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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.

Read next: 10 agile ideas worth sharing

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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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A complete guide to the design thinking process

Start collaborating with Mural today

Learn the five stages of the design thinking process, get practical tips to apply them, and get templates to seamlessly run design thinking exercises.

How many projects have you worked on that stalled because your team couldn’t align on the best path forward? How many more got shelved because they didn’t meet user needs or expectations? And how many got delayed in rounds and rounds of never-ending feedback? 

Thankfully, you don’t have to keep repeating those experiences month after month. The (not so) secret weapon: design thinking .

Design thinking gives teams a new way to approach their projects and overcome some of those well-known challenges. It can help teams understand their users' needs and challenges, then apply those learnings to solve problems in a creative, innovative way. Understanding design thinking can transform your team’s problem-solving approach — and how you work together.

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative process where teams seek to understand user needs, challenge assumptions, define complex problems to solve, and develop innovative solutions to prototype and test. The goal of design thinking is to come up with user-focused solutions tailored to the particular problem at hand.

While often used in product design, service design, and customer experience, you can use design thinking in virtually any situation, industry, or organization to create user-centric solutions to specific problems.

Design thinking process 101: Definitions and approaches

The design thinking process puts customers’ and users’ needs at the center and aims to solve challenges from their perspective.

Design thinking typically follows five distinct stages:

Empathize stage

The first stage of design thinking lays the foundation for the rest of the process because it focuses on the needs of the real people using your product. At this stage, you want to get familiar with the people experiencing the problems you’re trying to solve, understanding their point of view, and learning about their user experience. You want to understand their challenges and what they need from your product or company to address them.

The goal of this stage is for your team to develop a user-centered vision of the core problem you need to solve. The idea is to challenge any assumptions or biases teams have, instead using their customer perspective as a guiding source. This is important because it aligns the team on what needs to be considered during the rest of the design thinking process. 

To help you get a solid understanding of the problems you’re solving, you can ask a lot of questions to build empathy with your users. These will invite people to share their experiences and observations to help your team better understand the problem. Then, you can move on to some specific exercises for the empathy stage of the process.

As you build up your understanding of your users, it's helpful to visualize their experience. A common way to do this is to assemble a customer journey map . This helps identify areas of friction and understand customer preferences.

Learn more: 7 types of questions to build empathy for design thinking

Ideate stage

Your priority here is to think outside the box and source as many ideas as possible from all areas of the business. Bring in people from different departments so you benefit from a wider range of experiences and perspectives during ideation sessions. Don’t worry about coming up with concrete solutions or how to implement each one — you’ll build on that later. The goal is to explore new and creative ideas rather than come up with an actual plan.

Key steps in the ideation phase:

• Define your problem : Creating a problem statement ensures that your team can focus on solving the right problem and staying aligned with your end-user or customer’s problem
• Start ideating : Choose a brainstorming technique to help organize team participation that fits your goal (More on that in the next section.)
• Prioritize your ideas : Once you have several ideas, prioritize them based on how well they take into account the customer’s needs‍ ‍
• Choose the best solution : Choose the best ideas to move forward to either the define stage or the prototype stage

Learn more: The ideation stage of design thinking: What you need to know

Your priority here is to generate as many ideas as possible, without judging or evaluating them. This step encourages designers to think creatively and push the boundaries of what's possible. We’ve put together a list of different brainstorming techniques to help your teams come up with creative new ideas. 

Put it into practice: How to facilitate a brainstorming session

Prototyping stage

At this stage, your team’s goal is to remove uncertainty around your proposed solutions. This is where you start thinking about them in more detail, including how you’ll bring them to life. Your prototypes should help the team understand if the design or solution will work as it’s intended to. 

Here, the focus is on speed and efficiency — you don’t want to invest a ton of time or resources into these solutions yet because you’re not sure they’re the best ones for the problem you’re trying to solve. You just need a functional, interactive prototype that can prove your concept. These are learning opportunities to help you spot any issues or opportunities before you take it any further.

Learn more: A guide to prototyping: the 4th stage of design thinking

Testing stage

The testing stage is normally one of the last stages of the design thinking process. After you’ve developed a concept or prototype, you need to test it in the real-world to understand its viability and usability. It’s where your product, design, or development teams evaluate the creative solutions they’ve come up with, to see how real users interact with them. 

Testing your concepts and observing how people interact with them helps you understand whether or not the prototype solves real problems and meets their needs, before you invest in it fully.

However, design thinking is an iterative process: You may go through the ideation, prototyping, and testing phases multiple times to improve and refine your solutions as you learn more from your users.

Read the guide: Testing: A guide to the 5th stage of design thinking

The relationship between human-centered design and design thinking

These two terms are often used together, because they complement one another. However, they’re two different things, so understanding their differences is important. 

Simply put, design thinking is a working process, while human-centered design is a mindset or approach.

The first step in finding success with design thinking is to foster a culture of human-centered design within your team. This is because design thinking focuses so heavily on the users and customers — the people using your product or service.

To inspire your team, we’ve put together four human-centered design examples — and explain why they work so well.

Benefits of design thinking

For organizations who’ve never run a design thinking workshop before, it can feel like a big change in how you approach the design process. But it can offer many benefits for your business.

Foster a true design culture within your organization

Design thinking is an iterative process — it’s not something you do once and call it done. The more you do it, the more you’ll see a design-focused culture emerge within your organization, which is much more effective than going to one-off creative retreats or setting up expensive innovation centers that no one ever uses.

This mindset and cultural shift can help scale design thinking within the business. But it’s important to know how to avoid  some of the pitfalls companies can face when trying to create a design culture internally.

Learn more: How to use the LUMA System of Innovation for everyday design thinking

Encourage collaboration across departments

Design thinking isn’t just for the designers on the team. The earlier stages of the process — Empathize, Define, and Ideate — are perfect for bringing in people from across the business. In fact, bringing in varied viewpoints and perspectives can help you come up with more creative or effective solutions.

You can use the design thinking process to get more people involved, and help everyone contribute ideas.

Improve understanding of user needs

So many companies say they’re “customer focused,” but lack a clear understanding of what really matters most to their customers in the context of their product or service. Design thinking puts the user front and center, with the Empathize stage dedicated to understanding and discovering user needs.

Learn more: How to identify user needs and pain points

Skills and behaviors needed for successful design thinking

To get the most out of a design thinking exercise, you’ll need a collaborative and creative mindset within your team. The team needs to be willing to explore new ideas, and laser-focused on customer or user needs. 

Here are some specific skills to help your design thinking process run smoothly.

Divergent and convergent thinking

Divergence and convergence is a human-centered design approach to problem-solving. It switches between expansive and focused thinking, giving you a process that balances understanding people’s problems and developing solutions. 

It focuses on understanding a user's needs, behaviors, and motivations, to help you develop empathy for their problems. Then, it encourages experimentation and iteration to help you effectively design solutions to meet those needs.

Collaborative working

Design thinking isn’t a solo activity. You’ll bring in people from different teams or business areas. To get the most out of the process, everyone needs to collaborate and communicate effectively. Teams that are good at collaborating drive the best outcomes, while also making it an enjoyable experience working together.

There are several core collaboration skills your team needs to succeed:

• Open-mindedness
• Communication
• Adaptability
• Organization
• Time management

Learn more about why these skills are so important and how you can improve them individually or as a team: 7 collaboration skills your team needs to succeed

Participatory or collaborative design

For many design teams and creative folks, the idea of designing something with other people can be enough to make them shudder. “Design by committee” is their idea of a nightmare. But the design thinking process isn’t about “making the logo 10% bigger” or “using a different shade of blue.” It’s user- and solution-focused.

You’ll get the best outcomes if you bring insights, perspectives, and expertise from multiple stakeholders. That includes at the Prototype and Test stages, as everyone will have ideas to contribute to help you bring solutions to life.

Learn more: What is co-design? A primer on participatory design

Common challenges in design thinking

If your team hasn’t mastered or fully committed to each one of the design thinking steps, you may encounter problems that make it harder to reap the benefits of design thinking.

Here are 4 common challenges that teams face when implementing design thinking practices.

• A company culture that doesn't foster collaboration
• An inability to adjust to non-linear processes
• A lack of in-depth user research
• Getting too invested in a single idea

Learn how to address these in Mural's guide on design thinking challenges .

Design thinking tools and templates to help you get started

Using mural for design thinking.

There are lots of tools you can use to run design thinking workshops — including Mural. We help designers work as effectively as possible, so they can get to better solutions quicker. We’ve incorporated some design thinking shortcuts and “hidden” features into our application, making it perfect for in-person or remote (or even asynchronous) collaborative sessions. These include:

• Use the C-key shortcut to quickly connect ideas with arrows
• Seamlessly import existing information from spreadsheets
• Duplicate elements you already created for faster visualization
• Fit your canvas to your screen and zoom in
• Get even more options using the right-click menu

And to help you get started, we’ve hand-picked some Mural templates relevant to each stage of the design process below.

Templates for the Empathy stage

The empathy map template helps you visualize the thoughts, feelings, and actions of your customersto help you develop a better understanding of the their experiences. The map is divided into four quadrants, where you record the following:

• Thoughts: the customer’s internal dialogue and beliefs
• Feelings: the customer’s emotional responses
• Actions: the customer’s actions and behaviors
• Observations: what the customer is seeing and hearing.

Try Mural’s empathy map template

Templates for the Define stage

This exercise helps you understand a situation or problem by identifying what’s working, what’s not, and areas for improvement. You start by listing out the problem, then identifying the positive aspects (the rose), negatives (thorn), and possible solutions for improvement (the buds).

You can use this template to run the exercise individually or in groups. It gives you a way to gather new ideas and perspectives on the problem you’re solving in real-time.

Try Mural’s Rose, thorn, bud template

Templates for the Ideate stage

The round robin brainstorming exercise is a collaborative session where every person contributes multiple ideas. This is a great way to come up with lots of different ideas and solutions in the ideation stage of design thinking, where you’re focusing on quantity and creativity. 

Bringing in ideas from every team member encourages people to share their unique perspectives, and can also help you avoid groupthink. 

Try Mural’s Round robin template

Templates for the Prototype stage

This template helps you map out how an idea will work in practice, as a functional system. Schematic diagramming is very flexible, so it can be used in many types of projects to make sure your idea is  structurally sound. It can help you map out workflows and identify any decisions you need to make to bring your idea to life.

