (see also: Innovation Management ).

Historical Background

To truly grasp the significance of design thinking, it’s essential to delve into its historical roots. The concept finds its origins in the mid-20th century, primarily within the field of industrial design. Visionaries like Herbert A. Simon and L. Bruce Archer were among the early proponents of this methodology, emphasizing the importance of user-centered design . Over the decades, design thinking evolved, incorporating insights from various disciplines, such as psychology, engineering, and business. It gained prominence in the corporate world thanks to influential figures like David Kelley of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, which helped popularize and formalize the design thinking process we know today.

Design Thinking Core Principles

• Empathy : Design thinking starts with deep empathy for the end-user. This means understanding their needs, desires, and pain points on a profound level. Empathy forms the foundation upon which innovative solutions are built.
• Iteration : Design thinking embraces the idea that the first solution is rarely the best one. It encourages continuous refinement and iteration of ideas through prototyping and testing. This iterative process allows for the discovery of unexpected insights and improvements.
• User-Centricity : The user is the focal point of the entire design thinking process. Solutions are not imposed from the top down; they emerge organically from an understanding of the user’s perspective and needs.
• Collaboration : Design thinking thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration . It brings together individuals with diverse skills and perspectives to foster creative problem-solving.

These principles, combined with a structured framework, make design thinking a potent methodology for addressing a wide range of challenges , from designing user-friendly products to solving complex organizational problems.

The Stages of Design Thinking

While Design Thinking is often described as a mindset, at it’s core it is a five step process.

Stage I: Empathize

The journey of design thinking commences with a crucial first step— empathy . In this initial stage, designers and problem-solvers immerse themselves in the world of the end-user, seeking to understand their needs , desires, and challenges on a profound level. This isn’t a casual observation – it’s a deep dive into the user’s experiences. Empathy involves conducting interviews, surveys, and even shadowing users in their daily routines. The goal? To gain insights that go beyond what’s explicitly stated—to uncover the unspoken, the latent, and the emotions that influence user behavior. Empathy is the bedrock upon which the entire design thinking process rests, for it’s from this wellspring of understanding that innovative solutions emerge. If you want to learn more about understanding different personalities, take our DISC-Test.

Stage II: Define

With a wealth of empathetic insights in hand, the next stage is to distill these observations into a clear and concise problem statement . What are the specific challenges and pain points that need to be addressed? Defining the problem is a pivotal moment in the design thinking process because it frames the entire journey. It’s about reframing the issue to focus on what truly matters to the user. This stage requires a delicate balance of precision and creativity—precision in articulating the problem, and creativity in reframing it to inspire fresh ideas.

Stage III: Ideate

Now, armed with a well-defined problem, the design thinking process enters the ideation stage —a veritable playground for creative brainstorming. Here, the emphasis is on quantity rather than quality, as the goal is to generate a broad spectrum of ideas, no matter how wild or unconventional they may seem. Ideation sessions often involve cross-functional teams engaging in free-flowing discussions, sketching, and mind mapping . It’s in this stage that the magic of creativity takes flight, and seemingly impossible solutions begin to take shape.

Stage IV: Prototype

Ideation is a boundless landscape of possibilities, but to transform these concepts into tangible solutions, the process moves to prototyping . Prototypes are simplified representations of the envisioned solutions, ranging from paper sketches to interactive mock-ups. The purpose of prototyping is to bring ideas to life in a tangible form that can be tested and refined. It’s an essential step to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and real-world applicability. Prototypes serve as a canvas for experimentation and iteration, allowing designers to uncover flaws, make improvements, and fine-tune their solutions.

Stage V: Test!

The final stage of design thinking is where ideas are put to the test in the real world . Testing involves presenting prototypes to the end-users and gathering their feedback . This user-centric approach ensures that the proposed solutions align with the users’ needs and expectations. The feedback loop is iterative, often leading back to the ideation and prototyping stages as insights are gained. This process of testing and refinement continues until the most suitable and effective solution emerges, ready to address the defined problem effectively.

In these stages, design thinking transforms from a theoretical concept into a hands-on, user-driven methodology that fosters innovation and creative problem-solving. Each stage plays a vital role in the iterative process that leads to meaningful solutions.

Design Thinking Examples & Benefits

To truly appreciate the transformative power of design thinking, let’s turn to real-world examples where this methodology has reshaped industries and solved complex problems.

Case Studies

One such shining example comes from Airbnb . In its early days, Airbnb faced a significant challenge: how to establish trust between hosts and guests in the sharing economy. By applying design thinking principles, they delved deep into the user experience, empathizing with both hosts and guests. They introduced features like user profiles, reviews, and a secure payment system, all aimed at fostering trust and confidence. This approach not only propelled Airbnb’s growth but also revolutionized the hospitality industry.

Another compelling case is that of the healthcare giant, Mayo Clinic . In an industry fraught with complexities and patient-centric challenges, Mayo Clinic turned to design thinking to improve patient experiences. They revamped waiting areas, redesigned appointment scheduling, and introduced user-friendly mobile apps for patients to access their medical records. These innovations not only improved patient satisfaction but also enhanced the overall quality of care.

Benefits of the Design Thinking Process

Design thinking isn’t just a methodology; it’s a mindset that empowers individuals and organizations to navigate the complexities of our modern world effectively. Its benefits extend far beyond problem-solving and innovation, permeating into the very fabric of how we approach challenges and create solutions:

• Fosters Innovation : Design thinking places the user at the core of problem-solving, encouraging innovative thinking that leads to groundbreaking solutions.
• Promotes Adaptability : In an ever-changing world, design thinking equips organizations with the ability to pivot and evolve in response to shifting market dynamics and customer preferences.
• Enhanced User Satisfaction : Whether in product design or service delivery, design thinking ensures that solutions precisely meet user needs and expectations, resulting in happier and more loyal customers.
• Encourages Collaboration : Design thinking fosters a culture of collaboration among multidisciplinary teams, promoting teamwork and creativity.

Read more about the benefits in this review of educational research: Having good design thinking skills can assist in solving really complex problems.

Challenges and Criticisms

While design thinking has garnered widespread acclaim, it’s not immune to criticism, and one prevalent concern is the risk of over-hyping. In the rush to embrace this transformative approach, there’s a danger of viewing it as a panacea for all organizational challenges. Design thinking, like any methodology, has its limitations. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, and not every problem requires a design thinking approach. Over-hyping can create unrealistic expectations , leading to disappointment when results fall short. It’s essential to strike a balance between recognizing design thinking’s potential and acknowledging its boundaries.

Implementation Challenges

Implementing design thinking within organizations can be a journey fraught with challenges. Resistance to change is a common stumbling block. Employees accustomed to traditional problem-solving methods may find it challenging to adapt to the iterative and user-centric nature of design thinking. Another challenge is the need for time and resources . Design thinking, when done right, demands investment in research, prototyping, and user testing, which can strain budgets and schedules. Additionally, maintaining a consistent commitment to the process throughout the organization can be difficult. Without leadership support and a culture that encourages experimentation and learning from failures, design thinking initiatives may falter. Addressing these challenges requires a thoughtful and strategic approach to ensure that design thinking becomes ingrained in the organizational DNA .

How to Incorporate Design Thinking

Design thinking isn’t reserved for designers alone – it’s a mindset that anyone can cultivate to enhance problem-solving skills and drive innovation in their work and daily lives.

Practical tips for individuals

• Start with Empathy : Whether you’re designing a product or tackling a personal challenge, begin by understanding the needs and perspectives of those involved. Ask questions, actively listen , and put yourself in their shoes.
• Embrace Iteration : Don’t settle for the first solution that comes to mind. Be open to refining and iterating on your ideas. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity.
• Diverse Perspectives : Seek input from people with different backgrounds and viewpoints. Collaborative brainstorming can lead to more creative and effective solutions.
• Prototype and Test : Even in non-design contexts, consider creating prototypes or mock-ups to visualize your ideas. Test them with potential users or stakeholders to gather feedback.
• User-Centric Approach : Always prioritize the end-user or recipient of your work. Your solutions should address their needs and provide value.

Organizational Integration

To foster a design thinking culture within organizations, several steps can be taken:

• Leadership Buy-In : Leaders should champion the adoption of design thinking, setting an example for the rest of the organization. They should communicate its value and allocate resources for its implementation (see also “ Leadership test “)
• Training and Education : Offer design thinking training and workshops to employees at all levels. Equip them with the skills and knowledge to apply design thinking methodologies.
• Cross-Functional Teams : Encourage collaboration across different departments and disciplines. Create teams that bring together diverse skills and perspectives for problem-solving.
• Design Thinking Spaces : Designate physical or virtual spaces where employees can brainstorm, prototype, and test ideas. These spaces should be conducive to creativity and collaboration.
• Reward Innovation : Recognize and reward employees who contribute innovative ideas and solutions through design thinking. Create incentives for innovation and risk-taking.
• Feedback and Continuous Improvement : Establish mechanisms for collecting feedback on design thinking initiatives. Use this feedback to refine processes and adapt to evolving needs.

By following these steps, individuals can harness the power of design thinking in their personal and professional lives, while organizations can create an environment where design thinking thrives, leading to innovative solutions and a more agile , customer-centric approach.

It’s worth emphasizing that design thinking holds greater importance than ever before. It equips individuals and organizations with the tools to navigate change effectively , foster innovation, and create solutions that prioritize the needs of users, transcending disciplinary boundaries.

Consider embracing design thinking in your own context . Whether you’re seeking solutions in your daily life or aiming to cultivate a culture of creativity within your organization, the key lies in embracing empathy, collaboration, and a willingness to experiment. These qualities unlock the potential of design thinking.

In the words of the iconic designer and innovator Steve Jobs , “ Design is how it works .” Let design thinking be the guiding light in our intricate world, where innovation and user-centric solutions pave the path forward. Its enduring relevance underscores our innate capacity to create, adapt, and thrive .

You might also be interested in: Pareto Concept – Why it still works!

Additional Resources

For readers eager to dive deeper into the world of design thinking, there is a wealth of resources available to further your understanding and expertise:

• “ Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation ” by Idris Mootee: This book offers a strategic perspective on design thinking and its application in business.
• “ Change by Design ” by Tim Brown: Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, provides valuable insights into the design thinking process and its potential for innovation.
• “ The Design Thinking Playbook ” by Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, and Larry Leifer: A comprehensive guide to practical design thinking methods and tools.
• IDEO U ( https://www.ideou.com/ ): IDEO U offers online courses and resources on design thinking, innovation, and leadership.
• Stanford d.school ( https://dschool.stanford.edu/ ): Explore Stanford University’s d.school website for design thinking tools, case studies, and free resources.
• Nielsen Norman Group ( https://www.nngroup.com/ ): The Nielsen Norman Group offers valuable insights and research on user-centered design and usability.
• Coursera Design Thinking Specialization : This series of courses offered by the University of Virginia on Coursera provides a comprehensive understanding of design thinking principles and their application.
• edX Design Thinking MicroMasters Program : This program by Rochester Institute of Technology on edX covers design thinking, innovation, and leadership.

VIDEO: Doreen Lorenzo about Design Thinking (TedTalk)

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Design Thinking: A Guide to Creative Problem-Solving (2024)

Updated: Jan 02, 2024 By:  Dessign Team

Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that focuses on human needs. It is a human-centered approach to innovation that aims to create innovative solutions to complex problems. The process begins with empathy, where designers seek to understand the needs, behaviors, and pain points of the users.

This is followed by defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, and testing. The iterative process allows designers to refine their ideas and create solutions that are not only innovative but also meet the needs of the users.

Design thinking is a methodology that can be applied to a wide range of problems. It is used by designers , businesses, and organizations to develop new products, services, and processes. The methodology is based on the idea that the best solutions are created when designers work collaboratively with users and stakeholders.

By involving users in the design process, designers can create solutions that are more effective and meet the needs of the users. Design thinking can also be used to identify new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Key Takeaways

• Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that focuses on the needs of the users.
• The process involves empathy, defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, and testing.
• Design thinking can be applied to a wide range of problems and is used by designers, businesses, and organizations to develop new products, services, and processes.

Fundamentals of Design Thinking

Design thinking is a problem-solving methodology that involves building innovative solutions by understanding human needs and constraints. It is a collaborative and iterative process that can help designers and developers create products and services that are both user-centric and profitable.

Understanding the Process

The design thinking process is a non-linear process that involves five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The process starts with empathizing with the user and understanding their needs. The next stage is defining the problem statement and organizing the observations. Then, ideation techniques are used to brainstorm solutions, followed by the experimental phase of prototyping. The final stage is testing and iterating on the prototype until the solution meets the user's needs and constraints.

Role of Empathy

Empathy is a critical component of design thinking. It involves putting oneself in the user's shoes and understanding their pain points, emotional needs, and visions. Through empathy, designers can gain insights into the user's behavior and develop innovative solutions that meet their needs.

Importance of Ideation

Ideation is the process of generating creative solutions to the problem statement. Designers use ideation techniques such as the worst possible idea and scampering to come up with innovative solutions. Ideation is an essential stage in the design thinking process because it helps designers generate a range of ideas and select the best solution.

Prototype Development

Prototyping is the process of building a physical or digital representation of the solution. Prototyping allows designers to test the solution and get feedback from users. It is an iterative process that involves building, testing, and refining the prototype until it meets the user's needs and constraints.

Testing and Iteration

Testing is the process of evaluating the prototype and getting feedback from users. It involves observing how users interact with the prototype and collecting data on their behavior. Based on the feedback, designers can iterate on the prototype and refine the solution until it meets the user's needs and constraints.

Design thinking is a powerful methodology that can help designers and developers create innovative solutions to complex problems. By focusing on human needs and constraints, designers can create products and services that provide value to customers and give organizations a competitive advantage.

Applications of Design Thinking

Design thinking has proven to be a valuable methodology for solving complex problems and creating innovative solutions. Its human-centered approach to problem-solving has made it a popular choice in various industries, including business, product development, service design, and organizational culture.

In Business and Strategy

Design thinking is becoming increasingly popular in the business world as it helps organizations to develop innovative solutions that meet the needs of their customers. By using design thinking, businesses can define their problem statement, understand their audience, and create solutions that have a competitive advantage.