Try Mural’s Schematic diagramming template

Templates for the Test stage

In think aloud testing, users test out a product or prototype and talk through the relevant tasks as they complete them. You can use this template to record the feedback, insights, and experiences of your testers, and identify the success and failure points in your proposed solution.

Try Mural’s Think aloud testing template

Design thinking examples: What it looks like in practice

Design thinking is a very flexible approach that works for companies of any size, from large enterprises to small startups. 

Here are some examples of how companies use design thinking, for many types of creative projects.

IBM uses design thinking to design at scale

IBM was traditionally an engineering-led organization, but now it's shifting its focus onto design, working to spread a design culture throughout the business. One of the main ways of doing that is by launching IBM Design Camps.

These camps are comprehensive educational programs that help people understand the concept of design thinking and how it specifically works at IBM. 

Learn more about how IBM runs design thinking workshops with remote or distributed teams .

Somersault Innovation uses design thinking to transform its sales process

Somersault Innovation has used design thinking methods to help their sales team co-create solutions with their customers. It’s helped sellers become more customer-centric. 

Now, their sellers can create mutual success plans with their prospects, making it easier for them to find a path forward together.

Mural uses design thinking to drive growth

At Mural, our marketing team is constantly following new trends, evaluating metrics, and working to deliver the best experiences for our customers. Design thinking helps us adopt a customer-centric approach by ensuring that we're focused on the right problems. This helps us have the biggest impact on the company’s long-term growth while creating the most value for our users.

David J. Bland planned a book using the design thinking methodology

It’s not just visual creative projects that can benefit from the design thinking process. Founder, speaker, and author David J. Bland used the methodology to plan out his book and collaborate with other team members in the process. In addition to helping him refine and adjust the structure, Bland also used it to gather feedback from early readers and target audiences, which helped get the final product just right.

Support design thinking with tools that facilitate creative collaboration

While we’ve covered some of the skills and behaviors you need to successfully run design thinking exercises, having the right tools can help a lot, too. A collaborative platform helps teams communicate, share ideas, and turn those ideas into solutions together.

Mural helps teams visualize their ideas in a collaboration platform that unlocks teamwork . This helps everyone stay on the same page, while giving them the ability to add their own ideas freely and easily. Mural facilitates effective collaboration both in person and remotely, making it ideal for design thinking workshops for co-located and distributed teams. Plus, it has tons of ready-to-use templates (like the ones we listed above) to help you get started.

Ready to give it a try? Start your Free Forever account today, and run your next design thinking workshop in Mural.

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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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The 6 steps of the design thinking process.

Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving that centers on the needs of people. It starts with what is desirable from a human point of view, along with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.

What is the Design Thinking Process?

With design thinking, the six steps—framing a question, gathering inspiration, generative ideas, making ideas tangible, testing to learn, and sharing the story—form an iterative approach that is adapted for each specific challenge. We teach the phases of design thinking as linear steps, but in practice the process is not always linear. Some of the phases may happen several times, and you may move back and forth between them. As you start learning about design thinking, it’s helpful to understand the six phases of the process.  Let’s dive into each step of the design thinking process.

6 Steps of Design Thinking

1. frame a question.

In the design thinking process, it’s critical to determine the question that you’re asking before jumping to potential solutions. Start with curiosity and a beginner’s mindset. As you work to define a problem, “why?” questions can be helpful for uncovering a challenge or opportunity. A great question that led to the invention of the Polaroid Instant Camera in the 1940s was asked by the founder’s four-year-old daughter, who wondered, “Why do we have to wait for the picture?” Taking the time to craft a good question will inspire your team and lead to stronger ideas that actually address the needs of your customers. Remember the power of questions —they help you to learn more. Later on, “What if?” questions are effective for encouraging brainstorming, and “How?” questions are useful for narrowing in and implementing ideas. You’ll oftentimes return to this part of the process and ask questions at multiple points throughout your design thinking journey.

Try this activity: Lead through questions

2. Gather Inspiration

An important piece of design thinking is drawing inspiration from what people really need. Observation, interviews , and surveys can help you to better understand the groups you’re working with. When you listen actively and step into another point of view, you  build empathy in a way that allows you to bring in a diverse set of ideas and perspectives, which can lead to more creative solutions. When you are gathering inspiration, focus on staying open to different contexts and ways of thinking. One activity that can be useful is analogous inspiration, which involves looking at analogous contexts outside of the particular field you’re working with to spark new insights. You can then start to brainstorm ideas with the insights you uncover through your research.

Try this activity: Explore analogous inspiration

3. Generate Ideas

When brainstorming new ideas, you diverge and explore all of the possible solutions to a problem before converging on the best ones. Divergent thinking focuses on quantity over quality, prompting you to share ideas that might seem wild or unfeasible. Then, you narrow down with convergent thinking. You might diverge and converge many times before moving forward with an idea. As you ideate with your team, keep in mind the 7 rules of brainstorming , which include deferring judgment and building on the ideas of others. An activity that can encourage groups to be more creative and generative is the magic circle , where you momentarily set aside constraints and dream big. Afterward, you can use your constraints to evaluate and refine your ideas.

Try this activity: Brainstorm wild ideas

4. Make Ideas Tangible

Prototypes provide a way to communicate your ideas by making them tangible. They can take many forms, from a sketch to a cardboard model. When you create a prototype, it allows you to get feedback from others and learn what’s working. In the process of building a rough version of your idea, you may even discover more ideas that you hadn’t thought of before.

There are many different kinds of prototypes that you can create. When getting started, be quick and scrappy using whatever tools you have. Once you build early prototypes, you can then test them with your users, and use your learnings to improve your prototypes.

Try this activity: Prototype with sketches

5. Test to Learn

When you test your prototypes, you learn about how people would interact with your ideas in the real world. As with prototyping, there are a variety of tests that you can run, from low-cost guerilla tests to higher-fidelity ones. Tests can give you quantitative metrics and evidence, as well as qualitative emotions and reactions from your users.

Oftentimes, what you learn in your tests will inform how you move forward with your ideas, and you’ll go through a few cycles of prototyping and testing before arriving at your solution. This is called iteration , and is a key part of the design thinking process. Refining your prototypes will bring you closer and closer to your finished product or service. 

Try this activity: Run small tests

6. Share the Story

Once you’ve taken your idea through prototyping and testing, craft your story and share it with colleagues, clients, and customers. Storytelling is an important part of the design thinking process because it connects you to the people you’re sharing your idea with, and makes it relatable on a human level. Without an engaging story, it’s hard for others to understand why your work matters. 

When communicating your story, focus on the big idea that you’re trying to get across, and remember to put your audience at the center of it. These storytelling tips will allow you to create a compelling story that resonates. As you continue to practice your design thinking skills, sharing your experience will help you to reflect and improve your craft. At IDEO U, we encourage everyone to share their stories—tell us about your design thinking journey by tagging us on Instagram or LinkedIn .

Design Thinking Courses and Certifications

IDEO U offers a range of design thinking courses and certificates designed to help individuals and organizations master design thinking . These courses provide practical, hands-on learning experiences and are taught by industry experts. Benefits include:

• Expert Instruction: Learn from practitioners who have successfully applied design thinking across industries and around the globe.
• Real-World Applications: You’ll be able to immediately apply resources, tools, and frameworks to the work challenges you’re facing today.
• Community Support: Join a global community of leaders and innovators for ongoing support and collaboration.

Take the Next Step Toward Innovation with IDEO U

Ready to transform your approach to problem-solving and innovation? Enroll in Foundations in Design Thinking , a professional design thinking certificate from IDEO U.

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What Is Design Thinking & Why Is It Important?

• 18 Jan 2022

In an age when innovation is key to business success and growth, you’ve likely come across the term “design thinking.” Perhaps you’ve heard it mentioned by a senior leader as something that needs to be utilized more, or maybe you’ve seen it on a prospective employee's resume.

While design thinking is an ideology based on designers’ workflows for mapping out stages of design, its purpose is to provide all professionals with a standardized innovation process to develop creative solutions to problems—design-related or not.

Why is design thinking needed? Innovation is defined as a product, process, service, or business model featuring two critical characteristics: novel and useful. Yet, there’s no use in creating something new and novel if people won’t use it. Design thinking offers innovation the upgrade it needs to inspire meaningful and impactful solutions.

But what is design thinking, and how does it benefit working professionals?

What Is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a mindset and approach to problem-solving and innovation anchored around human-centered design . While it can be traced back centuries—and perhaps even longer—it gained traction in the modern business world after Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO, published an article about it in the Harvard Business Review .

Design thinking is different from other innovation and ideation processes in that it’s solution-based and user-centric rather than problem-based. This means it focuses on the solution to a problem instead of the problem itself.

For example, if a team is struggling with transitioning to remote work, the design thinking methodology encourages them to consider how to increase employee engagement rather than focus on the problem (decreasing productivity).

The essence of design thinking is human-centric and user-specific. It’s about the person behind the problem and solution, and requires asking questions such as “Who will be using this product?” and “How will this solution impact the user?”

The first, and arguably most important, step of design thinking is building empathy with users. By understanding the person affected by a problem, you can find a more impactful solution. On top of empathy, design thinking is centered on observing product interaction, drawing conclusions based on research, and ensuring the user remains the focus of the final implementation.

The Four Phases of Innovation

So, what does design thinking entail? There are many models of design thinking that range from three to seven steps.

In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase innovation framework. The phases venture from concrete to abstract thinking and back again as the process loops, reverses, and repeats. This is an important balance because abstract thinking increases the likelihood that an idea will be novel. It’s essential, however, to anchor abstract ideas in concrete thinking to ensure the solution is valid and useful.

Here are the four phases for effective innovation and, by extension, design thinking.

The first phase is about narrowing down the focus of the design thinking process. It involves identifying the problem statement to come up with the best outcome. This is done through observation and taking the time to determine the problem and the roadblocks that prevented a solution in the past.

Various tools and frameworks are available—and often needed—to make concrete observations about users and facts gathered through research. Regardless of which tools are implemented, the key is to observe without assumptions or biased expectations.

Once findings from your observations are collected, the next step is to shape insights by framing those observations. This is where you can venture into the abstract by reframing the problem in the form of a statement or question.

Once the problem statement or question has been solidified—not finalized—the next step is ideation. You can use a tool such as systematic inventive thinking (SIT) in this stage, which is useful for creating an innovative process that can be replicated in the future.

The goal is to ultimately overcome cognitive fixedness and devise new and innovative ideas that solve the problems you identified. Continue to actively avoid assumptions and keep the user at the forefront of your mind during ideation sessions.