Design thinking can also be used in strategy development. It helps businesses to identify and prioritize opportunities, create a vision for growth, and develop a plan to achieve their goals. By using design thinking, businesses can create a strategy that is grounded in human needs and insights.

In Product Development

Design thinking is a valuable methodology for product development as it helps designers to understand the needs of their users and develop products that meet those needs. The process involves empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.

By using design thinking, designers can create products that provide value to their users and differentiate themselves from their competitors. It also helps them to iterate and improve their products based on feedback from their users.

In Service Design

Design thinking is widely used in service design as it helps designers to create services that are user-centric and meet the needs of their users. The process involves empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.

By using design thinking, designers can create services that provide value to their users and differentiate themselves from their competitors. It also helps them to iterate and improve their services based on feedback from their users.

In Organizational Culture

Design thinking is not just a methodology for problem-solving but also a way of thinking that can transform organizational culture. By using design thinking, organizations can create a culture that is focused on human needs, collaboration, and innovation.

Design thinking can also be used to develop skills in employees, such as empathy, problem-solving, and collaboration. It helps organizations to create a culture of innovation and change that can drive growth and success.

In conclusion, design thinking is a powerful methodology that can be applied in various industries to create innovative solutions that meet the needs of their users. It is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that can transform organizational culture and drive growth and success.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 5 stages of design thinking.

Design thinking involves five stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Each stage is essential to the process and helps to ensure that the final product meets the needs of the user.

What are the key skills required for design thinking?

Design thinking requires a wide range of skills, including empathy, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication. These skills are necessary to effectively understand the needs of the user and create a product that meets those needs.

What are the steps involved in design thinking?

The steps involved in design thinking include understanding the problem, researching the user, brainstorming ideas, prototyping, and testing. These steps are iterative and require constant feedback to ensure that the final product meets the needs of the user.

How can design thinking benefit individuals and organizations?

Design thinking can benefit individuals and organizations in many ways. By focusing on the needs of the user, design thinking can lead to more effective and innovative solutions. It can also help to improve communication and collaboration within teams and organizations.

What are some examples of design thinking frameworks?

Some examples of design thinking frameworks include the Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process, the IDEO Design Thinking Process, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking at Stanford. Each framework has its own unique approach, but all share a focus on the needs of the user.

Who can benefit from using design thinking?

Design thinking can benefit anyone who is involved in the creation of products or services, from designers and engineers to business leaders and entrepreneurs. By focusing on the needs of the user, design thinking can help to create more effective and innovative solutions.

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25 Design Thinking Questions: What To Ask + Answer Examples

As Walter Isaacson, acclaimed biographer of creative genius Steve Jobs, emphasizes, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” The pursuit of innovation in business is what sets leaders apart; it’s the driving force behind the transformation of customer experiences. Every innovation, every groundbreaking product, and every revolutionary service begins with a question. That’s where the journey of design thinking questions and the power of asking comes into play.

Design Thinking isn’t just a methodology but a culture, and it’s been the driving force behind many remarkable creations. And what fuels this culture is all about asking the right questions.

Although formalized in the 21st century, design thinking has deep roots in history. In the 1950s, brilliant minds at Stanford University were already exploring new ways to enhance creative thinking. The goal was simple: breaking free from conventional problem-solving strategies. Let’s jump now to the 21st century, where design thinking has become a structured methodology at the heart of many renowned organizations’ strategies, such as Apple, Google, and Amazon.

What Are Design Thinking Questions?

The journey of design thinking is underpinned by a singular philosophy: to understand a problem truly, you must question it thoroughly and empathize with its challenges. This is where design thinking questions come into play.

Design thinking questions are open-ended, thought-provoking inquiries to understand a problem’s depths. These questions don’t just scratch the surface; they delve into the heart of the matter, searching for insights, ideas, and opportunities. The true power of these questions lies in their ability to cultivate empathy , unlock creativity , and catalyze innovative solutions.

We put together a table showcasing the elements of good design thinking questions:

These elements guide the formulation of effective design thinking questions essential for uncovering insights, sparking innovation, and solving complex problems through a human-centered approach.

What Are the Questions of Design Thinking and Their Use?

Behind design thinking, there’s a series of carefully crafted questions, each designed to guide problem-solvers through the journey of creativity and innovation. These questions serve several vital functions like:

• Empathy Building: They encourage the development of empathy for the end-users or the people affected by the problem you’re solving. These questions put you in their shoes to truly understand their needs and desires.
• Problem Definition: The right questions help you accurately define the problem you’re dealing with. You uncover hidden issues and complexities by questioning the situation from different angles.
• Ideation: Design thinking questions stimulate ideation. They fuel creativity, inspire innovative ideas, and help teams think outside the box.
• Solution Validation: Once you’ve generated ideas and developed solutions, questions become tools for validating your concepts. They help you ensure that the proposed solutions indeed address the problem.
• Continuous Improvement: Design thinking questions don’t stop with the first solution. They play a crucial role in ongoing evaluation, helping you continuously refine and enhance your offerings.

What Are the Most Important Points of Design Thinking?

To truly grasp the essence of design thinking questions, consider these vital principles that underpin the whole approach:

• User-Centric Approach: Design thinking fundamentally addresses the end-users’ needs and desires. Your questions should revolve around understanding them, their challenges, and their aspirations.
• Iterative Process: Design thinking isn’t a linear journey; it’s a continuous loop of understanding, ideating, prototyping, and testing. Questions guide you through these iterations.
• Problem Framing: Before diving into solutions, design thinking encourages an in-depth understanding of the problem itself. Your questions should focus on framing the issue from multiple perspectives.
• Collaboration: Design thinking is a collaborative effort. The questions foster teamwork, bringing together diverse skills and perspectives.
• Prototype Testing: Questions are tools for validating prototypes. The process includes creating a basic version of the solution and testing it to gather feedback, which is then incorporated into improvements.

In summary, design thinking is an innovation-driven approach that thrives on customer empathy , problem-solving, and continuous improvement, all facilitated by thought-provoking, open-ended questions.

Design Thinking Question Types

Throughout the design thinking process, specific types of questions serve as guiding stars, illuminating the path to innovation and customer-centric solutions:

• These questions go beyond the surface, delving into the heart of the matter: the people. They invite you to walk in your end-users or stakeholders’ shoes, to see the world through their eyes. When you ask empathizing questions, you’re on a quest to truly understand their needs, desires, challenges, and aspirations. It’s about peeling back the layers and getting to the core of human experiences. With empathizing questions, you unlock the profound insights needed to create solutions that genuinely resonate with people.
• In the realm of design thinking, defining the problem is an art form. These questions are like the skilled strokes of a painter’s brush, meticulously crafting the contours of the challenge at hand. They prompt you to consider the subtle details, the shades of the issue that might have gone unnoticed. With problem definition questions, you frame the challenge with precision, ensuring you’re targeting the right problem—no more, no less. They provide the scaffolding for your entire creative process.
• If empathy questions allow you to understand, ideation questions inspire you to dream to explore the uncharted territories of imagination. They’re your passport to a realm where possibilities are endless, and conventional thinking takes a back seat. These questions aren’t just about generating ideas; they’re about opening the doors to unbridled creativity. Ideation questions are open-ended, enticing you to challenge the status quo and venture into the territory of “thinking outside the box.” In this realm, groundbreaking ideas are born.
• You have ideas—bold, innovative, and possibly game-changing. But how do you know which ones have the potential to revolutionize your industry? That’s where validation questions come into play. They are the litmus test, the rigorous assessment that ensures your solutions are on target. Validation questions are the guardians of practicality, making certain that your ideas are not just impressive on paper but feasible in the real world. They help you confirm that the proposed solutions genuinely address the problem and, most importantly, the needs of your users.
• Once your solution is out in the wild, your journey doesn’t end; it transforms into an ongoing quest for refinement and enhancement. Iterative questions are the driving force behind this evolution. They encourage you to listen, learn, and adapt. With these questions, you delve into the feedback, data, and user experiences. You ask what’s working, what’s not, and most crucially, how you can make it better. Iterative questions are the engines of continuous improvement, enabling you to evolve your solutions harmoniously with the ever-changing landscape of customer needs and market dynamics.

With this arsenal of questions, design thinking becomes a powerful vehicle for innovation and transformation, propelling your organization to new heights of customer satisfaction and competitive success.

Design Thinking Success Examples

The impact of design thinking questions is most evident in the real-world examples of companies and organizations that have successfully employed this approach.

• Apple: One of the pioneers in using design thinking, Apple applies this philosophy from product design to the customer experience. They frequently ask empathizing questions like, “ How can we make the iPhone experience even more intuitive? “
• Google: Google’s work culture revolves around creative problem-solving. Their teams use ideation questions such as, “ What are new ways to simplify complex data access for users? “
• Amazon: Amazon applies design thinking to enhance its customer service and satisfaction. Questions like, “How can we make the customer’s online shopping experience more seamless and enjoyable? ” drive their innovation.
• IDEO: A global design consultancy, IDEO, is renowned for its design thinking expertise. They ask many problem definition questions to deeply understand various challenges before proposing solutions.

Free Template: 25 Design Thinking Questions (with Answer Examples)

Design thinking questions with example hypothetical answers:

Feel free to adapt these questions to your specific design thinking project and use them as a starting point for your journey into innovative problem-solving and product development.

Design Thinking Questions with QuestionPro

Integrating QuestionPro into your design thinking process can be a game-changer. Our suite of tools and solutions empowers you to formulate the right design thinking questions, collect valuable feedback, and convert insights into actionable strategies.

Whether you’re looking to enhance your product, service, or overall customer experience, our platform offers:

• Survey Design: Create custom surveys tailored to your design thinking needs with our intuitive survey builder.
• Feedback Collection: Gather feedback and responses effectively from diverse sources, from customers to employees.
• Data Analysis: Utilize advanced analytics to decipher the insights gained from your design thinking questions.
• Actionable Insights: Transform insights into actionable strategies for innovation and continuous improvement.

Design thinking questions are the compass guiding you through the intricate terrain of innovation. They empower you to understand, define, ideate, validate, and improve solutions.

When harnessed effectively, these questions can unlock a world of creativity and set your organization on a path to lasting success. So, embark on this journey with the right questions, and remember, innovation is just a question away.

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Design Problem Statements: What They Are and How to Frame Them

Even exciting product ideas can flop without an understanding of the user problem to solve. A design problem statement is an essential step in the design process for creating products that truly matter.

By Jordan DeVos

Jordan’s expertise spans across brand strategy, service design, and UX. She works with organizations to help strengthen teams and innovate.

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In 2006, Microsoft made the competitive move and released Zune, its version of the futuristic, one-buttoned, every-song-in-your-pocket iPod. The onscreen colors were punchy and the interface was type-led with a beautiful minimalist font. It was a bold move to challenge Apple, but in the world of product, success is not always about being first .

It could be argued that the Zune-only features, such as wirelessly sending a song from one Zune to another (an innovative feature in the mid-aughts) were just as good as the iPod-exclusive features, making Microsoft’s product a seemingly strong contender. But instead, it was a failure.

You could unearth countless reasons why the Zune wasn’t a success (and probably a pile of reasons why it should have been). One major underlying cause was that Microsoft had not identified a problem the Zune would solve. There were no clear user needs that the iPod was failing to meet or any new innovation that would shake things up. The Zune was solving nothing.

If there is no problem, there is no solution, and no reason for a company to exist. – Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures (a Silicon Valley venture capital firm)

What Exactly Is a “Design Problem”?

We’ve all had them, solved them, and most definitely caused them. But to put it in simple terms is a challenge in itself. The Oxford dictionary says a problem is “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.” True, but this implies there is an awareness of the desired outcome. With all due respect to the brilliant minds at the Oxford Dictionary, this definition is missing an important component of most examples of design problems: unconscious desires .

Inventor of the automobile, Henry Ford, knew about this layer of desire when he famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” He knew that the unwelcome matter at hand was that horses were too slow. But this wasn’t really the problem that needed solving. There was a deeper need that his customers couldn’t articulate.

Richard Buchanan is a “design theorist” whose career revolves around human-centered design thinking principles. In his paper, Design Research and the New Learning , he alludes to a user’s unarticulated need when he defines design as “the human power of conceiving, planning, and making products or services that serve human beings in the accomplishment of their individual and collective purposes.” It’s the user’s purpose that needs attention, not simply an unwelcome situation. This deeper need is at the root of what a user desires, whether or not they can articulate it.

Ford’s customers thought they needed a faster version of what they already had. But Ford understood their deeper purpose: to get from one place to another faster . This distinction helped him avoid simply engineering a faster horse and instead opened the doors to create something that had never existed before.

A problem isn’t simply an unwanted situation or a matter that deviates from the norm—although these are still valid definitions of a problem. For designers and creative problem solving, a problem is an unmet need that, if met, can satisfy the user’s purpose.

Why Frame a Problem?

Framing a design problem is the first step in a human-centered design process . It prioritizes the elements just discussed: the user and the purpose they desire to accomplish. This means that an initial round of user research can be revolutionary in uncovering deep-rooted desires. Conducting user interviews or desktop research, such as competitive analysis, can reveal insights into potential users and what problems they face.

For instance, “New mums need a way to feel connected to a support group because they spend a large amount of time alone with their babies and end up feeling isolated and lonely,” is one of many design problem statement examples a designer might create when tasked with creating a product for parents. These mums have a deep-rooted desire to know they’re not alone, and a new product might help them accomplish the purpose of feeling connected.

A design team could develop an app, a social network platform, or even a brick-and-mortar venue where mums could gather. The problem statement would guide the team in navigating decisions and features, like, should we use AI? What other apps should it link to? How could the environment be designed? The framed problem provides a framework for crafting the best solution for the user.

By framing the problem with a statement narrow enough to bring focus yet broad enough for creativity, the product design team can stay simultaneously focused on design problem-solving and open to innovative possibilities.

Identifying Barriers and Opportunities

When you know the direction you want to go, you can see what’s in front of you. With a clearly defined problem that’s rooted in a user’s purpose, it’s easier to see what barriers are in the way of reaching that end goal. And if the problem is clearly stated at the start of a project, it can act as a lens through which to find additional opportunities that might have gone unnoticed.

Aligning the Team Around Design Problem Solving

Without realizing it, members of a team—stakeholders, designers , developers, and even users—each have a different image in their head of what the end product should be. They are each thinking about it in a slightly different way informed by different mental models . Arguably the biggest impact of framing a problem is how it aligns these varying views.

The best design thinking problem statement examples collect multiple perspectives within a framework that sparks effective conversations and decisions. Once an articulated statement is made, expectations for the team can be managed and efforts are aligned.

Guiding the Project and All Future Decisions

A product team can function without a problem defined—it happens all the time. But when an explicit statement declares what problem needs to be solved, every effort is focused on that single outcome.

A well-framed product design problem statement that is documented as part of a product design brief is a simple tool to weigh options and measure success. A good design problem statement will leave room for creativity, but it ultimately provides a clear lens through which to view each element of the project.

Outlining the problem statement and the design process steps acts as a filter that sifts out superfluous or irrelevant ideas and retains only the ones that meet the need. As the design process progresses, the team should refer to the initial problem statement and ensure that what is being designed still addresses the core problem statement documented in the product design brief.

God gave us ten styluses … let’s not invent another. – Steve Jobs on his distaste for the Apple Newton’s unnecessary stylus pen

Saving Time and Money in the Long Run

With a shared perspective and sign-off on the ultimate purpose of the product, the design process can run more efficiently. There will always be inevitable tangents and dead ends in innovative projects, but even these learnings can be more insightful when everything is driven by finding a solution to a single problem.

Working from a shared understanding of the design problem needing to be solved can also prevent public embarrassment—apart from a failed product. When Juicero launched its extravagant juicing machine, it was met with jabs and jeers because it charged a premium price for what anyone can do with their hands—squeeze fresh juice from a packet. It managed to raise $120 million in investments but suspended sales 16 months after launching.

Ultimately, the product brought very little value to juice-lovers because it solved a non-existent problem. Not every idea should be executed, and a well-framed problem statement can help determine which ones should just stay in the sketchbook.

Helping Connect Emotionally to the User

A problem can’t be defined unless you know who is struggling. By taking the time to conduct research and speak to potential users and ask questions about their current situation and how they feel about it, your team can suddenly step into the shoes of the user.

The emotional engagement needed at the problem framing stage aligns the product with the person it’s meant to serve. The user’s motivations, desires, and fears can create a framework for measuring all ideas and proposals. Seeing a problem from a human perspective will inevitably illuminate intuitive and emotional insights that will make a product more lovable.

How Can a Problem Be Framed?

Even though the benefits of framing a problem are significant, it’s often a skipped step. It’s not uncommon to receive a thoroughly constructed design brief that includes everything from visual direction and functional requirements. And sometimes that’s all you need when you join the team.

But if you’re at the beginning of a project and the visual and functional decisions are already being made, it’s worth taking a step back to define the problem the product is solving. Sometimes there is plenty of time to do this, other times there’s resistance and limited resources. Regardless of where you find yourself, there are methods that can help bring a level of clarity to everyone involved.

If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. – Albert Einstein

The Four Ws: Questions to Answer

Ideally, this is a method that gathers key stakeholders around a pile of Post-its and a large wall. By asking four simple questions, everyone can put their own thoughts up and together synthesize the content to find focus and clarity.

• Who is affected? Who is experiencing the problem? Can this user be further specified (by demographic, persona, motivation, reason for being in the situation)?
• What is the problem? What are the struggles? What task needs to be accomplished? What pain point needs to be relieved?
• Where does it happen? What is the context in which the user experiences the problem? Is it in a physical or digital space? Who else is involved?
• Why does it matter? Why is this problem worth solving? What value does it bring to the user? What value does it bring to the business?

Empathy Map: Putting Yourself in the User’s Shoes

Empathy maps are a common tool used in UX design and can be helpful in many stages throughout a product’s development. Here, at the start, it instantly connects the team to the user to find out what their purpose might be. Depending on the amount of time you have for the problem framing stage, this method can involve user interviews and observational shadowing.

• Hear and see. What kind of comments or concepts does the user encounter? What are others saying that the user is exposed to? What does the user observe others doing around them? (This category illustrates the user’s surroundings.)
• Say and do. What are the user’s comments and behaviors? What are they saying out loud to others? What do they do in practice? (These are things that are explicitly done and can be clearly observed.)
• Think and feel. What does the user think but keep to themself? How do they emotionally react to a situation? What are their desires? (These aren’t always apparent by simply observing a user, but can be revealed through conversational interviews. It takes some digging to understand what is happening on a subconscious level, but this is where great insights can be found.)
• Pains and gains. What frustrations does the user have? What about the experience is unnecessary or disappointing? In contrast, what about the experience is improving the life of the user? What works well? Where or when is the user happiest? (These are the outcomes of the experience.)

The Final Problem Statement

This is a simple but really effective way to bring focus to the insights you’ve uncovered and the ultimate problem you can frame. The design problem statement structure template is like a page from MadLibs, a sentence with blank spaces to fill with your insights. It creates a concise statement rooted in your team’s collective thinking. It’s important to keep the statement specific enough so there is a shared vision for the product, but broad enough to allow for creativity and new insights.

Here are a few design problem statement example formats:

• e.g., “I am a new mum trying to take care of my baby in the best way possible, but I don’t know if I’m doing a good job because I’m always at home alone and don’t have anyone to talk to about it, which makes me feel isolated and alone.”
• e.g., “New mums need a way to connect with other mums because they are often at home alone during the day and feel isolated and alone.”
• e.g., “Our new mum has the problem that she has no one to talk to about the best way to care for her baby when she is at home alone every day. Our solution should deliver a way for her to feel connected to other mums so she feels less isolated and alone.”

Every Good Problem Framing Phase, No Matter How Simple, Should:

• Avoid proposing solutions. It’s easy to think in the tangible terms of features and functionality, but these will only distract from first understanding the fundamental problem.
• Ask why. It’s a simple question to help find insights under the surface. But as Fast Company contributor Tina Seelig writes , asking “why” lets you see a situation from a different angle.
• Reflect. Make time to step back and look for connections and patterns. This is where insights lie that can set a product apart from competitors.
• Keep it universal. Avoid using jargon or any unnecessary complexities. The problem should be simple for anyone to understand, and ideally, to retell. Equipping team members to easily talk about what you are trying to achieve will build confidence and passion within the project.

Forget the Horse, Deliver a Car

What is a design problem statement? Some clients may set a brief that clearly defines the problem to solve. Others might not know about this crucial stage. Therein lies an opportunity for you to lead the client in taking a step back and evaluating why this product will exist. Together you can align the team, craft a framework, and kick off an effective and efficient process.

Perhaps the greatest value of this step is understanding the human psyche. Framing a problem from a customer’s perspective lets you more effectively deliver what people never knew they needed. Dave Thomsen, a former IDEO designer, writes that a human-centric approach leads to great user benefits and purpose.

When designers design a product that deeply connects to a user’s desired purpose, it becomes easier to build a product experience and a brand that connects to people on an emotional level. In turn, these will not only be more successful products but will prove to be more purposeful and meaningful in the lives of the people who use them.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• E-commerce UX: An Overview of Best Practices (with Infographic)
• The Best UX Designer Portfolios: Inspiring Case Studies and Examples
• The Importance of Human-centered Design in Product Design
• Heuristic Principles for Mobile Interfaces
• Anticipatory Design: How to Create Magical User Experiences

Understanding the basics

What is included in a design brief.

A design brief includes a clear design problem statement and the proposed solution to that problem. The brief will also outline the overall design process and expectations between the client and the team. Finally, it should include a basic schedule of deliverables and designate responsibilities.

What is the designing process?

The design process in general is the process by which a problem is identified, understood, and addressed through design. Decisions in the design process should ideally be informed by research, data, and a clear understanding of the target user.

What is design thinking approach?

Design thinking approach is a methodology in which the creative strategies and process-based solutions learned in the field of design can inform creative problem-solving in any field or discipline. The approach is a popular and effective tool in the world of product development.

What does design thinking do?

Design thinking is the process by which teams can apply the insights and process-based creative problem-solving strategies to product development, business, and other fields and professions.

What is problem solving in design?

Problem-solving is one of the main goals of design that characterizes it beyond a more freely creative venture. Designers identify problems to solve and then apply research to making design decisions to address the core problem.

What is a good problem statement?

With a good problem statement, UX designers have a clearly-defined understanding of the user and their core problem. The problem statement should avoid proposing a firm solution in the beginning, which should be uncovered through research and iterative design exploration.

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Jordan DeVos

New York, NY, United States

Member since March 28, 2018

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Design as a Problem-Solving Approach

Even though we use the word “design” to describe a lot of different things, they all actually have one thing in common: problem-solving..

Atilla Alışkan

As these days we have to stay at home to protect our and other people’s health, we are going through the days in which those who failed to complete the digital transformation or could not provide a good experience in their services are experiencing painful learning.

We are having times where we feel the importance of all design approaches more in our daily lives and keep facing their shortcomings. During the Covid-19 pandemic, where we could not go to the market, hospital, stores, bank the way we did before, and we search all the alternative services to meet our needs, we once again deeply felt the importance of design, with its reflections in our lives in different aspects. It has inevitably come to the fore at work, systems of government agencies, the products we use, education, the services we use, and many other fields. Even if some of us do not even notice it, it somehow affects all of us, which prompted me to write about design.

Let me just say right away, when you think of design, please do not imagine something that is produced only with aesthetic concerns. I can see that just as user experience design and usability are often mistaken for each other, design can also be misunderstood in this context. The color of a poster, the simplicity of an application interface, the splendor of an architectural structure, the beauty of a vehicle, or the texture of a product… I am not just referring to the feeling they create in us through the sense organs. Of course, both aesthetics and its effect are a part of the experience, but maybe it is related to the way it is used in daily life. When we think of design, the first thing that comes to mind is to see it that way. I will not go into the details such as what design is, but it is obvious that design, generally speaking, is a problem-solving approach.

Don’t you think that everything that is man-made is the result of a design? Human beings have been designing and producing things since the very beginning of their existence. Producing, of course, leads to something tangible to be consumed and the concept of need comes to mind. In the current world order, a preferable product needs to meet a need, in other words, it must provide the consumer benefit and offer a value proposition to choose your product or service. It might seem a bit like I’m talking about something common in the capitalist system, and some of you may ask if works of plastic arts, painting, music, etc. come out of necessity. This has been a long-debated issue, you may not see a tangible benefit in art, in fact, no need or demand is necessary for the production processes of works of art.

You most probably have seen in your personal and work life that the word design is pronounced and used in different contexts by your friends working in different disciplines.

The above image shows a simple sketch that Damien Newman drew to explain what the design process is. Starting with complexity, the design process proceeds to the design solution that continues with a single line to the right. You see all problem-solving and production processes are based upon the concept design.

Design is not just about how a product looks but is also about the need it meets, how it works, how it is used, the way interaction between the user and the solution is provided. No matter what the solution you suggest is, we must accept the human behaviors as they are, which you observe while they use your product. It won’t do us any good to hope for the things we would like to see to happen. We can only make them come true with a human-centered design process. A designer cannot make this come true alone without a team. We designers do not have a magic wand, and did not have it yesterday, nor will we have it tomorrow. A team of professionals needs to work together for good designs. This is why I believe that designers should take it as a mission to encourage their teammates from different disciplines to contribute to the experience in the product or service development process.

A team of professionals needs to work together for good designs.

A good design is usually not noticed. It solves the and flows, you will not have any problems with the product as it meets your needs. However, bad designs stand out in every way and make you feel like something is missing about them.

The key to success in design is to identify what the real problem is. Only when we solve the real problem, it will lead us to the right conclusions. So we must research, learn and verify at every stage without hesitation to do something incompletely or incorrectly, and strive to provide solutions that meet the needs of people in line with our goals. The most difficult part of the design process is perhaps to understand these needs correctly because it means that you make sure that you have sorted it out and your solution works. While Design Thinking seems simple when we speak of it as a method, it is difficult to implement.

So, why have we started to see designer titles so often, especially in job titles, to hear that companies got to found design departments, and to see that companies invest in design teams? What lies behind that increase in the need for designers? The answer to this question is partly simple: all the while technology is advancing and getting a place in our lives so fast, the existing products are going through a digital transformation, the human beings fail to keep up with these rapid transformations and advances. So new occupational titles and job areas that define the manpower that will meet the current needs and focus on certain areas have begun to emerge.

We design products that are easy to understand, services that run smoothly from end to end, systems that build loyalty with happy customers, and communicate with each other to make our businesses stand out from competitors. Times have changed, leading to different needs, discoveries, and innovations with new playgrounds. While the cloud, deep learning, IoT, machine learning, big data, artificial intelligence, and many other things are developing, we overlooked or failed to realize some of the things that remain the same. Here is the point that we miss: human psychology, design principles based on human nature, and the importance of solutions offered are. We have always been and will, in the future, be in need of designers who will focus on different problems.

Problem-Solving: Design

Who can foresee what will be the new technologies that will develop in the next thirty years? Who could predict the new coronavirus pandemic, and who was ready for it? Who can know what will radically change our lives tomorrow and what exactly its effects will be, and prepare for it?

The micro and macro level reflections of the pandemic are inevitable, and we have no idea about many of its effects. Nowadays we even get to call the normal “the new normal”, we should keep in mind the importance of design as an endless process at every stage of our production and solution processes.

No matter how you work, what tools and methods you use in your design processes, even if the epidemic changes something, that’s for sure it will also bring new opportunities. The problem-solving cycle, in general terms, can be summarised as research, design, and optimization as an iterative process, which means new designs for new problems.

If people buy, use, like, or even recommend your product or service, you can make sure that you offer a good design, which demonstrates that your solution suggestions provide a good experience.

What do you think about it? Please feel free to write your comments. You can read the rest of my articles here and can reach me out via LinkedIn .

Written by Atilla Alışkan

UX Designer

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

• 01 Feb 2022

One of the biggest hindrances to innovation is complacency—it can be more comfortable to do what you know than venture into the unknown. Business leaders can overcome this barrier by mobilizing creative team members and providing space to innovate.