The third phase involves developing concepts by critiquing a range of possible solutions. This includes multiple rounds of prototyping, testing, and experimenting to answer critical questions about a concept’s viability.

Remember: This step isn’t about perfection, but rather, experimenting with different ideas and seeing which parts work and which don’t.

4. Implement

The fourth and final phase, implementation, is when the entire process comes together. As an extension of the develop phase, implementation starts with testing, reflecting on results, reiterating, and testing again. This may require going back to a prior phase to iterate and refine until you find a successful solution. Such an approach is recommended because design thinking is often a nonlinear, iterative process.

In this phase, don’t forget to share results with stakeholders and reflect on the innovation management strategies implemented during the design thinking process. Learning from experience is an innovation process and design thinking project all its own.

Check out the video about the design thinking process below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

Why Design Thinking Skills Matter

The main value of design thinking is that it offers a defined process for innovation. While trial and error is a good way to test and experiment what works and what doesn’t, it’s often time-consuming, expensive, and ultimately ineffective. On the other hand, following the concrete steps of design thinking is an efficient way to develop new, innovative solutions.

On top of a clear, defined process that enables strategic innovation, design thinking can have immensely positive outcomes for your career—in terms of both advancement and salary.

As of December 2021, the most common occupations requiring design thinking skills were:

• Marketing managers
• Industrial engineers
• Graphic designers
• Software developers
• General and operations managers
• Management analysts
• Personal service managers
• Architectural and engineering managers
• Computer and information systems managers

In addition, jobs that require design thinking statistically have higher salaries. Take a marketing manager position, for example. The median annual salary is $107,900. Marketing manager job postings that require design thinking skills, however, have a median annual salary of $133,900—a 24 percent increase.

Overall, businesses are looking for talent with design thinking skills. As of November 2021, there were 29,648 job postings in the United States advertising design thinking as a necessary skill—a 153 percent increase from November 2020, and a 637 percent increase from November 2017.

As businesses continue to recognize the need for design thinking and innovation, they’ll likely create more demand for employees with those skills.

Learning Design Thinking

Design thinking is an extension of innovation that allows you to design solutions for end users with a single problem statement in mind. It not only imparts valuable skills but can help advance your career.

It’s also a collaborative endeavor that can only be mastered through practice with peers. As Datar says in the introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation : “Just as with learning how to swim, the best way to practice is to jump in and try.”

If you want to learn design thinking, take an active role in your education. Start polls, problem-solving exercises, and debates with peers to get a taste of the process. It’s also important to seek out diverse viewpoints to prepare yourself for the business world.

In addition, if you’re considering adding design thinking to your skill set, think about your goals and why you want to learn about it. What else might you need to be successful?

You might consider developing your communication, innovation, leadership, research, and management skills, as those are often listed alongside design thinking in job postings and professional profiles.

You may also notice skills like agile methodology, user experience, and prototyping in job postings, along with non-design skills, such as product management, strategic planning, and new product development.

Is Design Thinking Right for You?

There are many ways to approach problem-solving and innovation. Design thinking is just one of them. While it’s beneficial to learn how others have approached problems and evaluate if you have the same tools at your disposal, it can be more important to chart your own course to deliver what users and customers truly need.

You can also pursue an online course or workshop that dives deeper into design thinking methodology. This can be a practical path if you want to improve your design thinking skills or require a more collaborative environment.

Are you ready to develop your design thinking skills? Explore our online course Design Thinking and Innovation to discover how to leverage fundamental design thinking principles and innovative problem-solving tools to address business challenges.

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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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How to solve problems with design thinking

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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5 Steps of the Design Thinking Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

The five steps that make up the design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test..

By now, you’ve probably heard about the design thinking methodology. More industries than ever are taking a human-centric approach to evolve their existing products and generating new ideas to serve their customers better by getting curious about actual user needs, ideating potential solutions, and testing them with real users. Let’s take a closer look at what design thinking and user-centered design is and how to apply it to your organization.

According to statistics, 79% of companies agree that design thinking improves the ideation process, and 71% have enjoyed a significant shift in their work culture after adopting design thinking. While it does contain the word design, design thinking and it’s iterative approach to creative ideas is not only for design teams , in fact, any team can benefit from this human-centered design process. We’ve seen product development teams, multidisciplianry teams exploring new business models, customer success teams designing new customer experiences, and countless other examples.

What is the Design Thinking Process?

Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving that helps teams move past the first “good ideas” and discover creative solutions. Rather than a one-shoe-fits-all mindset, the design thinking approach encourages a holistic view where uncertainty and ambiguity are welcomed and embraced to consider all sides of a problem. A design mindset can be applied to any life situation, and it aids in developing innovative ideas by considering the bigger picture and allowing that to shape our decisions as we move forward.

The method is steeped in a deep belief that the end-user should be at the heart of all decision-making. The benefit of design thinking is that, through empathy for your customer, consumer, or client, you are able to create products and experiences that truly help people and even change lives.

In this article, we’ll explore the five-step process that enables teams to come up with impactful solutions to real problems that are vetted by the people they intend to serve before they’ve even been built. These key steps will launch you into an innovative and experimental design approach.

Pro-tip: use our  Liberating Structures templates  to get the most out of the design-thinking process with your team. At Voltage Control we also love to use the Workshop Design Canvas .

The 5-Step Design Thinking Process

1.  empathize .

The first stage of the design process is to develop  a deep understanding of the target audience/customer/consumer and their unique perspective to identify and address the problem at hand. To do this, design thinkers are encouraged to cast aside all assumptions (because assumptions can stifle innovation !) about the problem, the consumers, and the world at large. This allows them to objectively consider any and all possibilities about the customers and their needs.

Typical activities:

• Observations: You’ll go where your users go and see what they care about. 
• Qualitative Interviews: You’ll hold one-on-one interviews with a handful of your users to understand their attitudes on the topic you are exploring. Asking someone to tell a story about the last time they experienced the problem you’re investigating provides a rich description that highlights details you might not have otherwise considered. Check out our Interview Observation template to interview someone that is close to the problem you are having and observe the behavior, success, and pain points.

Immersions: Step into your user’s shoes so you can feel and experience their day-to-day.

Tools like empathy maps can be a great way to consolidate all of the valuable information gleaned from interviews. Empathy maps capture what people do, say, think, and feel in the context of the problem. They help colleagues understand the context of the problem and how people experience it, too.

Putting together all of the information gathered from emphasizing in the previous step. The next step is to define the problem statement clearly. The ideal problem statement should be captured from the perspective of human-centered needs rather than focused on business goals. For example, instead of setting a goal to increase signups by 5%, a human-centered target would be to help busy moms provide healthy food for their families.

Based on the frustrations you observed or heard about, come up with questions for how you might solve them. 

Typical Activities

• Clustering and Themes: There are a lot of different ways to go about the Define phase, but it’s safe to say you’ll need a wall of sticky notes; these will be filled with the quotes, observations, and ideas you heard throughout your research. Group and cluster ideas together until you find the prevailing or most prominent themes.
• Problem Statement: Take time to properly articulate the problem statement. Answer the following questions: 1) What is the problem? 2) Who has the problem? 3) Where is the problem? 4) Why does it matter

As you explore the empathy data, focus on identifying patterns and problems across a diverse group of people. Gathering information on how people are currently attempting to solve the problem and how they explore alternative solutions can provide clues into their underlying root problems. 

You can’t solve all of your users’ problems. Identify the most significant or most painful issues they face as you consider what you want to focus on as you move forward.

3. Ideate

Now that the problem you intend to solve is clear, it’s time to brainstorm ways to address those unmet needs. You collect as many ideas as possible at the start, so your team can investigate and test them by the end.

• Brainstorming: Brainstorming is a critical part of the ideation phase, it is the best way to generate of a wide variety of ideas, all aimed at addressing the problem or challenge at hand. Brainstoming allows the entire team to bring their perspectives, experiences, and insights to the table, fostering diversity and richness in idea generation. Ideas shared can serve as stepping stones lead to innovative, out-of-the-box solutions that might not have been uncovered with a more conventional, linear thinking process. 
• Worst Possible Idea: The “Worst Possible Idea” activity may seem counterproductive,  but it can encourage creativity and eliminate psychological holdups that stall innovative thinking. It allows team members to brainstorm and share their ‘worst ideas’ without fear of judgment or criticism. This fosters an environment where coming up with the “perfect” ideas is eliminated, allowing freedom and creativity to shine. The process of identifying why an idea is ‘the worst’ can help in understanding the parameters and constraints of a problem, offering insights into what an ideal solution should avoid. This exercise also brings a sense of humor and fun into the brainstorming process!

The ideation stage marks the transition from identifying problems to exploring solutions. It flows between idea generation and evaluation, but it’s important that each process remains separate from the other.

When it’s time to generate ideas, do so quickly without focusing on the quality or feasibility of the idea. Ideation techniques are rooted in the idea that we’ll prioritize quantity over quality so that we can move past the first good idea(s) and find the truly novel ones. Only when you’ve fully exhausted your abilities to generate new ideas do you move on to evaluate them. This is your opportunity you can go around the room and discuss the ideas presented to get clarification if needed.

The ideation phase is usually a very creative and freeing phase for a team because they have permission to think of out-of-the-box ideas before deciding what they are going to prototype.

4. Prototype

It’s time to experiment! Through trial and error, your team identifies which of the possible solutions can best solve the identified problem(s). This typically will include scaled-down versions of a finished product or systems in question so you can present and get feedback from the people they are intended to serve.

• Create a Vision Board: This visual representation of ideas, inspirations, and intended outcomes allows team members to envision the desired final product. By gathering images, drawings, materials, or words that symbolize the goals, functions, and user experience of the prototype, the vision board is a shared reference point for the whole team. It facilitates communication, aligns understanding, and encourages creative problem-solving. The actual process of creating the vision board itself promotes a deeper engagement with the project’s objectives and encourages innovative thinking. 
• Rapid Prototyping: The aim of rapid prototyping is to create low-cost, scaled-down versions of the product or specific features quickly for initial testing. Using paper, sticky notes, cardboard, or digital mockup tools, have the team put their ideas into tangible or visible models. This can be done by drawing, making 3D models, or even creating a storyboard to showcase user interactions. It helps teams understand the look and feel of their solutions, identify potential issues, and validate whether the prototype aligns with users’ needs and expectations. Check out our Take 5 template when you want to collect diverse ideas from the entire room. Within 5 minutes, everyone will be sharing from an intentional perspective using visuals!