There are several tools you can use to encourage creativity in the workplace. Creative problem-solving is one of them, which facilitates the development of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

Here’s an overview of creative problem-solving and why it’s important in business.

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Research is necessary when solving a problem. But there are situations where a problem’s specific cause is difficult to pinpoint. This can occur when there’s not enough time to narrow down the problem’s source or there are differing opinions about its root cause.

In such cases, you can use creative problem-solving , which allows you to explore potential solutions regardless of whether a problem has been defined.

Creative problem-solving is less structured than other innovation processes and encourages exploring open-ended solutions. It also focuses on developing new perspectives and fostering creativity in the workplace . Its benefits include:

• Finding creative solutions to complex problems : User research can insufficiently illustrate a situation’s complexity. While other innovation processes rely on this information, creative problem-solving can yield solutions without it.
• Adapting to change : Business is constantly changing, and business leaders need to adapt. Creative problem-solving helps overcome unforeseen challenges and find solutions to unconventional problems.
• Fueling innovation and growth : In addition to solutions, creative problem-solving can spark innovative ideas that drive company growth. These ideas can lead to new product lines, services, or a modified operations structure that improves efficiency.

Creative problem-solving is traditionally based on the following key principles :

1. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-solving uses two primary tools to find solutions: divergence and convergence. Divergence generates ideas in response to a problem, while convergence narrows them down to a shortlist. It balances these two practices and turns ideas into concrete solutions.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

By framing problems as questions, you shift from focusing on obstacles to solutions. This provides the freedom to brainstorm potential ideas.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

When brainstorming, it can be natural to reject or accept ideas right away. Yet, immediate judgments interfere with the idea generation process. Even ideas that seem implausible can turn into outstanding innovations upon further exploration and development.

4. Focus on "Yes, And" Instead of "No, But"

Using negative words like "no" discourages creative thinking. Instead, use positive language to build and maintain an environment that fosters the development of creative and innovative ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Whereas creative problem-solving facilitates developing innovative ideas through a less structured workflow, design thinking takes a far more organized approach.

Design thinking is a human-centered, solutions-based process that fosters the ideation and development of solutions. In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase framework to explain design thinking.

The four stages are:

• Clarify: The clarification stage allows you to empathize with the user and identify problems. Observations and insights are informed by thorough research. Findings are then reframed as problem statements or questions.
• Ideate: Ideation is the process of coming up with innovative ideas. The divergence of ideas involved with creative problem-solving is a major focus.
• Develop: In the development stage, ideas evolve into experiments and tests. Ideas converge and are explored through prototyping and open critique.
• Implement: Implementation involves continuing to test and experiment to refine the solution and encourage its adoption.

Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

While there are many useful tools in the creative problem-solving process, here are three you should know:

Creating a Problem Story

One way to innovate is by creating a story about a problem to understand how it affects users and what solutions best fit their needs. Here are the steps you need to take to use this tool properly.

1. Identify a UDP

Create a problem story to identify the undesired phenomena (UDP). For example, consider a company that produces printers that overheat. In this case, the UDP is "our printers overheat."

2. Move Forward in Time

To move forward in time, ask: “Why is this a problem?” For example, minor damage could be one result of the machines overheating. In more extreme cases, printers may catch fire. Don't be afraid to create multiple problem stories if you think of more than one UDP.

3. Move Backward in Time

To move backward in time, ask: “What caused this UDP?” If you can't identify the root problem, think about what typically causes the UDP to occur. For the overheating printers, overuse could be a cause.

Following the three-step framework above helps illustrate a clear problem story:

• The printer is overused.
• The printer overheats.
• The printer breaks down.

You can extend the problem story in either direction if you think of additional cause-and-effect relationships.

4. Break the Chains

By this point, you’ll have multiple UDP storylines. Take two that are similar and focus on breaking the chains connecting them. This can be accomplished through inversion or neutralization.

• Inversion: Inversion changes the relationship between two UDPs so the cause is the same but the effect is the opposite. For example, if the UDP is "the more X happens, the more likely Y is to happen," inversion changes the equation to "the more X happens, the less likely Y is to happen." Using the printer example, inversion would consider: "What if the more a printer is used, the less likely it’s going to overheat?" Innovation requires an open mind. Just because a solution initially seems unlikely doesn't mean it can't be pursued further or spark additional ideas.
• Neutralization: Neutralization completely eliminates the cause-and-effect relationship between X and Y. This changes the above equation to "the more or less X happens has no effect on Y." In the case of the printers, neutralization would rephrase the relationship to "the more or less a printer is used has no effect on whether it overheats."

Even if creating a problem story doesn't provide a solution, it can offer useful context to users’ problems and additional ideas to be explored. Given that divergence is one of the fundamental practices of creative problem-solving, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into each tool you use.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that can be highly effective when guided by the iterative qualities of the design thinking process. It involves openly discussing and debating ideas and topics in a group setting. This facilitates idea generation and exploration as different team members consider the same concept from multiple perspectives.

Hosting brainstorming sessions can result in problems, such as groupthink or social loafing. To combat this, leverage a three-step brainstorming method involving divergence and convergence :

• Have each group member come up with as many ideas as possible and write them down to ensure the brainstorming session is productive.
• Continue the divergence of ideas by collectively sharing and exploring each idea as a group. The goal is to create a setting where new ideas are inspired by open discussion.
• Begin the convergence of ideas by narrowing them down to a few explorable options. There’s no "right number of ideas." Don't be afraid to consider exploring all of them, as long as you have the resources to do so.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool is an empathetic approach to creative problem-solving. It encourages you to consider how someone in another world would approach your situation.

For example, if you’re concerned that the printers you produce overheat and catch fire, consider how a different industry would approach the problem. How would an automotive expert solve it? How would a firefighter?

Be creative as you consider and research alternate worlds. The purpose is not to nail down a solution right away but to continue the ideation process through diverging and exploring ideas.

Continue Developing Your Skills

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or business leader, learning the ropes of design thinking can be an effective way to build your skills and foster creativity and innovation in any setting.

If you're ready to develop your design thinking and creative problem-solving skills, explore Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

About the Author

• Josh Singer
• Jun 24, 2021

The Rise Of Design Thinking As A Problem Solving Strategy

• 18 min read
• UX , Design , Product Strategy
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About The Author

Josh Singer is a UX Designer and former Math Editor at Renaissance Learning , where he has worked on products and written content for educators and students … More about Josh ↬

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Having spent the last 20 years in the world of educational technology working on products for educators and students, I have learned to understand teachers and administrators as designers themselves, who use a wide set of tools and techniques to craft learning experiences for students. I have come to believe that by extending this model and framing all users as designers, we are able to mine our own experiences to gain a deeper empathy for their struggles. In doing so, we can develop strategies to set our user-designers up to successfully deal with change and uncertainty.

If you are a designer, or if you have worked with designers any time in the last decade, you are probably familiar with the term “design thinking.” Typically, design thinking is represented by a series of steps that looks something like this:

There are many variations of this diagram, reflective of the multitude of ways that the process can be implemented. It is typically a months-long undertaking that begins with empathy: we get to know a group of people by immersing ourselves in a specific context to understand their tasks, pain points, and motivations. From there, we take stock of our observations, looking for patterns, themes, and opportunities, solidifying the definition of the problem we wish to solve. Then, we iteratively ideate, prototype, and test solutions until we arrive at one we like (or until we run out of time).

Ultimately, the whole process boils down to a simple purpose: to solve a problem. This is not a new purpose, of course, and not unique to those of us with “Designer” in our job titles. In fact, while design thinking is not exactly the same as the scientific method we learned in school, it bears an uncanny resemblance:

By placing design thinking within this lineage, we equate the designer with the scientist, the one responsible for facilitating the discovery and delivery of the solution.

At its best, design thinking is highly collaborative. It brings together people from across the organization and often from outside of it, so that a diverse group, including those whose voices are not usually heard, can participate. It centers the needs and emotions of those we hope to serve. Hopefully, it pulls us out of our own experiences and biases, opening us up to new ways of thinking and shining a light on new perspectives. At its worst, when design thinking is dogmatically followed or cynically applied, it becomes a means of gatekeeping, imposing a rigid structure and set of rules that leave little room for approaches to design that do not conform to an exclusionary set of cultural standards.

Its relative merits, faults, and occasional high-profile critiques notwithstanding, design thinking has become orthodoxy in the world of software development, where not using it feels tantamount to malpractice. No UX Designer’s portfolio is complete without a well-lit photo capturing a group of eager problem solvers in the midst of the “Define” step, huddled together, gazing thoughtfully at a wall covered in colorful sticky notes . My colleagues and I use it frequently, sticky notes and all, as we work on products in EdTech.

Like “lean,” the design thinking methodology has quickly spread beyond the software industry into the wider world. Today you can find it in elementary schools , in nonprofits , and at the center of innovation labs housed in local governments .

Amidst all of the hoopla, it is easy to overlook a central assumption of design thinking, which seems almost too obvious to mention: the existence of a solution . The process rests on the premise that, once the steps have been carried out, the state of the problem changes from ‘unsolved’ to ‘solved.’ While this problem-solution framework is undeniably effective, it is also incomplete. If we zoom out , we can see the limits of our power as designers, and then we can consider what those limits mean for how we approach our work.

Chaos And The Limits Of Problem Solving

An unchecked belief in our ability to methodically solve big problems can lead to some pretty grandiose ideas. In his book, Chaos: Making a New Science , James Gleick describes a period in the 1950s and ’60s when, as computing and satellite technologies continued to advance, a large, international group of scientists embarked on a project that, in hindsight, sounds absurd. Their goal was not only to accurately predict, but also to control the weather:

“There was an idea that human society would free itself from weather’s turmoil and become its master instead of its victim. Geodesic domes would cover cornfields. Airplanes would seed the clouds. Scientists would learn how to make rain and how to stop it.” — “Chaos: Making a New Science,” James Gleick

It is easy to scoff at their hubris now, but at the time it was a natural result of an ever-heightening faith that, with science, no problem is too big to solve. What those scientists did not account for is a phenomenon commonly known as the butterfly effect, which is now a central pillar of the field of chaos theory. The butterfly effect describes the inherent volatility that arises in complex and interconnected systems. It gets its name from a famous illustration of the principle: a butterfly flapping its wings and creating tiny disturbances in the air around it on one side of the globe today can cause a hurricane tomorrow on the other. Studies have shown that the butterfly effect impacts everything in society from politics and the economy to trends in fashion .

Our Chaotic Systems

If we accept that, like the climate, the social systems in which we design and build solutions are complex and unpredictable, a tension becomes apparent. Design thinking exists in a context that is chaotic and unpredictable by nature, and yet the act of predicting is central. By prototyping and testing , we are essentially gathering evidence about what the outcome of our design will be, and whether it will effectively solve the problem we have defined. The process ends when we feel confident in our prediction and happy with the result.

I want to take pains to point out again that this approach is not wrong! We should trust the process to confirm that our designs are useful and usable in the immediate sense. At the same time, whenever we deliver a solution, we are like the butterfly flapping its wings, contributing (along with countless others) to a constant stream of change. So while the short-term result is often predictable, the longer-term outlook for the system as a whole, and for how long our solution will hold as the system changes, is unknowable.

Impermanence

As we use design thinking to solve problems, how do we deal with the fact that our solutions are built to address conditions that will change in ways we can’t plan for?

One basic thing we can do is to maintain awareness of the impermanence of our work, recognizing that it was built to meet the needs of a specific moment in time . It is more akin to a tree fort constructed in the woods than to a castle fortress made from stone. While the castle may take years to build and last for centuries, impervious to the weather while protecting its inhabitants from all of the chaos that exists outside its walls, the tree fort, even if well-designed and constructed, is directly connected to and at the mercy of its environment. While a tree fort may shelter us from the rain, we do not build it with the expectation that it will last forever, only with the hope that it will serve us well while it’s here. Hopefully, through the experience of building it, we continue to learn and improve.

The fact that our work is impermanent does not diminish its importance, nor does it give us the license to be sloppy. It means that the ability to quickly and consistently adapt and evolve without sacrificing functional or aesthetic quality is core to the job, which is one reason why design systems , which provide consistent and high-quality reusable patterns and components, are crucial.

Designing For User-Designers

A more fundamental way to deal with the impermanence of our work is to rethink our self-image as designers. If we identify only as problem solvers, then our work becomes obsolete quickly and suddenly as conditions change, while in the meantime our users must wait helplessly to be rescued with the next solution. In reality, our users are compelled to adapt and design their own solutions, using whatever tools they have at their disposal. In effect, they are their own designers, and so our task shifts from delivering full, fixed solutions to providing our user-designers with useful and usable tools specific to their needs .

In thinking from this perspective, we can gain empathy for our users by understanding our place as equals on a continuum, each of us relying on others, just as others rely on us.

Key Principles To Center The Needs Of User-Designers

Below are some things to consider when designing for user-designers. In the spirit of the user-designer continuum and of finding the universal in the specific, in the examples below I draw on my experience from both sides of the relationship. First, from my work as a designer in the EdTech space, in which educators rely on people like me to produce tools that enable them to design learning experiences for students. Second, as a user of the products, I rely on them in my daily UX work.

1. Don’t Lock In The Value

It is crucial to have a clear understanding of why someone would use your product in the first place, and then make sure not to get in the way. While there is a temptation to keep that value contained so that users must remain in your product to reap all of the benefits, we should resist that mindset.

Remember that your product is likely just one tool in a larger set, and our users rely on their tools to be compatible with each other as they design their own coherent, holistic solutions. Whereas the designer-as-problem-solver is inclined to build a self-contained solution, jealously locking value within their product, the designer-for-designers facilitates the free flow of information and continuity of task completion between tools however our user-designers choose to use them. By sharing the value, not only do we elevate its source, we give our users full use of their toolbox.

An Example As A Designer Of EdTech Products:

In student assessment applications, like in many other types of applications, the core value is the data. In other words, the fundamental reason schools administer assessments is to learn about student achievement and growth. Once that data is captured, there are all sorts of ways we can then use it to make intelligent, research-based recommendations around tasks like setting student goals, creating instructional groups, and assigning practice. To be clear, we do try very hard to support all of it in our products, often by using design thinking. Ultimately, though, it all starts with the data.

In practice, teachers often have a number of options to choose from when completing their tasks, and they have their own valid reasons for their preferences. Anything from state requirements to school policy to personal working style may dictate their approach to, say, student goal setting. If — out of a desire to keep people in our product — we make it extra difficult for teachers to use data from our assessments to set goals outside of our product (say, in a spreadsheet), then instead of increasing our value, we have added inconvenience and frustration. The lesson, in this case, is not to lock up the data! Ironically, by hoarding it, we make it less valuable. By providing educators with easy and flexible ways to get it out, we unlock its power.

An Example As A User Of Design Tools:

I tend to switch between tools as I go through the design thinking process based on the core value each tool provides. All of these tools are equally essential to the process, and I count on them to work together as I move between phases so that I don’t have to build from scratch at every step. For example, the core value I get from Sketch is mostly in the “Ideation” phase, in that it allows me to brainstorm quickly and freely so that I can try out multiple ideas in a short amount of time. By making it easy for me to bring ideas from that product into a more heavy-duty prototyping application like Axure , instead of locking them inside, Sketch saves me time and frustration and increases my attachment to it. If, for competitive reasons, those tools ceased to cooperate, I would be much more likely to drop one or both.

2. Use Established Patterns

It is always important to remember Jakob’s Law , which states simply that users spend more time on other sites than they spend on yours. If they are accustomed to engaging with information or accomplishing a task a certain way and you ask them to do it differently, they will not view it as an exciting opportunity to learn something new. They will be resentful. Scaling the learning curve is usually painful and frustrating. While it is possible to improve or even replace established patterns, it’s a very tall order . In a world full of unpredictability, consistent and predictable patterns among tools create harmony between experiences.

By following conventions around data visualization in a given domain, we make it easy for users to switch and compare between sources. In the context of education, it is common to display student progress in a graph of test scores over time, with the score scale represented on the vertical axis and the timeline along the horizontal axis. In other words, a scatter plot or line graph, often with one or two more dimensions represented, maybe by color or dot size. Through repeated, consistent exposure, even the most data-phobic teachers can easily and immediately interpret this data visualization and craft a narrative around it.

You could hold a sketching activity during the “Ideate” phase of design thinking in which you brainstorm dozens of other ways to present the same information. Some of those ideas would undoubtedly be interesting and cool, and might even surface new and useful insights. This would be a worthwhile activity! In all likelihood, though, the best decision would not be to replace the accepted pattern. While it can be useful to explore other approaches, ultimately the most benefit is usually derived from using patterns that people already understand and are used to across a variety of products and contexts.

In my role, I often need to quickly learn new UX software, either to facilitate collaboration with designers from outside of my organization or when my team decides to adopt something new. When that happens, I rely heavily on established patterns of visual language to quickly get from the learning phase to the productive phase. Where there is consistency, there is relief and understanding. Where there is a divergence for no clear reason, there is frustration. If a product team decided to rethink the standard alignment palette, for example, in the name of innovation, it would almost certainly make the product more difficult to adopt while failing to provide any benefit.

3. Build For Flexibility

As an expert in your given domain, you might have strong, research-based positions on how certain tasks should be done, and a healthy desire to build those best practices into your product. If you have built up trust with your users, then adding guidance and guardrails directly into the workflow can be powerful. Remember, though, that it is only guidance. The user-designer knows when those best practices apply and when they should be ignored. While we should generally avoid overwhelming our users with choices , we should strive for flexibility whenever possible.

An Example As A Designer Of EdTech Products

Many EdTech products provide mechanisms for setting student learning goals. Generally, teachers appreciate being given recommendations and smart defaults when completing this task, knowing that there is a rich body of research that can help determine a reasonable range of expectations for a given student based on their historical performance and the larger data set from their peers. Providing that guidance in a simple, understandable format is generally beneficial and appreciated. But, we as designers are removed from the individual students and circumstances, as well as the ever-changing needs and requirements driving educators’ goal-setting decisions. We can build recommendations into the happy path and make enacting them as painless as possible, but the user needs an easy way to edit our guidance or to reject it altogether.

The ability to create a library of reusable objects in most UX applications has made them orders of magnitude more efficient. Knowing that I can pull in a pre-made, properly-branded UI element as needed, rather than creating one from scratch, is a major benefit. Often, in the “Ideate” phase of design thinking, I can use these pre-made components in their fully generic form simply to communicate the main idea and hierarchy of a layout. But, when it’s time to fill in the details for high-fidelity prototyping and testing, the ability to override the default text and styling, or even detach the object from its library and make more drastic changes, may become necessary. Having the flexibility to start quickly and then progressively customize lets me adapt rapidly as conditions change, and helps make moving between the design thinking steps quick and easy.

4. Help Your User-Designers Build Empathy For Their Users

When thinking about our users as designers, one key question is: who are they designing for? In many cases, they are designing solutions for themselves, and so their designer-selves naturally empathize with and understand the problems of their user-selves. In other cases, though, they are designing for another group of people altogether. In those situations, we can look for ways to help them think like designers and develop empathy for their users.

For educators, the users are the students. One way to help them center the needs of their audience when they design experiences is to follow the standards of Universal Design for Learning , equipping educators to provide instructional material with multiple means of engagement (i.e., use a variety of strategies to drive motivation for learning), multiple means of representation (i.e., accommodate students’ different learning styles and backgrounds), and multiple means of action and expression (i.e., support different ways for students to interact with instructional material and demonstrate learning). These guidelines open up approaches to learning and nudge users to remember that all of the ways their audience engages with practice and instruction must be supported.

Anything a tool can do to encourage design decisions that center accessibility is hugely helpful, in that it reminds us to consider those who face the most barriers to using our products. While some commonly-used UX tools do include functionality for creating alt-text for images, setting a tab order for keyboard navigation, and enabling responsive layouts for devices of various sizes, there is an opportunity for these tools to do much more. I would love to see built-in accessibility checks that would help us identify potential issues as early in the process as possible.

Hopefully, by applying the core principles of unlocking value, leveraging established patterns, understanding the individual’s need for flexibility , and facilitating empathy in our product design, we can help set our users up to adapt to unforeseen changes. By treating our users as designers in their own right, not only do we recognize and account for the complexity and unpredictability of their environment, we also start to see them as equals.

While those of us with the word “Designer” in our official job title do have a specific and necessary role, we are not gods, handing down solutions from on high, but fellow strugglers trying to navigate a complex, dynamic, stormy world. Nobody can control the weather , but we can make great galoshes, raincoats, and umbrellas.

Further Reading

• If you’re interested in diving into the fascinating world of chaos theory, James Gleick’s book Chaos: Making a New Science , which I quoted in this article, is a wonderful place to start.
• Jon Kolko wrote a great piece in 2015 on the emergence of design thinking in business, in which he describes its main principles and benefits. In a subsequent article from 2017, he considers the growing backlash as organizations have stumbled and taken shortcuts when attempting to put theory into practice, and what the lasting impact may be. An important takeaway here is that, in treating everyone as a designer, we run the risk of downplaying the importance of the professional Designer’s specific skill set. We should recognize that, while it is useful to think of teachers (or any of our users) as designers, the day-to-day tools, methods, and goals are entirely different.
• In the article Making Sense in the Data Economy , Hugh Dubberly and Paul Pangaro describe the emerging challenges and complexities of the designer’s role in moving from the manufacture of physical products to the big data frontier. With this change, the focus shifts from designing finished products (solutions) to maintaining complex and dynamic platforms, and the concept of “meta-design” — designing the systems in which others operate — emerges.
• To keep exploring the ever-evolving strategies of designing for designers, search Smashing Magazine and your other favorite UX resources for ideas on interoperability, consistency, flexibility, and accessibility!

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Design is more than problem solving

Dennis Hambeukers

Design Leadership Notebook

Under the banner of the term design thinking, design has been going through a transformation this past decade. More and more people are discovering the power of design to solve problems. The way that designers think, turns out to be a good addition to the traditional thinking in businesses when it comes to solving (business) problems. Especially when it comes to problems that require navigating uncertainty in complex situations.

So design has moved more into the problem solving space. It’s not like designers weren’t solving problems before, but this was limited to “design problems”. Design problems are problems one would traditionally call a designer to solve: graphic design, interface design, interaction design, industrial design, architectural design. I don’t want to over-generalize, but the focus had been on solving problems around form, esthetics, interaction, space. Design thinking created an opening for designers to move from the more esthetically focused space to the problem solving space. Designer solve problems in a certain way and that way could now be transported to other fields of problem solving. In a previous essay , I visualized it like this:

By focussing on the thinking part of design, design could move into a broader problem solving space. Hence the statement that design is problem solving. It is. Design solves design problems. And since the popularity of design thinking has created new opportunities, design also solves other problems. Especially creating and visualizing things boosts the problem solving ability of a group of people. The creativity and outside-the-box thinking of designers also helps.

But design is more than problem solving.

Design is making the world more beautiful

If we just focus on the problem solving ability of design, we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Design is also still about making beautiful things, solving design problems. This is still a super valuable service. And it is actually the foundation of the design-as-problem-solving proposition. Lots of people that enter into the design thinking space lack these foundational design skills and that makes a difference . Thinking like a designer without the foundational design skills is something different than thinking like a designer when you are a designer. Herbert Simon is famous for stating that everyone is a designer that devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. That definition of design is way too broad for me. For design as problem solving to work, it needs design skills.

• Design as esthetics is still a valuable proposition for design. Making the world more beautiful is what we will always need more of.
• Design has always solved problems, now those skills and mindsets are transported to other areas. That makes design as esthetics foundational for design as problem solving.

Design is question finding

But design is even more than problem solving and making the world more beautiful. If you know about design, you have probably seen somebody explain design using Design Council’s famous Double Diamond at one point. To refresh you memory, it looks something like this:

Most people see design as just the second diamond: problem solving. Most clients approach a designer with a problem definition a.k.a. a design brief. They already know what the problem is and want a (team of) designer(s) to solve it for them. If that is actually the right problem, great. Experience tells us that that is not always the case. More often than not, new insights about the problem at hand arise during the solving of the problem. That is why designers often propose to go into the first diamond first to investigate the problem and possibly redefine the problem. This prevents them from designing a brilliant solution for the wrong problem. That can be very expensive. The goal of the first diamond is to make sure we are solving the right problem, find the right question. Most innovations and complex problems benefit hugely from going through the first diamond. In his recent Harvard Business Review article , Art Markman argues that the quality of our problem framing determines the success of your solution.

How You Define the Problem Determines Whether You Solve It

Typical stories of creativity and invention focus on finding novel ways to solve problems. james dyson found a way to…, why is design so good at finding the right questions.

Finding the right questions might be a bigger problem than you think. In a recent Harvard Business Review article , Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg found that 85% of C-suite executives agreed that their organizations were bad at problem finding. We are all trained in school to solve problems. But finding problems, finding the right questions is not a skill that is taught in schools. Maybe if you studied philosophy, you are good at this but most curricula don’t train people to find questions. And philosophers have a tendency to good too deep for practical business purposes. I have always seen design as a type of practical philosophy. Philosophy is a cerebral activity. It often helps to manifest things into the world to make this clear, to uncover new insights. That is what design does. By making things, prototyping, you uncover new things about your problem, about the questions you should be answering. In my experience, if you ask stakeholders (including users) what the problem is we should be solving, what the question is that we need to answer, with a prototype of sorts in hand, this yields far better results. People’s brains work like this. If you create a solution, people can easily indicate if this solves the problem in the correct way. This way you can dig deeper into the problem, find the problem behind the problem, the questions that need answers.

Are You Solving the Right Problems?

In brief the issue many c-suite executives (85% of those surveyed) say their companies struggle with problem diagnosis….

Solve the right problem

If you use design to find questions, you can add the most value. Because you are solving the right problem.

Solve the problem right

But this is not where it ends. Even if you are solving the right problem, execution is the other key. Rumor has it that lost of people invented Facebook, but only one company succeeded. In today’s market, the company that solves the right problem best (with the best user experience), wins. So “traditional” design skills are needed to solve this right problem once you found it. A bad solution to the right problem is more valuable than a good solution to the wrong problem. But a good solution to the right problem wins.

The connection

One can also see the three things that design is as operational ( beauty), tactical (problem solving) and strategic (question finding). As with any strategy, the crux is the connection between the levels: finding the right question, solving it in a good way and make it look good. All three levels are important and should work in harmony. Making it look good is such an important part. Things that look good work better. But here you run the risk of just polishing the surface of a bad solution. You also have to come up with a solution that solves the problem in the right way. But if you solved the wrong problem, it also doesn’t work. In order to create the right solution, you need to have a deep understanding of the question that needs to be answered. If designers use the question finding mindset, the solutions they design will have far more impact.

So design is all of the above , all three levels working in unity. The hands (problem/functional/what), the heart (beauty/love/how), and the head (question/direction/why). Stating that design is problem solving is ignoring the other two parts. We need to state that design is problem solving to educate people on what design is but don’t forget the beauty part. And the next level is stating that design is problem finding without forgetting about problem solving and creating beauty. Good design is all of that as one.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, don’t forget to hit the clap button so I know I connected with you. Let me know what you think in the comments. I will dive deeper into the topics of Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :) You can also find me on Instagram .

Written by Dennis Hambeukers

Design Thinker, Agile Evangelist, Practical Strategist, Creativity Facilitator, Business Artist, Corporate Rebel, Product Owner, Chaos Pilot, Humble Warrior

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Problem Solving By Design

In his book managing to learn , john shook deconstructs the problem-solving journey of one manager and his mentor, and the management mechanism that guided them. the backstory shook knows the journey firsthand..

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Image courtesy of Toyota.

In 1983 , a young American named John Shook went to Japan to work for Toyota. He’d been to Japan before, was a student of lean management principles, and was already attracted to Japanese ideas about process improvement, quality and distributed responsibility. But (he admits this now) he still didn’t know what he was getting into. He was about to encounter The Way.

The leading question

At Toyota, John Shook learned the A3 problem-solving process from the inside. What surprised him?

• Almost always, the problem you face is different from the one you thought you were facing.
• Most of us are so eager to find (and deliver) the solution to a problem that we jump to conclusions instead of truly investigating to the problem’s root.
• The A3 process provides a framework for learning in the “place where the work occurs.”