The goal is to start with a low-fidelity version of the intended solution and improve it over time based on feedback. Beginning with a paper prototype can help you learn quickly with minimal effort. The prototype should be a realistic representation of the solution that allows you to gain an understanding of what works and doesn’t work. It is changed and updated based on feedback from the Test phase in an iterative process. The rapid, low-cost, lightweight nature of prototyping also allows you to develop multiple solutions to test in tandem to identify the best possible solution for meeting those unmet user needs.

5. Test

The prototype is at the center of the final phase as we put all our ideas to the test.  It’s important to note that the testing phase is part of an interactive cycle. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from your users again —just as you did in the early phase, Empathize. User testing is critical to understand how your audience will react to the ideas in your prototype and how desirable that experience will be. Unlike usability testing, where we are seeking to learn how difficult it is to perform certain tasks,  you are allowing them to interact with your prototype to observe their responses and gain insights on whether or not it solves their problem.

• Observational Testing: In this exercise, real users interact with the final prototype in a controlled setting, while the design team observes their behavior and responses. The goal is not just to confirm if the solution works as intended but to gain deeper insights into how the user interacts with the product, how they approach the problem the product is meant to solve, and where difficulties or confusion arrise. Observational testing can offer valuable, sometimes unexpected, insights into user behavior and experience that might be missed with traditional feedback. It’s an empathetic approach that focuses on observing and understanding the users needs and wants.
• Iterative Testing: This process is all about using the results of the initial testing to make improvements, and then testing again! Check out our 5 act Interview Cheat Sheet to build the best team for the project. The objective is to constantly refine and enhance the solution based on user feedback. Each iteration of the prototype is tested with users, and the insights gathered are used to further refine the solution. This could involve making minor tweaks or massive changes depending on the feedback received. Iterative testing helps in ensuring that the final product is as effective, user-friendly, and problem-solving as possible. The process keeps going until the team is confident that they have the most innovative and best possible version of the solution ready for launch.

Testing with real users is essential because everything is ultimately about the people who will use your products, and that is the true nature of the design thinking model. After you collect insights from users, it’s time to revisit the problem statement and reflect on how well the prototype is meeting needs and resolving frustrations.

You want to see what real people think about your idea. This stage allows for all details to be flushed out and refined to create the best solution possible.

Putting the 5 steps to work.

As you reflect on the 5 steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, keep in mind that each step builds on its predecessor, guiding teams through an exploration of user needs, challenges, and solutions. Yet, as any seasoned design thinker will affirm, this journey isn’t strictly a linear process.

The beauty of the design thinking process is it invites and supports creativity and flexibility. While we’ve outlined the steps sequentially, it’s most effective for teams to revisit earlier stages based on newfound insights or challenges. For instance, feedback during the Testing phase might propel a team back to the Ideation or even Empathy stage. This iterative nature is not a sign of backtracking but rather a testament to the process’s commitment to staying true to user needs.

In essence, design thinking is a creative dance. It’s a dynamic interplay of understanding, ideating, experimenting, and refining. With each iteration, solutions become more attuned, innovative, and user-centric.

So, as you delve into the design thinking steps, remember: The route isn’t always straightforward, and that’s perfectly okay. Embrace the meandering path, the revisits, the detours. Because in this iterative journey, every step, whether forward or backward, is a step towards genuine innovation that resonates deeply with users.

Need an expert facilitator for your next meeting, gathering, or workshop? Let’s talk.

Our extensive network of Facilitation Certificaiton alumni are skilled at facilitating events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out to us at [email protected]. We’d be happy to connect you with one of our expert alumni.

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Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem

Once you’ve empathized with your users, you can move on to the second stage of the design thinking process and define the problem your users need you to solve..

If you’ve read our introduction to User Experience (UX) Design , you’ll know that UX is essentially about solving the problems that prevent users from accomplishing what they want to do with our product.

Before you can go into problem-solving mode, however, there is one very crucial step that you need to complete—one that will shape your entire design project from start to finish. In the Design Thinking process , this step is what’s known as the “define” stage.

As the second step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is where you’ll establish a clear idea of exactly which problem you will solve for the user. You’ll then shape this into a problem statement which will act as your northern star throughout the design process.

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about this stage in the Design Thinking process, as well as how to define a meaningful problem statement.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is the define stage and why is it necessary?
• What is a problem statement?
• How to define a meaningful problem statement
• What comes after the define phase?

Before we dive in, though, if you’d like an overview of the entire Design Thinking process, check out this video:

1. What is the define stage and why is it necessary?

As the second step in the Design Thinking process, the define stage is dedicated to defining the problem: what user problem will you be trying to solve? In other words, what is your design challenge?

The define stage is preceded by the empathize phase , where you’ll have learned as much about your users as possible, conducting interviews and using a variety of immersion and observation techniques. Once you have a good idea of who your users are and, most importantly, their wants, needs, and pain-points, you’re ready to turn this empathy into an actionable problem statement.

The relationship between the empathize and define stages can best be described in terms of analysis and synthesis. In the empathize phase, we use analysis to break down everything we observe and discover about our users into smaller, more manageable components—dividing their actions and behaviour into “what”, “why” and “how” categories, for example. In the define stage, we piece these components back together, synthesising our findings to create a detailed overall picture.

Why is the define stage so important?

The define stage ensures you fully understand the goal of your design project. It helps you to articulate your design problem, and provides a clear-cut objective to work towards. A meaningful, actionable problem statement will steer you in the right direction, helping you to kick-start the ideation process (see Stage Three of the Design Thinking process ) and work your way towards a solution.

Without a well-defined problem statement, it’s hard to know what you’re aiming for. Your work will lack focus, and the final design will suffer. Not only that: in the absence of a clear problem statement, it’s extremely difficult to explain to stakeholders and team members exactly what you are trying to achieve.

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at problem statements and how you can go about defining them.

2. What is a problem statement?

A problem statement identifies the gap between the current state (i.e. the problem) and the desired state (i.e. the goal) of a process or product . Within the design context, you can think of the user problem as an unmet need. By designing a solution that meets this need, you can satisfy the user and ensure a pleasant user experience.

A problem statement, or point of view (POV) statement, frames this problem (or need) in a way that is actionable for designers. It provides a clear description of the issue that the designer seeks to address, keeping the focus on the user at all times.

Problem or POV statements can take various formats, but the end goal is always the same: to guide the design team towards a feasible solution. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you might frame your design problem:

• From the user’s perspective: “I am a young working professional trying to eat healthily, but I’m struggling because I work long hours and don’t always have time to go grocery shopping and prepare my meals. This makes me feel frustrated and bad about myself.”
• From a user research perspective: “Busy working professionals need an easy, time-efficient way to eat healthily because they often work long hours and don’t have time to shop and meal prep.”
• Based on the four Ws—who, what, where, and why: “Our young working professional struggles to eat healthily during the week because she is working long hours. Our solution should deliver a quick and easy way for her to procure ingredients and prepare healthy meals that she can take to work.”

As you can see, each of these statements addresses the same issue—just in a slightly different way. As long as you focus on the user, what they need and why, it’s up to you how you choose to present and frame your design problem.

We’ll look at how to form your problem statement a little later on. Before we do, let’s consider some problem statement “do”s and “don’t”s.

What makes a good problem statement?

A good problem statement is human-centered and user-focused. Based on the insights you gathered in the empathize phase, it focuses on the users and their needs—not on product specifications or business outcomes. Here are some pointers that will help you create a meaningful problem statement:

• Focus on the user: The user and their needs should be front and center of your problem statement. Avoid statements that start with “we need to…” or “the product should”, instead concentrating on the user’s perspective: “Young working professionals need…”, as in the examples above.
• Keep it broad: A good problem statement leaves room for innovation and creative freedom. It’s important to keep it broad enough to invite a range of different ideas; avoid any references to specific solutions or technical requirements, for example.
• Make it manageable: At the same time, your problem statement should guide you and provide direction. If it’s too broad in terms of the user’s needs and goals, you’ll struggle to hone in on a suitable solution. So, don’t try to address too many user needs in one problem statement; prioritize and frame your problem accordingly.

Bearing these things in mind, let’s explore some useful methods for creating a meaningful problem statement.

3. How to write a meaningful problem statement

Writing a meaningful problem statement can be extremely challenging. How do you condense all the complexities of the user’s conscious and unconscious desires into one simple, actionable statement? Fortunately, there are some tried-and-tested methods that will help you do just that.

Space saturation and group

One of the first steps in defining a problem statement is to organize your findings from the empathize phase. Space saturation and group is a popular method used by design thinkers to collect and visually present all observations made in the empathize phase in one space. As the name suggests, you will literally “saturate” a wall or whiteboard with Post-It notes and images, resulting in a collage of artifacts from your user research.

As the Stanford d.school explains: “You space saturate to help you unpack thoughts and experiences into tangible and visual pieces of information that you surround yourself with to inform and inspire the design team. You group these findings to explore what themes and patterns emerge, and strive to move toward identifying meaningful needs of people and insights that will inform your design solutions.”

This method should involve anyone who took part in the empathize stage of the design project, and should take no longer than 20-30 minutes.

The four Ws

Asking the right questions will help you put your finger on the right problem statement. With all your findings from the empathize phase in one place, ask yourself the four Ws: Who , what , where , and why?

• Who is experiencing the problem? In other words, who is your target user; who will be the focus of your problem statement?
• What is the problem? Based on the observations you made during the empathize phase, what are the problems and pain-points that frequently came up? What task is the user trying to accomplish, and what’s standing in their way?
• Where does the problem present itself? In what space (physical or digital), situation or context is the user when they face this problem? Are there any other people involved?
• Why does it matter? Why is it important that this problem be solved? What value would a solution bring to the user, and to the business?

Approaching your observations with these four questions in mind will help you to identify patterns within your user research. In identifying the most prevalent issues, you’ll be one step closer to formulating a meaningful problem statement.

The five whys

Another question-based strategy, the five whys technique can help you delve deeper into the problem and drill down to the root cause. Once you’ve identified the root cause, you have something that you can act upon; somewhere specific to focus your problem-solving efforts.

Let’s take our previous example of the young working professional who wants to eat healthily, but finds it difficult to do so. Here’s how you might use the five whys to break the problem down and get to the root cause:

• Why is she not eating healthily? → She orders takeaway everyday.
• Why does she order takeaway everyday? → Her fridge and cupboards are empty.
• Why are the fridge and cupboards empty? → She hasn’t been grocery shopping in over a week.
• Why hasn’t she been grocery shopping? → She doesn’t have time to go to the supermarket.
• Why doesn’t she have time? → She works long hours and is exhausted.

The root cause here is a lack of time, so your solution might focus on efficiency and convenience. Your final problem statement might look something like this: “Young working professionals need a quick, convenient solution to eating healthily.”

4. What comes after the define phase?

By the end of the define phase, you’ll have turned your findings from the empathize stage into a meaningful, actionable problem statement. With your problem statement to hand, you’ll be ready to move on to the ideation phase , where you’ll turn your problem statement into “how might we” questions and generate as many potential solutions as possible.

As you move through the Design Thinking process, you’ll constantly refer back to your problem statement to make sure you’re moving in the right direction. A well-thought-out problem statement will keep you on track, help you communicate your objectives to key stakeholders, and ultimately lead you to that all-important user solution.

Want to learn more about designing user-friendly solutions? Check out these articles:

• UX Best Practices: How Can You Become A Better Designer?
• What Is User Experience Design? Everything You Need To Know To Get Started
• This Is Why Empathy Matters As A UX Designer
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FREE K-12 standards-aligned STEM

curriculum for educators everywhere!

Find more at TeachEngineering.org .

Engineering Design Process

The engineering design process emphasizes open-ended problem solving and encourages students to learn from failure . This process nurtures students’ abilities to create innovative solutions to challenges in any subject!

The engineering design process is a series of steps that guides engineering teams as we solve problems. The design process is iterative , meaning that we repeat the steps as many times as needed, making improvements along the way as we learn from failure and uncover new design possibilities to arrive at great solutions.

Overarching themes of the engineering design process are teamwork and design . Strengthen your students’ understanding of open-ended design as you encourage them to work together to brainstorm new ideas, apply science and math concepts, test prototypes and analyze data—and aim for creativity and practicality in their solutions. Project-based learning engages learners of all ages—and fosters STEM literacy.

Browse all K-12 engineering design process curriculum

Ask: identify the need & constraints.

Engineers ask critical questions about what they want to create, whether it be a skyscraper, amusement park ride, bicycle or smartphone. These questions include: What is the problem to solve? What do we want to design? Who is it for? What do we want to accomplish? What are the project requirements? What are the limitations? What is our goal?

Research the Problem

This includes talking to people from many different backgrounds and specialties to assist with researching what products or solutions already exist, or what technologies might be adaptable to your needs.

Imagine: Develop Possible Solutions

You work with a team to brainstorm ideas and develop as many solutions as possible. This is the time to encourage wild ideas and defer judgment! Build on the ideas of others! Stay focused on topic, and have one conversation at a time! Remember: good design is all about teamwork! Help students understand the brainstorming guidelines by using the TE handout and two sizes of classroom posters .

Plan: Select a Promising Solution

For many teams this is the hardest step! Revisit the needs, constraints and research from the earlier steps, compare your best ideas, select one solution and make a plan to move forward with it.

Create: Build a Prototype

Building a prototype makes your ideas real! These early versions of the design solution help your team verify whether the design meets the original challenge objectives. Push yourself for creativity, imagination and excellence in design.

Test and Evaluate Prototype

Does it work? Does it solve the need? Communicate the results and get feedback. Analyze and talk about what works, what doesn't and what could be improved.

Improve: Redesign as Needed

Discuss how you could improve your solution. Make revisions. Draw new designs. Iterate your design to make your product the best it can be. And now, REPEAT!

Check out our high school engineering design unit

Engineering-Design Aligned Curricula

The TeachEngineering hands-on activities featured here, by grade band, exemplify the engineering design process.

Students investigate what causes them to become sick during the school year. They use the engineering design process to test the classroom lab spaces for bacteria. After their tests, they develop ideas to control the spread of germs within the classroom.

A unique activity for young learners that combines engineering and biology, students design an optimal environment for red wiggler worms in a compost bin.

In this maker challenge, students use the engineering design process to design a covering for a portable wheelchair ramp for their school. The design must be easy to use, and allows people to move up the ramp easily and go down slowly.

Students employ the engineering design process to create a device that uses water-absorbing crystals for use during a flood or storm surge. They use (or build) a toy house, follow the engineering design process to build their device, and subject the house to tests that mimic a heavy flood or rising ...

Students use the engineering design process to design a bridge out of silkworm cocoons that can hold at least 50 grams. Students can use other materials to supplement the silk bridge, but have a $10 budget.

In this multi-day activity, students explore environments, ecosystems, energy flow and organism interactions by creating a scale model biodome, following the steps of the engineering design process.

Build a model race car out of lifesaver candies, popsicle sticks, straws, and other fun materials! Have students learn about independent, dependent, and control variables, and find out who can make the fastest car given their new knowledge.

Design and construct a bridge for a local city that will have a high strength-to-weight ratio and resist collapse. Have students use their understanding of the engineering design process—and a lot of wooden craft sticks—to achieve their goals.

In this two-part activity, students design and build Rube Goldberg machines. This open-ended challenge employs the engineering design process and may have a pre-determined purpose, such as rolling a marble into a cup from a distance, or let students decide the purposes.

Students are challenged to design and build rockets from two-liter plastic soda bottles that travel as far and straight as possible or stay aloft as long as possible. Guided by the steps of the engineering design process, students first watch a video that shows rocket launch failures and then partic...

Students explore how mass affects momentum in head-on collisions and experience the engineering design process as if they are engineers working on the next big safety feature for passenger cars. They design, create and redesign impact-resistant passenger vehicle compartments for small-size model car...

Students work as teams of engineers to design and build their own trebuchets. They research how to build and test their trebuchets, evaluate their results, and present their results and design process to the class.

Grades 9-12

Student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design and build architecturally inspired cardboard furniture. Given a list of constraints, including limited fabrication materials and tools, groups research architectural styles, brainstorm ideas, make small-scale quick proto...

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design and construct balloons for aerial surveillance. Applying their newfound knowledge, the young engineers build and test balloons that fly carrying small flip cameras that capture aerial images of their school.

Student teams design, build and test small-sized gliders to maximize flight distance and an aerodynamic ratio, applying their knowledge of fluid dynamics to its role in flight. Students experience the entire engineering design process, from brainstorming to CAD (or by hand) drafting, including resea...

Students learn about human proteins, how their shapes are related to their functions and how DNA protein mutations result in diseases. Then, in a hypothetical engineering scenario, they use common classroom supplies to design and build their own structural, transport and defense protein models to he...

Students develop an app for an Android device that utilizes its built-in internal sensors, specifically the accelerometer. The goal of this activity is to teach programming design and skills using MIT's App Inventor software (free to download from the Internet) as the vehicle for learning.

Welcome to TeachEngineering’s Engineering Design Process curricula for Grade K-2 Educators!

Create popsicles using the engineering design process! In this activity, students work to solve the problems of a local popsicle shop while learning how scientific and engineering concepts play a part in behind-the-scenes design.

In this maker challenge, students follow the engineering design process and use water-absorbing crystals to create a bandage that can be used in a traumatic situation, like a car accident or hiking accident.

Maker Challenge

Students perform research and design prosthetic prototypes for an animal to use for its survival. They research a set of pre-chosen animals and their habitats. They then create habitats for their animals to live and model 3D prosthetics for the animals to use with modeling clay.

Given scrap cardboard, paper towel tubes, scissors, and glue, how could a student invent their own backscratcher? Engage in the process of how real engineers design products to meet a desired function.

Students design a way for mint plants to keep a constant moisture level for 72 hours. The mint plants must be kept moist since they are young and just starting to establish growth.

Design a customized table top supply organizer inspired by the natural home of a ladybug—or any other insect of a student's choosing—to hold all of their classroom supplies! By the end of this activity, students will understand the properties of biomimicry and the engineering design process.

Welcome to TeachEngineering’s Engineering Design Process curricula for Grade 3-5 Educators!

As students learn about the creation of biodomes, they are introduced to the steps of the engineering design process, including guidelines for brainstorming. They learn how engineers are involved in the design and construction of biodomes and use brainstorming to come up with ideas for possible biod...

Students learn about providing healthcare in a global setting and the importance of wearing protective equipment when treating patients with infectious diseases like Ebola. They learn about biohazard suits, heat transfer through conduction and convection and the engineering design cycle. Student tea...

Working as if they are engineers who work for (the hypothetical) Build-a-Toy Workshop company, students apply their imaginations and the engineering design process to design and build prototype toys with moving parts. They set up electric circuits using batteries, wire and motors. They create plans ...

Whether on Earth or in space, life-threatening illnesses may occur if the water we drink is of poor quality. It’s up to your students to design and build a filtration system for the International Space Station so they can guarantee astronauts get the safe and clean water they need.

Your students have been hired to build a pop rocket, but on a tight budget. Engineering design usually has some constraints and you won’t always have access to the materials you think you might need. But through brainstorming and trial and error, a viable rocket launch is definitely possible!

In this activity, students design and build model houses, then test them against various climate elements, and then re-design and improve them. Using books, websites and photos, students learn about the different types of roofs found on various houses in different environments throughout the world....

Students pretend they are agricultural engineers during the colonial period and design a miniature plow that cuts through a "field" of soil. They are introduced to the engineering design process and learn of several famous historical figures who contributed to plow design.

Students learn how to use wind energy to combat gravity and create lift by creating their own tetrahedral kites capable of flying. They explore different tetrahedron kite designs, learning that the geometry of the tetrahedron shape lends itself well to kites and wings because of its advantageous str...

Students learn the basics of engineering sneakers and shoes. They are challenged to decide on specific design requirements, such as heavy traction or extra cushioning, and then use different materials to create working prototype shoes that meet the design criteria. Includes worksheets.

For this maker challenge, students decide on specific design requirements (such as good traction or deep cushioning), sketch their plans, and then use a variety of materials to build prototype shoes that meet the design criteria.

Students design a temporary habitat for a future classroom pet—a hingeback tortoise. The students investigate hingeback tortoise habitat features as well as the design features of such a habitat. Each group communicates and presents this information to the rest of the class after they research, brai...

When a person gets injured in the wilderness and needs medical attention, rescuers might use a device called a mountain rescue litter specifically designed for difficult evacuations. Design and build a small-sized prototype to save some (potatoes’) lives!