Shook was the only Westerner in Toyota City then, and he was initiated and trained like any other fresh arrival — hammered into shape on the forge of something called the A3 report. “Every newly hired college-graduate employee began learning his job by being coached through the A3 process,” Shook recalls. “The employee would arrive at his new desk to find waiting for him a problem, a mentor and a process for learning how to solve that problem. The entire process was structured around PDCA [plan, do, check, act] and captured in the A3.”

“A3,” he discovered, was for starters just the international term for an 11-inch by 17-inch sheet of paper.

But at Toyota it had come to stand for something else: a process, a way of thinking and communicating, a way of learning, a way of getting things done and a way of attempting to create an entire organization of problem solvers. “Toyota’s insight many years ago was that every issue in an organization should be described, analyzed and solved on a single sheet of paper that everyone touching the matter can see,” says Shook.

Specifically, says Shook, the A3:

• depicts an issue;
• analyzes the situation and its underlying causes;
• identifies the required outcome;
• proposes some corrective actions;
• prescribes an action plan (who will do what when); and
• creates a follow-up review process — all in one integrated document.

(In “Toyota’s Secret: the A3 Report”, you can see a sample A3, annotated and explained by Shook.)

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How to Solve Your Company’s Toughest Problems

A conversation with Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei on how to solve any problem in five clear steps.

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You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Move fast and break things.” But Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei says speed and experimentation are not enough on their own. Instead, she argues that you should move fast and fix things. (That’s also the topic and title of the book she coauthored with Anne Morriss .)

In this episode, Frei explains how you can solve any problem in five clear steps. First, she says, start by identifying the real problem holding you back. Then move on to building trust and relationships, followed by a narrative for your solution — before you begin implementing it.

Key episode topics include: leadership, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

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HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “move fast and break things.” It refers to a certain approach for rapid innovation that was popularized in Silicon Valley and invoked by many tech firms. But Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei says that speed and experimentation are not enough on their own. Instead, Frei argues that you should “move fast and fix things.” That’s the topic and title of the book she co-authored with Anne Morriss.

In this episode, Harvard Business Review’s editorial audience director Nicole Smith sits down with Frei to discuss how you can solve any problem in five quick steps. You’ll learn how to start by uncovering your true problem. Then, move on to build trust, relationships, and a narrative for your solution before you dive in on the actual work of implementing your fix.

This conversation was originally part of HBR’s “Future of Business” virtual conference in November 2023. Here it is.

FRANCES FREI: So, I would love to talk to you about how to move fast and fix things. And I’ll tell you the reason that Anne and I wrote this book – and it’s really a quest we’ve been on – is that Mark Zuckerberg, in his IPO for Facebook, famously said, “we’re going to move fast and break things.” And the problem with that is that it gave the world a false trade-off. It convinced so many of us that you could either move fast and break things or you could take care of people, one or the other. And we have found that there is a third, much better way. And that is, we can move even faster if we fix things along the way. And so, that’s what I’d love to talk to you about right now. And the way that we think about this is that if you want to move fast and fix things, we have to do it on a foundation of trust. And so, the first thing to do is to experience high trust. And we’re going to talk about how to build trust. But the way we see the world can be described in this grid. And in the presence of trust, we can move really fast. That’s how we move fast and fix things. We call it accelerating excellence. It’s only when we’re in the presence of low trust that we move fast and break things, or what we call being reckless disruption. And as I said, so many organizations are afraid of reckless disruption that they actually end up in this state of responsible stewardship, which is really just going slowly. And so, we wrote the book to get those that are in responsible stewardship to realize that we could go across the way to accelerating excellence. And we didn’t have to go down to reckless disruption. So, the way that we think about this, and it’s the way we wrote the book, is that there’s a five-step plan to do it. We organized the book for days of the week. We think that the metabolic rate of organizations can be improved significantly and that many, many hard problems can be solved in just one week. So, we wrote the book in the structure of a week. Step one is we have to find our real problem, that if we’re… for far too many of us, we’re addressing the symptom and not the cause. At any problem, there’s going to be trust broken at the bottom of it. And we’re going to solve for trust. We’re then going to learn how to get more perspectives to make our plans even better. Learn how to tell a narrative that works. And then, and only then, on Friday, do we get to go as fast as we can. And what typically happens in the move fast and break things is that we move Friday too forward in the week. So, our goal is to put ourselves in a position to move fast. And you have to wait till Friday to do that. So, what do I mean by finding the real problem? Most of us, a problem gets presented as a symptom. So, I’ll give you a recent example that got presented to me and Anne. We got called by a company. And they said, we’re having a gender problem. Will you come in and help us? And we’ve been able to help many organizations solve gender problems. So, we go in there. And we just wanted to make sure that they really did have a gender problem. The symptoms were super clear. There were no women at the top of the organization. Not very many women were coming into the organization. And great women were leaving the organization. So, they had… it looked like a gender problem. But it took, I don’t know, an hour. It took 60 minutes, certainly not even all of Monday, to uncover that their actual problem was not a gender problem. Their actual problem was a communication problem. And if we did all of the things that we know exist in our gender tool kit on how to fix gender, that would have all been wasted effort. But instead, what we found out is that the founders of this organization, and they were two cofounders, and they were very similar to each other, and they’d worked together and known each other for decades. They had a really uncomfortably and aggressively direct communication style. That communication style repelled all women and most men. So yes, the symptoms were gender. But oh, my goodness, the cause was that the two founders were succumbing to a problem many of us succumb to, which is, we were treating others as we like to be treated. They loved to be treated with aggressively direct communication. But nobody else loved it. And when we simply confronted them with that and taught them that instead of treating others as you want to be treated, now it’s a puzzle. Find out how they want to be treated, and treat them that way. Gets fixed. And all of a sudden, women and lots of other men are flowing to the organization. So, Monday… and we take a whole day for this. Let’s make sure we’re solving the real problem. And symptoms are rarely the cause. So, we just want to do some due diligence, some due diligence there. Once we know we’re solving for the real problem, there’s going to be trust broken down somewhere in the… amidst the problem. Well, very fortunately, we now understand trust super well. If I’m going to earn your trust, you will have an involuntary reaction of trusting me if you experience my authenticity, logic, and empathy all at the same time. When these three things are present, you will trust me. But if any one of these three is missing, you will not trust me. And here’s the catch. If trust is broken, and we know it’s only ever broken for one of these three reasons, we need to know which of the three, because the prescriptions to solve a broken authenticity pillar versus logic pillar versus empathy pillar, they’re entirely different from one another. So, you can think about rebuilding trust. It’s just a matching game. Know which one is at stake. And then bring in the curated prescription for that. There is a myth about trust that it takes a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy. And then you can never rebuild it. None of those things are true, that we can actually build trust very quickly when we understand the architecture of it. We can rebuild it quickly and just as strong as it was before. So, this notion that trust is a Faberge egg, it’s catchy and not true. Trust is being rebuilt all the time. But we want to do it with a deep understanding of the stable architecture. So, Tuesday takes all day. We solve for trust. On Wednesday, we call Wednesday making new friends. And what we mean by that is whichever collection of people you bring to the table who are the people that maybe are on your senior team or the people that you bring to the table to solve problems. And here, I’ve represented a table. And there’s eight check marks for eight seats. I encourage you to bring four extra chairs to that table. If you have eight seats, bring four extra chairs. Point to the extra chairs and ask yourself, who’s not here? Who has a stake in our problem who’s not represented at the table? I was recently in a conversation with our senior colleagues at the Harvard Business School. And we were talking about how to do junior faculty development. And we came up with what we thought were great ideas. And then we looked around and we were like, Oh, my goodness, there’s no junior faculty here. How on Earth do we know if these are good ideas? So, we got the empty seats. We invited people in. And sure enough, the junior faculty helped improve our plans dramatically. The equivalent of that always happens. So, on Wednesday, we want to make new friends. So, one is inviting them into the room. But then the second part is, how do you make sure that their voices are heard? And what we need to do is that when someone comes to the room, they’re going to be awfully tempted to say things that they think we want to hear. They’re going to be awfully tempted to conform to what we’re already saying. So, what we need to do is learn how to be inclusive of their unique voices. And the way we do that is by going through this four-step progressive process, which is, first, we have to make sure they feel safe and that they feel… they’re going to feel physically and emotionally safe, I’m sure, but that they feel psychologically safe. And that’s a shout-out to Amy Edmondson and all of her beautiful work there. But we have to make sure that we feel safe. Once we feel safe, then it’s our job to make sure that the new voices feel welcome. You can think of that as table stakes. Then when we’re doing is we’re really trying to move people up the inclusion dial. And here, this is when it really starts to make a big difference. And now what we want to do is make sure that they feel celebrated for their unique contribution. And so, what we’re doing is moving them up the inclusion dial. Now, here’s why that’s kind of hard. Most of us tend to celebrate sameness. And here, I’m asking you to celebrate uniqueness. And what I mean by celebrating sameness is that for the most part, like, when I watch my students in class, if one student says something, and then another student was going to say that, after class, they go and seek out the first person. And they’re like, you’re awesome. You said what I was going to say. They didn’t realize this. They’re celebrating sameness. They’re encouraging sameness. So, what I do is I advise my students to not share that verbal treat, that what we playfully refer to as a Scooby snack. Don’t share that Scooby snack for when somebody says something you were going to say. Share it for when somebody says something you could never have said on your own, and that it comes from their lived experience and learned experience, and how they metabolize successes and failures, and their ambition, if they’re lucky enough to have neurodiversity, their worldview, all of that. It’s a beautiful cocktail. Wait till they say something that comes uniquely from all of that. Celebrate that. When we celebrate uniqueness, that’s when we get the blossoming of the perspectives. And what we want to do to make somebody really feel included is we celebrate them when they are in our presence. But if you really want somebody to feel included, and we bring folks into the room for this, make sure that you champion them when they’re in the absence. So, let’s not just ask the junior faculty to come along. Or if it’s a senior team, and it’s mostly men, and the board of directors is coming in, and we’re like, oh, goodness. Let’s make sure we can show some women too. So, we bring some women along. We celebrate them in our presence. Let’s make sure that we champion them in our absence as well, which is celebrate their uniqueness in our presence and champion them in rooms that they’re not yet allowed into in their absence. So that’s Wednesday. Let’s make new friends. Let’s include their voices. Let’s champion those new voices in their absence. Thursday, we tell a good story. And stories have three parts to it: past, present, and future. It is really important – if you’re going to change something, if you’re going to fix something, it is critical to honor the past. People that were here before us, if they don’t feel like we see the past, we see them, we’re honoring the past, I promise you, they’re going to hold us back. And they’re going to be like The Godfather movie and keep pulling us back. So, we have to honor the past with clear eyes, both the good part of the past and the bad part of the past. Then we have to answer the question, why should we change now? Like, why shouldn’t we change maybe next week, maybe the week after, maybe the month after, maybe next year? So, it’s really important that we give a clear and compelling change mandate that answers the question, why now? Why not in a little while? I find that if you’re a retailer, and you have the metaphor of Walmart just opened up next door, clear, compelling. We have to… that should be our metaphor. How can we be, with as crisp of a language, clear and compelling about why now? And then we’ve honored the past. We have a clear and compelling change mandate. You want people to follow us in the improved future, we have to have a super rigorous and a super optimistic way forward. We have seen so many people be optimistic without rigor. Nobody’s going to follow. And similarly, rigor without optimism, also, nobody’s going to follow. So, it’s our job to keep refining and refining and refining until we can be both rigorous and optimistic. Now, how do we know when our plan is working? Well, here are the four parts of storytelling that we know. Our job is to understand this plan so deeply that we can describe it simply. When we describe it, we want to make sure if I describe it to you, and you describe it to the next person, that the next person understands it as if I described it to them. So, our job is to understand so deeply that we can describe simply that it’s understood in our absence. And the ultimate test is it’s understood when they go home and share it with their family. They have the same understanding we want. We find this to be the four-stage litmus test to make sure we have been effective in our communication. And when people understand it this well, then they can act on it in our absence. And that’s when we’re now in the position to go as fast as we can. And when all of that infrastructure is in place, well, then we can go super fast. And there are all kinds of clever ways that we can do that. So, I look forward to opening this up and having a conversation with you.

NICOLE SMITH: That was excellent. Professor, we got several questions. I want to just dive right into it. Tessa asked, what tools, practices, and skills do you use to uncover the underlying superficial problems? It sounded like you talked a lot about questions and asking questions.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, it’s right. So, the Toyota production system would famously refer to the five whys. And they had… and that was root cause analysis, which we all know. But essentially, what they found is that it’s about five… why does this exist? Well, why does that exist? Well, why does that exist? Like, if you ask why five times, they found that that’s how you got to the root cause. We find, in practice, the answer is closer to three. It’s rarely one. So, it would be, the symptom and the cause are usually a few layers. And you want to keep asking why. So, that’s the first thing I would say, is that we want to have… make sure that you’re doing root cause analysis. But the second thing on a specific tool, the tool that we like the most, we call the indignities list. And what you do is that… and the way we found out the symptom is we went to women in this company, because that’s what… they said they were having a gender problem. And we asked the women, is there anything that’s going on at work that just… it feels like it’s just nicking your dignity? And it occurs for… is it happening to you, or you observe it happening to other women? So, you go in search of the indignities list. Every time we do this, you’ll get a list of issues. Often, they will sound trivial. When you start to get convergence on those indignities, we then ask you to convert those indignities to the dignity list. And in this case, it was the communication style. And you know what the awesome thing about that was? It was free.

NICOLE SMITH: Wow.

FRANCES FREI: You can’t beat free.

NICOLE SMITH: Monique asks, can you speak more about how to amplify others’ ideas and perspectives, especially when they’re from underrepresented stakeholders?

FRANCES FREI: Oh, I love that question. Thank you very much. And so, I’m going to go to… here is my favorite visual on the amplification part, which is the team I’ve drawn in the middle, it’s a three-person team. And each circle represents a person on the team. And I’m showing that there’s three circles in the middle, that those folks are very similar to one another. And then on either side, we have a team where there’s difference among us. And this is where the underrepresented might come in. If we’re not careful, when we have underrepresented voices, we’re only going to be seeking from them the parts that overlap with us. So, this is when we’ve invited them to the table, but we’re not inclusive of their voices. What we want to do is make sure that everybody feels comfortable bringing all of their richness to the table, not just the part that overlaps. And so, what we find we need to do is be very solicitous about… and same with questions. From your perspective, how does this sound to you? What else are we missing? What I’m trying to do is get you off the scent of saying what you think I want to say or even asking you to say what I want to say because it makes me feel better. But I want to be inclusive of all of the gorgeous uniqueness. And this, of course, ties to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which I know has gotten a rocky go of things in the press. But what I’ll tell you is, if I got to rewrite diversity, equity, and inclusion, I would have written it as inclusion, equity, and diversity, because I have seen teams bring… I have seen organizations bring in diverse and underrepresented talent and not get the benefit from it.

NICOLE SMITH: Yeah.

FRANCES FREI: So, diversity may or may not beget inclusion. But I have never, ever seen an organization that was inclusive that didn’t beget gorgeous diversity.

NICOLE SMITH: Right.

FRANCES FREI: So, be inclusive first.

NICOLE SMITH: I appreciate you saying that, not just sitting at the table, but actually including and giving lift to people’s voices. I also want to talk about this friends thing you keep talking about, making new friends. First of all, how do I identify who’s a friend?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. So, in this case, I want the friend to be someone who is as different from you as possible. So, the new friends. Like, who’s worthy of friendship? Not someone who you’re already attracted to, not somebody who you’re already hanging out with. So, here’s the thing about humans. We really like people who are really like us. It doesn’t make us bad people. But it just makes us human. And so, what I want you to do is seek difference. Find people from different perspectives. And that will be demographic difference, different lived experience, different learned experience. And so, if we’re senior faculty, let’s invite in junior faculty. If we’re all women, let’s invite in a man. If we’re all engineers, let’s make sure we’re bringing in the perspective of marketing. So, what I would say is my guiding principle is seek difference. Those are your potential new friends.

NICOLE SMITH: OK, so Steve wants to hone in on Friday, right? And Steve asks, can you paint a quick sketch of what’s going fast after this being slower – a slower, more thoughtful process?

FRANCES FREI: I sure can. Thank you, Steve. And so, here’s how I would think about Friday. We need ruthless prioritization. And what I mean by that is that for the most part, organizations have… that we work equally on everything. We think everything is equally important. But what we know is that organizations that win, they have ruthless prioritization. And they know, this is what I’m designed to be great at. And this is what I’m designed to be bad at. Not bad for sport, bad in the service of great. And if an organization can’t discern between these two, they’re going to end up with exhausted mediocrity. And so, what we have to do for our employees and the rest of the organization is, here’s what we’re going to optimize on. That’s half the story. And here’s what we’re not. So, I’ll give you an example of this. And the example is from Steve Jobs. And if those of you that are a bit techie, and you remember 20 years ago, when Steve Jobs walked out on that Worldwide Developer Conference stage with a manila envelope, and it had a MacBook Air in it. And he slid out that MacBook Air. And the crowd and the world went crazy, because it was the lightest-weight laptop in the world. Well, he very, very openly said, we are best in class at weight because we are worst in class at physical features. We could have been best in class at physical features. But then we would have been worst in class at weight. Or we could have chosen to be average at both. But then we would have had to rename our company. And then he made fun of another company that I won’t say here. So, we will end up… if we aren’t deliberate, we’re going to end up with exhausted mediocrity, constantly getting better at the things we’re bad at, which, without realizing it, means we’re getting worse at the things we’re good at. So, the most important thing we can do on Friday is to articulate, this is what we want to be disproportionately good at. And thus, this is what we want to be disproportionately bad at. And there’s a whole other series of things. But that’s the most important one.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm-hmm. Speaking of Steve Jobs, we have a question where they ask, do you think that the culture in Silicon Valley is changing from break things to fix things, particularly as it pertains to not only their own companies, but broader societal problems?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, so I – not in all of Silicon Valley. So, I think we can famously see, it’s not clear to me that Twitter is moving fast and fixing things. But what I will say is that, look at Uber today. And I had the pleasure of going and working with Uber back in 2017, when they were going to move fast and break things. They are moving fast and fixing things now, and going at a catapulting speed. Or ServiceNow didn’t ever even go through move fast and break things. It’s just moving fast and fixing things. Stripe is doing the same thing. Airbnb is now moving fast and fixing things. So, what I would say is that Silicon Valley can now choose to move fast and fix things, whereas, in the past, I think they only thought they had the choice of going slow or moving fast and breaking things. Today, we have the choice. And more and more companies are making that choice.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm-hmm. And so, Bill asked, which one of these steps do you find the most commonly in need of… that companies need the most help with? So, you laid out Monday through Friday. Is there something that sticks out often?

FRANCES FREI: Well, I’ll tell you that if companies are really pressed for time, they skip Thursday. And that’s to their peril, because if we skip Thursday, that means we have to be present. And we’re a bottleneck for everything. That means people need us to translate why this is important. So, I would say that Thursday is the one that’s most often skipped. And I encourage you not to. And then I would say that Tuesday is the one that’s most often misunderstood because of all of the myths I mentioned that we have about trust. And we just think, oh, if trust is broken, we have to work around it, as opposed to going right through it and rebuilding trust.

NICOLE SMITH: So, Thursday, that’s the storytelling, honoring the past, describing it simply, right? So why do we struggle to describe things simply?

FRANCES FREI: Oh, I don’t know what your inbox looks like on your email. But you tell me how many long emails you have.

NICOLE SMITH: I refuse to deal with my inbox. I’ll deal with it later.

FRANCES FREI: So, Mark Twain was right. I apologize for sending you a long letter. I didn’t have the time to send you a short letter. It’s the metaphor for all of this, that when we understand something in a complicated way, we want to benefit people from the entirety of our knowledge. And we just throw up all of it on people, as opposed to realizing the beautiful curation and skill that’s required to go from understanding it deeply to understanding it elegantly in its simplicity. So, I think it takes time. It’s also… it takes skill. Like, this is… there are professional communicators for a reason. They’re really good at it. But if you’re on your second draft of something, you have no chance of describing it simply. So, I would say, unless you’re on your 10th draft, you’re probably describing it in too complicated of a way.

NICOLE SMITH: Yeah. So, can I ask you a little bit more of a personal question, Professor?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, anything.

NICOLE SMITH: So, Abby asks, how do you apply the essential steps to moving fast and fixing things in your own consulting role? So, Uber and all the places that you go.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Yeah, so I’ll tell you, when we’ve been successful, it’s when organizations come to us, and they say, here’s our problem. Will you help us? When we’ve been unsuccessful is when we go to the organizations, and we’re like, we think you’re having a problem. So, pull works. Push doesn’t. So, the only thing we can’t provide is the desire to change. And so, I would say personally, make sure there’s an opening. And then you can be super helpful in fixing a problem. And I also would say that all of this applies to yourself. I mean, that ruthless prioritization – so many of us are trying to be good at as many things as possible – at work, at home, daughter, sister, cousin, parent, friend – as opposed to, I’m going to kill it at work, kill it at home. And I am not going to be good… not now. I’m not going to be as good at all of these other things. So, you can either choose exhausted mediocrity, or you can have the nobility of excellence. These things are choices. So, I think all of this applies to ourselves.

NICOLE SMITH: So, let’s go back to Tuesday, where you drew that triangle with logic, and empathy, and authenticity. So, Hung asks, between logic and empathy, which one would you say an individual should develop first? And Hung really describes just having a left foot and right foot and not knowing which one to go forward.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. So, here’s what I would say, Hung, is, ask yourself… I bet you’re trusted most of the time, which means people are experiencing your authenticity, logic, and empathy most of the time. But ask yourself, the last time, or the most recent times you had a skeptic, you had someone who was doubting you, who they were wobbling on your trust, ask yourself, what is it that they doubted about you? And if it’s that they doubted your logic, double click there. If they doubted your empathy, double click there. And that is, each of us has what we call a wobble. Each one of us has a pattern where the distribution of these is higher for one or the other. That’s the sequence I would go in. There’s not some generic sequence that is better. All three of these pillars are equally important. But I bet, for each one of us, one tends to be more shaky than the other. And that’s what I would go after. Now, I will just tell you the distribution in the world. The vast majority of us have empathy wobbles, then logic wobbles, then authenticity wobbles. But that doesn’t help any of us specifically. It just tells us we have lots of company.

NICOLE SMITH: OK. So, we got a lot more questions and a little time. I want to get as many as I can in, but…

FRANCES FREI: OK, I’ll go super quick. Yeah.

NICOLE SMITH: No, take your time. But I just want to let you know, you’re pretty popular in this conversation. Rock star, as Allison said. Tara asks, how can company leadership make sure that their messaging is actually heard and understood? I feel like you touched on this a bit with simplicity.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that the way to do it is, talk to people about your message that didn’t hear it directly from you. And see how well they understood. That tells you whether or not it’s reaching. So, don’t ask the people that were in the room. Ask the people that were spoken to by other people in the room. That will tell you how well it’s there. And if it took you a long time to describe it, I promise you, it’s not going to be heard.

NICOLE SMITH: Mm. Oh, wow. Yeah, thinking about it, probably need to shorten my own stories a little bit here. So, Karen asks you, how do you handle employees who are not willing to accept others’ points of view and be open minded? I mean, you described this uniqueness and diversity. But there are people who are holdouts that don’t see the advantage of that.

FRANCES FREI: So, I often find those folks are an education away, because if I can let you know that if I get to benefit from everyone’s point of view, and you only get to benefit from some people’s point of view, I will competitively thump you. So, let’s say you don’t have the moral imperative wanting to do it. Well, the performance imperative… we have found that organizations that are inclusive get a 200% to 500% boost on employee engagement and team performance with no new people, no new technology, simply the act of being inclusive. So, the person who doesn’t want to be inclusive, I’m going to ask them, can they afford… can their career afford performing so suboptimally?

NICOLE SMITH: Mm. And so, we have a question. The person didn’t leave their name, so I don’t have a name. But how much time do you spend on each stage? Some folks like to spend more time on stages than others. Does the team not move forward until everyone’s satisfied with the current step? What do you do when you hit a roadblock on each stage, and not everyone is in agreement?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. Well, I don’t like consensus, so I’ll just… I’ll say there. And so, what I try to do is work on momentum, which is that I want to make sure that everybody’s voices have been heard. But then you have to leave the decision to someone else. So, we want to do is make sure everybody’s voices are heard, and they had a chance to do it. But we don’t hold out until the very last person. We move forward. And then we can retrace and see if the momentum can bring people forward. So, not consensus. I would consider it not consensus, and we have to make sure that everybody gets to air out what their problems are.

NICOLE SMITH: OK. Well, Christopher asks our last question. How does transparency fit into this model, specifically this trust, authenticity, logic model? Does it have a place?

FRANCES FREI: Yeah. It sure does. And I find that the most important part for transparency is on the logic side. So, if you’re going to say… if you’re going to inspect whether or not I have good rigor, and I have a good plan, I could say, oh, just have faith. I did all of this hard work. Or I could give you a glimpse inside so that you can see the inner workings. Now, I often call it a window of transparency, because there’s actually a cost of full transparency that I’m not always willing to take. But a window of transparency, I think we always need. So, to me, the transparency part is, let’s be transparent about our logic so people can see it for themselves, and they don’t have to do it in too much of a faith-based way.

NICOLE SMITH: Professor, that was all dynamic. And thank you for the illustrations. You made it simple with the illustrations.

FRANCES FREI: Yeah, all right. Awesome. Thanks so much.

NICOLE SMITH: Thank you for your time.

FRANCES FREI: OK.

HANNAH BATES: That was Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei in conversation with HBR’s editorial audience director Nicole Smith at the “Future of Business” virtual conference in November 2023.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Dave Di Iulio, Terry Cole, and Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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For New Ideas, Think Inside (This) Box

June 25, 2024 • 7 min read.

In this Nano Tool for Leaders, Penn's David Resnick offers guidance on using helpful constraints to unlock new solutions to old problems.

Nano Tools for Leaders®   —  a collaboration between  Wharton Executive Education  and  Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management  — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success and the engagement and productivity of the people you lead.

Harness constraints and analogies to unlock new solutions to old problems.

Traditional brainstorming,  as coined by Alex Osborne in the 1950s, asks participants to consider any and all ideas that might solve a problem. While blue-sky, no-limits thinking has several benefits, the drawback is that leaders often, paradoxically, get stuck. They encounter challenges like the “curse of the blank page,” not knowing where to start because they can start anywhere. They may also face the “ Einstellung effect ,” a phenomenon whereby the easy recollection of familiar solutions can block their ability to think of new ones.

This has led some to (erroneously) believe that generating solutions is best left to people who are naturally creative. The good news is that there are tools that can help one become much better at generating new ideas. The even better news is that using these tools does not involve extensive training or attending workshops. In fact, one tool developed at Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation is a simple  card game , and the “secret sauce” it teaches is how to leverage constraints and analogies. The  Accelerators in Innovation  game has teams of players use accelerator cards to create new kinds of solutions with questions such as “How would you solve postpartum depression if you operated like IKEA?” and “How might you tackle long emergency room wait times if you were Warren Buffet?” The solutions are then applied to problems presented on challenge cards while trying to avoid monkey wrenches from their opponents. After rapid-fire pitches, the judge determines each round’s winner.

Action Steps

1. make sure you are solving a problem..

Don’t solve for how to implement a solution. A classic example involved a design team brought in to figure out how to increase access to incubators. The issue is that the solution was already baked in (increase access to incubators). The team spent some time reframing the problem to focus on the true issue: ensuring that newborns are kept at a safe temperature, especially when delivery occurs in places with little or no access to electricity. Reframing to focus on the actual problem opened the team to entirely different solutions.

2. Leverage analogies.

Having to pull ideas out of thin air can be difficult and stressful. Analogies force us to consider other options or perspectives we may never have thought of, or thought of and dismissed. They cause us to ask ourselves “What is good about this other solution and how might it be applied to solving the problem I’m facing?” Examples include:

Think about successful companies and how their strengths could be applied to your problem. For example, IKEA is phenomenal at clearly explaining to people with limited background knowledge and literacy how to do something. So how might IKEA go about explaining post-op care to knee replacement patients?