Student teams are challenged to navigate a table tennis ball through a timed obstacle course using only the provided unconventional “tools.” Teams act as engineers by working through the steps of the engineering design process to complete the overall task with each group member responsible to accomp...

Students explore the engineering design process within the context of Dr. Seuss’s book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Students study a sample of aloe vera gel (the oobleck) in lab groups. After analyzing the substance, they use the engineering design process to develop and test other substances to ma...

Students explore the use of wind power in the design, construction and testing of "sail cars," which, in this case, are little wheeled carts with masts and sails that are powered by the moving air generated from a box fan. The scientific method is reviewed and reinforced with the use of controls and...

Students engage in the second design challenge of the unit, which is an extension of the maze challenge they solved in the first lesson/activity of this unit. Students extend the ideas learned in the maze challenge with a focus more on the robot design. Specifically, students learn how to design the...

Student groups are challenged to program robots with color sensors to follow a black line. Learning both the logic and skills behind programming robots for this challenge helps students improve their understanding of how robots "think" and widens their appreciation for the complexity involved in pro...

As part of a design challenge, students learn how to use a rotation sensor (located inside the casing of a LEGO® MINDSTORMS ® EV3 motor) to measure how far a robot moves with each rotation. Through experimentation and measurement with the sensor, student pairs determine the relationship between the ...

As the first engineering design challenge of the unit, students are introduced to the logic for solving a maze. Student groups apply logic to program LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 robots to navigate through a maze, first with no sensors, and then with sensors.

Student pairs experience the iterative engineering design process as they design, build, test and improve catching devices to prevent a "naked" egg from breaking when dropped from increasing heights. To support their design work, they learn about materials properties, energy types and conservation o...

Students apply what they have learned about the engineering design process to a real-life problem that affects them and/or their school. They choose a problem as a group, and then follow the engineering design process to come up with and test their design solution.

Working individually or in pairs, students compete to design, create, test and redesign free-standing, weight-bearing towers using Kapla® wooden blocks. The challenge is to build the tallest tower while meeting the design criteria and minimizing the amount of material used—all within a time limit.

Students experience the engineering design process as they design and build accurate and precise catapults using common materials. They use their catapults to participate in a game in which they launch Ping-Pong balls to attempt to hit various targets.

Students employ the full engineering design process to research and design prototypes that could be used to solve the loss of sea turtle life during a hurricane. Students learn about sea turtle nesting behaviors and environmental impacts of hurricanes. Students work collaboratively to build structur...

Students learn how engineering design is applied to solve healthcare problems by using an engineering tool called simulation. While engineering design is commonly used to study and design everything from bridges, factories, airports to space shuttles, the use of engineering design to study healthcar...

Students learn about civil engineers and work through each step of the engineering design process in two mini-activities that prepare them for a culminating challenge to design and build the tallest straw tower possible, given limited time and resources. In the culminating challenge (tallest straw t...

Students apply their knowledge of constructing and programming LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robots to create sumobots—strong robots capable of pushing other robots out of a ring. To meet the challenge, groups follow the steps of the engineering design process and consider robot structure, weight and gear ratio...

Students learn about health risks caused by cooking and heating with inefficient stoves inside homes. They simulate the cook stove scenario and follow the engineering design process steps, including iterative trials, to increase warmth inside a building while reducing air quality problems. A student...

Students work together in small groups, while competing with other teams, to explore the engineering design process through a tower building challenge. They are given a set of design constraints and then conduct online research to learn basic tower-building concepts. During a two-day process and usi...

Students are introduced to the engineering design process, focusing on the concept of brainstorming design alternatives. They learn that engineering is about designing creative ways to improve existing artifacts, technologies or processes, or developing new inventions that benefit society.

Students' understanding of how robotic ultrasonic sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 robots and ultrasonic sensors. Student groups program their robots to move freely without bumping into obstacles (toy LEGO people).

Student pairs design and construct small, wind-powered sail cars using limited quantities of drinking straws, masking tape, paper and beads. Teams compete to see which sail car travels the farthest when pushed by the wind (simulated by the use of an electric fan). Students learn about wind and kinet...

Welcome to TeachEngineering’s Engineering Design Process curricula for Grade 6-8 Educators!

Student teams are challenged to design assistive devices that modify crutches to help people carry things such as books and school supplies. Given a list of constraints, including a device weight limit and minimum load capacity, groups brainstorm ideas and then make detailed plans for their best sol...

Students gain experience with the software/system design process, closely related to the engineering design process, to solve a problem. The lesson culminates in a hands-on experience with the design process as students simulate the remote control of a rover.

Students design, build and test looping model roller coasters using foam pipe insulation tubing. They learn about potential and kinetic energy as they test and evaluate designs, addressing the task as if they are engineers. Winning designs have the lowest cost and best aesthetics. Three student work...

Students design and develop a useful assistive device for people challenged by fine motor skill development who cannot grasp and control objects. In the process of designing prototype devices, they learn about the engineering design process and how to use it to solve problems.

Students learn more about assistive devices, specifically biomedical engineering applied to computer engineering concepts, with an engineering challenge to create an automatic floor cleaner computer program. Following the steps of the design process, they design computer programs and test them by pr...

Students groups use balsa wood and glue to build their own towers using some of the techniques they learned from the associated lesson.

Student teams are challenged to design models of Egyptian funerary barges for the purpose of transporting mummies through the underworld to the afterlife. Students design and build prototypes using materials and tools like the ancient Egyptians had at their disposal.

Students become product engineers in a bouncy ball factory as they design and prototype a polymer bouncy ball that meets specific requirements: must be spherical in shape, cannot disintegrate when thrown on the ground, and must bounce.

Students are introduced to the concept and steps of the engineering design process and taught how to apply it. In small groups, students learn of their design challenge (improve a cast for a broken arm), brainstorm solutions, are given materials and create prototypes.

Students become familiar with the engineering design process as they design, build, and test chair prototypes.

In this activity, students undertake a similar engineering challenge as they design and build a filter to remove pepper from an air stream without blocking more than 50% of the air.

Following the steps of the engineering design process and acting as biomedical engineers, student teams use everyday materials to design and develop devices and approaches to unclog blood vessels. Through this open-ended design project, they learn about the circulatory system, biomedical engineering...

Students design and build small doghouses to shelter a (toy) puppy from the heat—and create them within constraints. They apply what they know about light energy and how it travels through various materials, as well as how a material’s color affects its light absorption and reflection. They test the...

Students learn about convection, conduction, and radiation in order to solve the challenge of designing and building a small insulated cooler with the goal of keeping an ice cube and a Popsicle from melting. This activity uses the engineering design process to build the cooler as well as to measure ...

Students are given a biomedical engineering challenge, which they solve while following the steps of the engineering design process. In a design lab environment, student groups design, create and test prototype devices that help people using crutches carry things, such as books and school supplies.

Students build an electric racer vehicle using Tinkercad to design blades for their racers. Students print their designs using a MakerBot printer. Students race their vehicles to see which design travels the furthest distance in the least amount of time.

Students use the engineering design process to design, create, and test a pedometer that keeps track of the number of steps a person takes. This maker challenge exposes students to basic coding, micro:bit processor applications, and how programming and engineering can be used to solve health problem...

Students learn how to engineer a design for a polymer brush—a coating consisting of polymers that represents an antifouling polymer brush coating for a water filtration surface.

Students program the drive motors of a SparkFun RedBot with a multistep control sequence—a “dance.” Doing this is a great introduction to robotics and improves overall technical literacy by helping students understand that we use programs to control the motion and function of robots, and without the...

Students gain an understanding of the factors that affect wind turbine operation. Following the steps of the engineering design process, engineering teams use simple materials (cardboard and wooden dowels) to build and test their own turbine blade prototypes with the objective of maximizing electric...

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) while applying researched information on transportation technology, materials science and bioengineering. Students are given a fictional client statement (engineering challenge) and directed to follow the steps of the EDP t...

Students learn about the process of reverse engineering and how this technique is used to improve upon technology. Students analyze push-toys and draw diagrams of the predicted mechanisms inside the toys. Then, they disassemble the toys and draw the actual inner mechanisms.

Students design, build, and test model race cars made from simple materials (lifesaver-shaped candies, plastic drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, index cards, tape) as a way to explore independent, dependent and control variables.

Students use the engineering design process to solve a real-world problem—shoe engineering! Working in small teams, they design, build and test a pair of wearable platform or high-heeled shoes, taking into consideration the stress and strain forces that it will encounter from the shoe wearer.

Students' understanding of how robotic color sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robots and light sensors. Working in pairs, students program LEGO robots to follow a flashlight as its light beam moves around.

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process while combining mechanical engineering and bioengineering to create an automated medical device.

Students apply the concepts of conduction, convection and radiation as they work in teams to solve two challenges. One problem requires that they maintain the warm temperature of one soda can filled with water at approximately human body temperature, and the other problem is to cause an identical so...

Students design and build a mechanical arm that lifts and moves an empty 12-ounce soda can using hydraulics for power. Small design teams (1-2 students each) design and build a single axis for use in the completed mechanical arm.

Using ordinary classroom materials, students act as biomedical engineering teams challenged to design prototype models that demonstrate semipermeability to help medical students learn about kidney dialysis. A model consists of two layers of a medium separated by material acting as the membrane. Grou...

Students brainstorm, design, and build a cooler and monitor its effectiveness to keep a bottle of ice water cold in comparison to a bottle of ice water left at room temperature. Students engage in design by choosing from a range of materials to build their prototype.

Students learn about how biomedical engineers create assistive devices for persons with fine motor skill disabilities. They do this by designing, building and testing their own hand "gripper" prototypes that are able to grasp and lift a 200 ml cup of sand.

Based on their experience exploring the Mars rover Curiosity and learning about what engineers must go through to develop a vehicle like Curiosity, students create Android apps that can control LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robots, simulating the difficulties the Curiosity rover could encounter. The activity go...

Acting as biomedical engineers, students design, build, test and redesign prototype heart valves using materials such as waterproof tape, plastic tubing, flexible plastic and foam sheets, clay, wire and pipe cleaners. They test them with flowing water, representing blood moving through the heart.

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP) while being introduced to assistive technology devices and biomedical engineering. They are given a fictional client statement and are tasked to follow the steps of the EDP to design and build small-scale, off-road wheelcha...

Student groups create and test oil spill cleanup kits that are inexpensive and accessible for homeowners or for big companies to give to individual workers—to aid in home, community or environmental oil spill cleanup process.

Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying/falling devices to stay in the air as long as possible and land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams use the steps of the engineering design process to guide them through the initial conception, evaluation, testing and r...

Students learn how biomedical engineers work with engineers and other professionals to develop dependable medical devices. Student teams brainstorm, sketch, design and create prototypes of suction pump protection devices to keep fluid from backing up and ruining the pump motors.

Students experience the steps of the engineering design process as they design solutions for a real-world problem that negatively affects the environment. They use plastic tubing and assorted materials such as activated carbon, cotton balls, felt and cloth to create filters with the capability to re...

Students design and create sensory integration toys for young children with developmental disabilities—an engineering challenge that combines the topics of biomedical engineering, engineering design and human senses. Students learn the steps of the engineering design process (EDP) and how to use it ...

Students are asked to design a hockey stick for a school’s new sled hockey team. Using the engineering design process, students act as material engineers to create hockey sticks that have different interior structures using multiple materials that can withstand flexure testing.

Working as if they were engineers, students design and construct model solar sails made of aluminum foil to move cardboard tube satellites through “space” on a string. Working in teams, they follow the engineering design thinking steps—ask, research, imagine, plan, create, test, improve—to design an...

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process to create their own ear trumpet devices (used before modern-day hearing aids), including testing them with a set of reproducible sounds.

Student pairs design, build, and test model vehicles capable of rolling down a ramp and then coasting freely as far as possible. The challenge is to make the vehicles entirely out of dry pasta using only adhesive (such as hot glue) to hold the components together.

Students are challenged to design, build and test small-scale launchers while they learn and follow the steps of the engineering design process. For the challenge, the "slingers" must be able to aim and launch Ping-Pong balls 20 feet into a goal using ordinary building materials such as tape, string...

Students act as engineers to solve a hypothetical problem that has occurred in the Swiss Alps due to a natural seismic disaster. Working in groups, they follow the engineering design process steps to create model sleds that meet the requirements to transport materials to people in distress that live...

Students learn more about how muscles work and how biomedical engineers can help keep the muscular system healthy. Following the engineering design process, they create their own biomedical device to aid in the recovery of a strained bicep.

In this activity, student groups design and build three types of towers (guyed or cable-supported, free-standing or self-standing, and monopole), engineering them to meet the requirements that they hold an egg one foot high for 15 seconds.

A classic engineering challenge involves designing and building devices that can deliver necessary goods to “Toxic Island.” Working within specific constraints, students design a device that must not touch the water or island, and must deliver supplies accurately and quickly.

Students are given a difficult challenge that requires they integrate what they have learned so far in the unit about wait blocks, loops and switches. They incorporate these tools into their programming of the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robots to perform different tasks depending on input from a sound sensor...

Students apply their knowledge of scale and geometry to design wearables that would help people in their daily lives, perhaps for medical reasons or convenience. Like engineers, student teams follow the steps of the design process, to research the wearable technology field (watching online videos an...

Students reinforce an antenna tower made from foam insulation so that it can withstand a 480 N-cm bending moment (torque) and a 280 N-cm twisting moment (torque) with minimal deflection.

Students further their understanding of the engineering design process while combining mechanical engineering and bio-engineering to create assistive devices. During this extended activity (seven class periods), students are given a fictional client statement and required to follow the steps of the ...

Welcome to TeachEngineering’s Engineering Design Process curricula for Grade 9-12 Educators!

Students experience the engineering design process as they design and construct lower-leg prostheses in response to a hypothetical zombie apocalypse scenario. Building on what they learned and researched in the associated lesson, they design and fabricate a replacement prosthetic limb using given sp...

In this culminating activity, student groups act as engineering design teams to derive equations to determine the stability of specific above-ground storage tank scenarios with given tank specifications and liquid contents. With their flotation analyses completed and the stability determined, studen...

Students apply the design process to the problem of hiding a message in a digital image using steganographic methods, a PictureEdit Java class, and API (provided as an attachment). They identify the problems and limitations associated with this task, brainstorm solutions, select a solution, and impl...

Students explore augmented reality programs, including muscle and bone overlays and body tracking recording program, using Unity and Microsoft Visual Studio and develop ways to modify, enhance, and redesign the program to meet a particular real-world need.

Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to build.

Students use Arduino microcontrollers and light-sensitive resistors (photocells) to sense the ambient light levels in a room and turn LEDs on and off based on those readings. They are challenged to personalize their basic night-lights with the use of more LEDs, if/else statements and voltage divider...

Students gain practice in Arduino fundamentals as they design their own small-sized prototype light sculptures to light up a hypothetical courtyard. They program Arduino microcontrollers to control the lighting behavior of at least three light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to create imaginative light displ...

Students learn how to control an Arduino servo wirelessly using a simple phone application, Bluetooth module and an Android phone. This prepares them to wirelessly control their own projects.

Student teams design and build shoe prototypes that convert between high heels and athletic shoes. They apply their knowledge about the mechanics of walking and running as well as shoe design (as learned in the associated lesson) to design a multifunctional shoe that is both fashionable and function...

Students use servos and flex sensors to make simple, one-jointed, finger robots. They use Arduino microcontrollers, create circuits and write code to read finger flexes and send angle info to servos. They explore the constrain, map and smoothing commands. Can teams combine fingers to create an entir...

Student teams design, construct, test and improve small working models of water treatment plant processes to filter out contaminants and reclaim resources from simulated wastewater. They keep to a materials budget and earn money from reclaimed materials. They conduct before/after water quality tests...

Students are introduced to the biomechanical characteristics of helmets, and are challenged to incorporate them into designs for helmets used for various applications.

Students design and create their own nano-polymer smartphone case. Students choose their design, mix their nano-polymer (based in silicone) with starch and add coloring of their choice. While students think critically about their design, they embed strings in the nano-polymer material to optimize bo...

Student teams create laparoscopic surgical robots designed to reduce the invasiveness of diagnosing endometriosis and investigate how the disease forms and spreads. Using a synthetic abdominal cavity simulator, students test and iterate their remotely controlled, camera-toting prototype devices, whi...

Students learn about the mathematical characteristics and reflective property of ellipses by building their own elliptical-shaped pool tables. After a slide presentation introduction to ellipses, student “engineering teams” follow the steps of the engineering design process to develop prototypes, wh...

Following the steps of the iterative engineering design process, student teams use what they learned in the previous lessons and activity in this unit to research and choose materials for their model heart valves and test those materials to compare their properties to known properties of real heart ...

Students design, build and test small-sized vehicle prototypes that transfer various types of potential energy into motion. To complete the Go Public phase of the legacy cycle, students demonstrate their understanding of how potential energy may be transferred into kinetic energy.

Students explore how to modify surfaces such as wood or cotton fabric at the nanoscale. They create specialized materials with features such as waterproofing and stain resistance. The challenge starts with student teams identifying an intended user and developing scenarios for using their developed ...

Students apply their understanding of light polarization and attenuation to design, fabricate, test and refine their own prototype sunglasses that better reduce glare and lower light intensity compared to available sunglasses, and better protect eyes from UVA and UVB radiation. They meet the project...

High school students design, build, and test model race cars made from simple materials (lifesaver-shaped candies, plastic drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, index cards, tape) as a way to explore independent, dependent and control variables.

During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the steps of the engineering design process to design and build a usabl...

Students work as materials and chemical engineers to develop a bouncy ball using a select number of materials. They develop a plan of what materials they might need to design their product, and then create, test, and evaluate their bouncy ball.

Student pairs design, redesign and perform simple experiments to test the differences in thermal conductivity (heat flow) through different media (foil and thin steel). Then students create visual diagrams of their findings that can be understood by anyone with little background on the subject, appl...

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process to design an improved smartphone case. As if they are materials engineers, they evaluate how to build a smartphone case and study physical properties, chemical properties, and tessellations. They analyze materials, design and improve a prot...

Students learn how to connect Arduino microcontroller boards to computers and write basic code to blink LEDs. Provided steps guide students through the connection process, troubleshooting common pitfalls and writing their first Arduino programs. Then they independently write their own code to blink ...

Students control small electric motors using Arduino microcontrollers to make little spinning fans made with folded and glued paper sticky notes. They build basic circuits and modify code, before applying the principles to create their own more-complicated motor-controlled projects. Advanced project...

Students create a water bottle from common materials used in purification tools that can clean dirty water as an inexpensive alternative to a modern filter. Students may iterate upon their design based off their experiment and the designs of their classmates after initial testing.

Students take on the challenge of assembling a light sensor circuit in order to observe its readings using the Arduino Serial Monitor. They also create their own unique visualization through software called Processing. They learn how to use calibration and smoothing along the way to capture a better...

Students investigate Python and Jupyter Notebook to analyze real astronomical images in order to calculate the interstellar distance to a star cluster across the Milky Way from our own Solar System. They learn how to write Python code that runs in a Jupyter Notebook so they can determine the brightn...

Students design, build and evaluate a spring-powered mouse trap racer. For evaluation, teams equip their racers with an intelligent brick from a LEGO© MINDSTORMS© EV3 Education Core Set and a HiTechnic© acceleration sensor.

Students apply their knowledge of linear regression and design to solve a real-world challenge to create a better packing solution for shipping cell phones. They make composite material packaging containers using cardboard, fabric, plastic, paper and/or rubber bands to create four different-weight p...

Students learn how engineers harness the energy of the wind to produce power by following the engineering design process as they prototype two types of wind turbines and test to see which works best. Students also learn how engineers decide where to place wind turbines, and the advantages and disadv...

Students experience the engineering design process as they design, fabricate, test and redesign their own methods for encapsulation of a (hypothetical) new miracle drug. The objective is to delay the drug release by a certain time and have a long release duration—patterned after the timed release re...

In this hands-on activity, student groups design, build, test and improve devices to pump water as if they were engineers helping a rural village meet their drinking water supply. Students keep track of their materials costs, and calculate power and cost efficiencies of the prototype pumps.

Students practice human-centered design by imagining, designing and prototyping a product to improve classroom accessibility for the visually impaired. Student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process to formulate their ideas, draw them by hand and using free, online Tinkercad softwa...

Students write Arduino code and use a “digital sandbox” to create new colors out of the three programming primary colors: green, red and blue. They develop their own functions, use them to make disco light shows, and vary the pattern and colors of their shows.

Student teams each design, build and test a composite material for use as a concrete building block for shantytown use. The design challenge constraints include: using inexpensive and readily available materials, chemically resistant, physically durable, cost-effective and aesthetically pleasing. Th...