Similarly, try using personas. Mary Poppins is renowned for making an unpleasant experience a delightful one. Mr. Rogers is known for his commitment to leveraging the kindness of neighbors. Darth Vader’s approach to getting things done is a ruthless level punishment for those who fail. Regardless of whom you choose, you can use the strengths or philosophies of these characters to inspire ideas. How might Mary Poppins improve adherence to physical therapy regimens? How might Darth Vader?

3. Leverage constraints.

Constraints are, unintuitively, another great way to force new thinking. Some options are:

How might you solve a problem if you were forced to delete a crucial (but perhaps onerous or costly) step of the process? Great examples are “How might tollbooths collect fees without a human there to do it?” (FastPass) or “How might people get their rental car if there was no line to wait in?” (Hertz Gold).

Design for extremes

How might you solve the problem if you had to solve for extreme use cases or extreme targets? For example, what would it take to screen 100 percent of eligible patients for colon cancer? How might you reduce civilian traffic fatalities to zero?

Real-world issues

Apply real-world constraints that have thrown a monkey wrench in your plans for past ideas. For example, how might you create a new marketing campaign that must be successful for consumers who do not speak English? How might you build a new product to launch on time even if multiple team members take a sabbatical or parental leave?

Focus on solving for how to make your solution delightful to users. This isn’t about making something silly or fun. It’s about surprising your users in a manner that unexpectedly accomplishes something for them.

4. Push for volume.

An additional benefit to Penn Medicine’s  Accelerators  card game is that it encourages multiple rounds to hear multiple ideas. When thinking of solutions, push for volume in your initial rounds. You’ll soon “use up” the ideas that come to mind easily and be forced to consider more creative or audacious alternatives.

5. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Another key component of generating ideas while playing a game is that it allows for laughter and a sense of play. This mindset can foster creativity and an atmosphere of psychological safety for sharing ideas.

How One Leader Uses It

Rebecca Trotta, PhD, director of the Center for Nursing Excellence at Penn, leveraged this tool in developing a new program to support older adults after hospitalization. Her challenge was to build a service that could provide intensive at-home support. Despite an existing evidence-based protocol, there was concern that patient acceptance of this support would be low. Many folks are simply exhausted after being in the hospital and don’t want someone in their home. Using the constraint of solving for “delight,” Trotta and her team came up with the idea of delivering home meals to these patients and their caregivers.

While it might appear as a frivolous and seemingly useless expense, it turned out that after spending days (and sometimes weeks) in the hospital, patients came home to fridges that were empty or full of spoiled food. Providing them with a meal ensured they had adequate nutrition. More importantly, though, the meals showed a sense of caring and thoughtfulness that went well beyond patients’ expectations. It built a strong sense of trust that paid dividends in drastically increasing the acceptance of home services compared to baseline.

Contributor to this Nano Tool

David Resnick, MPH, MSEd, Senior Innovation Manager at Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation.  Accelerators in Health Care  card game co-created with Michael Begley, MA, Senior Experience Consultant at EPAM Systems, and Visiting Professor and Assistant Program Director of Masters of UX at Thomas Jefferson University.

Knowledge in Action: Related Executive Education Programs

• Effective Decision Making: Thinking Critically and Rationally
• The Neuroscience of Business: Innovations in Leadership and Strategic Decisions
• Mastering Innovation: Strategy, Process, and Tools
• Business Model Innovation in the Age of AI

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7 Key Web Design Problems & Solutions in 2024

• Emily is WebFX’s Content Delivery Lead . She holds an M.S. in digital marketing and leads the FX content team, along with strategy, implementation, and evaluation for WebFX’s key revenue channels. Her work has been featured by Social Media Today, Campaign Monitor, Reader’s Digest, Yahoo, and more. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, road trips, and exploring new cities. Follow her on Twitter @emcarter16 or connect on LinkedIn . @emcarter16

Your website is often the first impression your clients have of your business. 

Poor web design prevents clients from finding the information they’re searching for, ultimately impacting your bottom line. If your potential clients find your site inaccessible or visually unappealing, they likely won’t stick around for long — and you risk losing valuable conversions. 

If you need help designing a website that captures interest and boosts your bounce rates, the design team at WebFX is here to help. Explore our guide to common web design problems and their solutions! 

7 common web design problems

Many web design problems could affect your site, with these issues being seven of the most common: 

• Outdated design
• Low-quality content
• Navigation issues
• Hard-to-access information
• Confusing look and layout
• Slow loading speed
• Not being optimized for mobile 

1. Outdated design

Over time, web design, like everything else, changes. Having an outdated website can affect how clients see your brand. Making sure your site has a modern layout and design elements that appeal to today’s searchers will encourage them to stay on your site.

2. Low-quality content

Creating relevant, high-quality content is vital in helping your site rank in the SERPs, especially if you have a blog. Suboptimal pages with duplicate content, inaccuracies, stuffed keywords, and grammar mistakes can impact the overall quality of your site. 

3. Navigation issues

Your clients want to be able to easily navigate your site and access the information they’re looking for. If you have too many pop-ups or a confusing navigation menu, potential customers will likely get frustrated and close out of your page.

4. Hard-to-access information

Similar to navigation issues, if clients can’t find specific information on your site, like your phone number or contact form, it will decrease the chances that they will take the desired action.

5. Confusing look and layout

Some sites have confusing or cluttered layouts, and several design elements can contribute to this effect. 

The type of font you use is one of them. Fonts similar to hand-drawn scripts or cursive writing are especially difficult to read. Clean, easy-to-read fonts make it easier for clients to read the information. 

Colors are another design element that can make your site distracting and prevent clients from easily accessing information. Focus on color contrast that makes the text easy to read and ensure the color scheme is consistent throughout the site.

6. Slow loading speed

No matter how relevant or high-quality your content is, if it takes too long for your site to load, most users won’t have the patience to wait until it does. Along with losing potential clients — and revenue — a slow loading speed can also affect your Google rankings. Paying attention to elements like large image files can help improve your load speed. 

7. Not being optimized for mobile

More and more searchers are accessing information through mobile devices. Making sure your site is optimized for mobile ensures they can easily access content from their smartphone or tablet. 

Solutions for web design problems

One of the most important ways to prevent and solve web design problems is to stay updated with web design trends . Website capabilities and designs are constantly changing, so your business needs to be able to adapt and make the changes needed to remain relevant and accessible. 

You should also analyze your site’s design regularly to determine what’s working and what might need adjustments. Have you added more information, making the navigation menu harder to understand? Are the graphics and colors outdated?

Staying on top of these elements lets you make changes that your searchers will appreciate while helping you reach your business’s goals.

Whenever analyzing or making changes, focus on the overall user experience. Keep things simple, and make sure your pages load as fast as possible. This priority will encourage searchers to stay on your page, increasing the chances that they’ll contact you or make a purchase.

Another solution is to work with an experienced web designer. They’ll be able to analyze and explain the changes you should make to maintain a responsive, user-friendly site.

How WebFX can help you avoid common web design problems

Here at WebFX, we are committed to designing custom websites that drive results and sales. We’ve been in business since 1996, and our expertise has earned us more than 50 web design awards.

Our team also understands that your needs and goals are unique, so we offer a custom approach. Our professional website design services tailor every feature and element to your business.

No matter the size or type of business you have, we’ll help you design a website that is:

• Custom 
• Responsive and mobile-friendly 
• Optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) 
• Secure 

You’ll also have access to MarketingCloudFX , our platform for measuring and accelerating your return on investment (ROI).

Tackle your web design challenges with WebFX

If you are ready to overcome web design problems and create a site that works for you and your clients, WebFX is here to help. As a leading web design agency, we’ll work with you to reach your goals and create a site that drives revenue for your business. 

Our team will work with you to help you create an attractive, functional website that benefits your company.  

To learn more about our web design services and receive a free, instant quote, fill out our form today. You can also give us a call at 888-601-5359 . 

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Table of Contents

• 7 Common Web Design Problems 
• 1. Outdated Design
• 2. Low-quality Content
• 3. Navigation Issues
• 4. Hard-to-access Information
• 5. Confusing Look and Layout
• 6. Slow Loading Speed
• 7. Not Being Optimized for Mobile
• Solutions for Web Design Problems 
• How WebFX Can Help You Avoid Common Web Design Problems
• Tackle Your Web Design Challenges with WebFX

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At the bottom of the V is the time to gather and analyze the system in its entirety and to reassemble it into a new and coherent whole on the right side of the V. That whole is intentionally more capable, efficient, and resilient than what had existed before. The new system answers the mail for all the requirements, identifies all the interfaces and dependencies among the elements of the solution, and optimizes all the trade-offs. The integrated solution is thoroughly tested coming up the right side of the V.

Along the way, importantly, risk is retired, and margin is built up. What I mean by margin is the margin for error. The idea is that if something small goes wrong — in a deal, for example, if part of the analysis fails or something has been missed; or in a complex piece of litigation, if a witness’s testimony comes out the wrong way on a particular day — the margin for error is great enough that the system as a whole does not fail. Over several decades, I have found this to be a highly effective model of problem-solving in complex matters of law, regulation, and business.

Utilizing the V model approach during M&A due diligence

The V model can be a useful tool for demonstrating how systems engineering works in the in the legal field, for instance, starting with M&A. Often, lawyers work to close any disconnects between the various due diligence work streams arising from a potential M&A transaction. In a complex corporate transaction, responsibilities are broken down and actions assigned to separate teams for different diligence areas, including, for example, business development, finance, HR, intellectual property, and technology.

One of the ways that M&A deals can get off track is for those diligence streams to proceed in a disconnected or incoherent way. For that reason, it is important in managing a big deal to bring the teams together and make sure they are staying connected, so that all key interrelationships and patterns are identified.

Another example is identifying relationships between due diligence issues and findings and making an assessment of the target’s leadership. Observing a pattern in which a particular area is going errant repeatedly, it must be assessed whether the leaders for the target company in that area are really the right people to lead the business, post-acquisition.

A third M&A example is identifying the interfaces between the due diligence findings and deal negotiations. The terms and conditions, ideally, are going to be negotiated based on what the findings are during the diligence process. Sometimes they get disconnected. However, if diligence is tightly coordinated with the negotiation of terms and conditions, a better negotiation process emerges among those on the other side of the deal — company management and the company’s own board — resulting in a better set of deal documents.

Demonstrating systems engineering discipline in complex litigation

Another legal context in which to demonstrate the value of the V model is in complex litigation. Doing up-front legal analysis early is critical to understanding exactly what ultimately will be needed in order to prevail — whether that be a motion for summary judgment as a defendant, or in preparation for a trial — all before discovery is entered.

This is part of classic systems engineering, going down the left side of the V to understand all the requirements and what the objectives are before developing a solution. In civil litigation, which is what companies are predominantly involved in, this is typically done through discovery. Systems engineering is a good way of thinking about how to coordinate both defensive and offensive discovery — that is to say, what facts need to be extracted from the other side. It is perilous to assume in civil litigation that the case can be proved through something potentially received from the other side, so this must be undertaken with care.

Leveraging systems engineering in the anatomy of legal matters is a highly effective way of managing problem-solving. It tends to be most helpful in solving complex, interdependent, often technical problems; often over a longer-term time period, such as that involving major litigation or M&A deals.

Under this discipline, leaders need to bring their teams along to obtain optimal results. As a by-product of solving particular challenges, leaders will be building consensus, resilience, and ultimately common purpose within their organization.

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These UX/UI Design Portfolios Are Too Good to Miss!

In the dynamic world of UI/UX design, a portfolio serves as more than just a showcase of completed projects — it’s a narrative of a designer’s journey, creativity, and problem-solving skills. Each portfolio is as unique as the designer behind it, reflecting their individual approach, style, and expertise. While every designer’s portfolio tells a distinct story, this article aims to highlight ten exemplary portfolios from designers who have made significant impacts in the corporate world.

These selected portfolios belong to designers who have not only honed their craft but have also demonstrated their prowess by contributing to leading companies and shaping the user experiences of some of the most recognized brands.

These portfolios stand out for their clarity, creativity, and the tangible results their owners have achieved in their respective corporate roles. Let’s take a closer look at the craftsmanship and ingenuity that define these ten remarkable portfolios.

Portfolio 1

Designer At Google

Lola's Portfolio

Led the service design initiative to revolutionize store operations. pioneered a strategic human-in-the-loop framework….

lolajiang.com

Portfolio 2

Experience Designer at Accenture

NASA spacewalk execution system Helping NASA Mission Control personnel navigate and communicate Artemis mission…

www.sirirosa.co

Portfolio 3

Staff designer at google

User Experience Design Portfolio of Simon Pan

Simon pan is a user experience designer based in sydney. he rocks in user research, information architecture and….

simonpan.com

Portfolio 4

Designer at calm previously worked at Airbnb

Jeany Ngo - Index

Jeany is a multidisciplinary creative and entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in product, ux/ui, and visual….

www.jeanyngo.com

Portfolio 5

Self Employed

Bruno Simon - Creative developer

Creative developer living in paris, freelancer, former lead developer at immersive garden, former developer at uzik and….

bruno-simon.com

Portfolio 6

Designer at Google

Emelyn Baker · Product Designer · Design Lead

She has deep knowledge across the edtech space, working on learning products at altschool, youtube, brit+co, and bloc….

emelynbaker.com

Portfolio 7

Designer at open AI

Karolis Kosas

Karolis kosas - product designer in san francisco..

karoliskosas.com

Portfolio 8

Lead Designer at google

Pendar Yousefi - About

I'm a californa-based ux designer, currently leading the global design team at google translate, with a mission to help….

mahimoto.com

Portfolio 9

Former designer at chrome by google

Austin Knight - Design Lead

Design lead at square in austin, tx. previously at google and hubspot. advisor at sequoia capital. co-host of the ux &….

austinknight.com

Portfolio 10

Designer at GitHub former in Spotify and Minecraft

Tobias Ahlin

Spinkit, moving letters, projects, and more..

tobiasahlin.com

Written by Dex

Dex: UX designer turned blogger. Sharing design experiences and insights to inspire and inform. Join the journey into user experience design!

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