Students research and learn about simple machines and other mechanisms through learning about a Rube Goldberg machine. Student teams design and build their own Rube Goldberg devices that incorporate at least six simple machines. This project is open-ended with much potential for creativity and fun.

Students explore energy efficiency, focusing on renewable energy, by designing and building flat-plate solar water heaters. They calculate the efficiency of the solar water heaters during initial and final tests and compare the efficiencies to those of models currently sold on the market (requiring ...

Refreshed with an understanding of the six simple machines; screw, wedge, pully, incline plane, wheel and axle, and lever, student groups receive materials and an allotted amount of time to act as mechanical engineers to design and create machines that can complete specified tasks.

Students engineer a working pair of shin guards for soccer or similar contact sport from everyday materials. Since many factors go into the design of a shin guard, students follow the engineering design process to create a prototype.

Students work through an online tutorial on MIT's App Inventor to learn how to create Android applications. Using those skills, they create their own applications and use them to collect data from an Android device accelerometer and store that data to databases.

Students learn about the engineering design process and how products may be reinvented to serve new purposes. Working in groups, students design a type of slime. After creating their slime, the teacher turns out the lights and the students see that the slime they made actually glows in the dark!

Students are challenged to design and program Arduino-controlled robots that behave like simple versions of the automated guided vehicles engineers design for real-world applications. Using Arduino microcontroller boards, infrared (IR) sensors, servomotors, attachable wheels and plastic containers (...

Students imagine they are stranded on an island and must create the brightest light possible with the meager supplies they have on hand in order to gain the attention of a rescue airplane. In small groups, students create circuits using items in their "survival kits" to create maximum voltage, measu...

Students work within constraints to construct model trusses and then test them to failure as a way to evaluate the relative strength of different truss configurations and construction styles. Within each group, each student builds two exact copies of the team's truss configuration using his/her own ...

Students are challenged to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during sporting events. They work with a real client (if possible, such as a cheerleading squad, booster club or band) to determine the requirements and constraints that would make the project a success, including a budg...

Biomedical engineers design, create, and test health technology that measure all sorts of physical functions in the body, including heartbeat. Students play the role of biomedical engineers in this activity and create a device that helps visualize heartbeats.

Students use a variety of common office and household supplies to design a boat. Their goal: to not only design the fastest boat, but also take into account how much mass or “cargo” the boat can carry, the stability of the boat in the water, the total mass of the boat, boat aesthetics, and how much ...

Students are challenged to design and build wind chimes using their knowledge of physics and sound waves, and under given constraints such as weight, cost and number of musical notes it must generate.

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Stage 2 in the Design Thinking Process: Define the Problem and Interpret the Results

An integral part of the Design Thinking process is the definition of a meaningful and actionable problem statement, which the design thinker will focus on solving. This is perhaps the most challenging part of the Design Thinking process, as the definition of a problem (also called a design challenge) will require you to synthesise your observations about your users from the first stage in the Design Thinking process, which is called the Empathise stage.

When you learn how to master the definition of your problem, problem statement, or design challenge, it will greatly improve your Design Thinking process and result. Why? A great definition of your problem statement will guide you and your team’s work and kick start the ideation process in the right direction. It will bring about clarity and focus to the design space. On the contrary, if you don’t pay enough attention to defining your problem, you will work like a person stumbling in the dark.

In the Define stage you synthesise your observations about your users from the first stage, the Empathise stage. A great definition of your problem statement will guide you and your team’s work and kick start the ideation process (third stage) in the right direction. The five stages are not always sequential — they do not have to follow any specific order and they can often occur in parallel and be repeated iteratively. As such, the stages should be understood as different modes that contribute to a project, rather than sequential steps.

Analysis and Synthesis

Before we go into what makes a great problem statement, it’s useful to first gain an understanding of the relationship between analysis and synthesis that many design thinkers will go through in their projects. Tim Brown, CEO of the international design consultancy firm IDEO, wrote in his book Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation , that analysis and synthesis are “equally important, and each plays an essential role in the process of creating options and making choices.”

Analysis is about breaking down complex concepts and problems into smaller, easier-to-understand constituents. We do that, for instance, during the first stage of the Design Thinking process, the Empathise stage, when we observe and document details that relate to our users. Synthesis , on the other hand, involves creatively piecing the puzzle together to form whole ideas. This happens during the Define stage when we organise, interpret, and make sense of the data we have gathered to create a problem statement.

Although analysis takes place during the Empathise stage and synthesis takes place during the Define stage, they do not only happen in the distinct stages of Design Thinking. In fact, analysis and synthesis often happen consecutively throughout all stages of the Design Thinking process. Design thinkers often analyse a situation before synthesising new insights, and then analyse their synthesised findings once more to create more detailed syntheses.

What Makes a Good Problem Statement?

A problem statement is important to a Design Thinking project, because it will guide you and your team and provides a focus on the specific needs that you have uncovered. It also creates a sense of possibility and optimism that allows team members to spark off ideas in the Ideation stage, which is the third and following stage in the Design Thinking process. A good problem statement should thus have the following traits. It should be:

Human-centered. This requires you to frame your problem statement according to specific users, their needs and the insights that your team has gained in the Empathise phase. The problem statement should be about the people the team is trying to help, rather than focusing on technology, monetary returns or product specifications.

Broad enough for creative freedom. This means that the problem statement should not focus too narrowly on a specific method regarding the implementation of the solution. The problem statement should also not list technical requirements, as this would unnecessarily restrict the team and prevent them from exploring areas that might bring unexpected value and insight to the project.

Narrow enough to make it manageable. On the other hand, a problem statement such as , “Improve the human condition,” is too broad and will likely cause team members to easily feel daunted. Problem statements should have sufficient constraints to make the project manageable.

As well as the three traits mentioned above, it also helps to begin the problem statement with a verb, such as “Create”, “Define”, and “Adapt”, to make the problem become more action-oriented.

How to Define a Problem Statement

Methods of interpreting results and findings from the observation oriented Empathise phase include:

Space Saturate and Group and Affinity Diagrams – Clustering and Bundling Ideas and Facts

In space saturate and group, designers collate their observations and findings into one place, to create a collage of experiences, thoughts, insights, and stories. The term 'saturate' describes the way in which the entire team covers or saturates the display with their collective images, notes, observations, data, experiences, interviews, thoughts, insights, and stories in order to create a wall of information to inform the problem-defining process. It will then be possible to draw connections between these individual elements, or nodes, to connect the dots, and to develop new and deeper insights, which help define the problem(s) and develop potential solutions. In other words: go from analysis to synthesis.

Empathy Mapping

An empathy map consists of four quadrants laid out on a board, paper or table, which reflect the four key traits that the users demonstrated/possessed during the observation stage. The four quadrants refer to what the users: Said , Did , Thought , and Felt . Determining what the users said and did are relatively easy; however, determining what they thought and felt is based on careful observation of how they behaved and responded to certain activities, suggestions, conversations etc. (including subtle cues such as body language displayed and the tone of voice used).

Point Of View – Problem Statement

A Point Of view (POV) is a meaningful and actionable problem statement, which will allow you to ideate in a goal-oriented manner. Your POV captures your design vision by defining the RIGHT challenge to address in the ideation sessions. A POV involves reframing a design challenge into an actionable problem statement. You articulate a POV by combining your knowledge about the user you are designing for, his or her needs and the insights which you’ve come to know in your research or Empathise mode. Your POV should be an actionable problem statement that will drive the rest of your design work.

You articulate a POV by combining these three elements – user, need, and insight. You can articulate your POV by inserting your information about your user, the needs and your insights in the following sentence:

[ User . . . (descriptive)] needs [ need . . . (verb)] because [ insight. . . (compelling)]

“How Might We” Questions

When you’ve defined your design challenge in a POV, you can start to generate ideas to solve your design challenge. You can start using your POV by asking a specific question starting with: “ How Might We ” or “in what ways might we”. How Might We ( HMW ) questions are questions that have the potential to spark ideation sessions such as brainstorms. They should be broad enough for a wide range of solutions, but narrow enough that specific solutions can be created for them. “How Might We” questions should be based on the observations you’ve gathered in the Empathise stage of the Design Thinking process.

For example, you have observed that youths tend not to watch TV programs on the TV at home, some questions which can guide and spark your ideation session could be:

How might we make TV more social, so youths feel more engaged?

How might we enable TV programs to be watched anywhere, at anytime?

How might we make watching TV at home more exciting?

The HMW questions open up to Ideation sessions where you explore ideas, which can help you solve your design challenge in an innovative way.

Why-How Laddering

"As a general rule, asking 'why’ yields more abstract statements and asking 'how’yields specific statements. Often times abstract statements are more meaningful but not as directly actionable, and the opposite is true of more specific statements." – d.school, Method Card, Why-How Laddering

For this reason, during the Define stage designers seek to define the problem, and will generally ask why . Designers will use why to progress to the top of the so-called Why-How Ladder where the ultimate aim is to find out how you can solve one or more problems. Your How Might We questions will help you move from the Define stage and into the next stage in Design Thinking, the Ideation stage, where you start looking for specific innovative solutions . In other words you could say that the Why-How Laddering starts with asking Why to work out How they can solve the specific problem or design challenge.

The Take Away

The second stage in a typical Design Thinking process is called the Define phase. It involves collating data from the observation stage (first stage called Empathise ) to define the design problems and challenges. By using methods for synthesising raw data into a meaningful and usable body of knowledge — such as empathy mapping and space saturate and group — we will be able to create an actionable design problem statement or Point of View that inspire the generation of ideas to solve it. The How Might We questions open up to Ideation sessions where you explore ideas, which can help you solve your design challenge in an innovative way.

References & Where to Learn More

Course: “Design Thinking - The Ultimate Guide” .

d.school: Space Saturation and Group .

d.school: Empathy Map .

d.school: “How might we” questions .

Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: gdsteam. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY 2.0

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• May 27, 2013

50 Design Problems In 50 Days: Real Empathy For Innovation (Part 1)

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About The Author

Peter Smart is a designer, speaker and writer from the UK. He recently travelled 2517 miles to try and solve 50 problems in 50 days using design. He now … More about Pete ↬

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I recently travelled 2517 miles to try to solve 50 problems in 50 days using design — a journey that would challenge me to fundamentally rethink my understanding of the user-experience design process.

I set myself a challenge. I wanted to test the limits of design’s ability to solve problems — big and small. To do this, I left the comfort of my computer chair and set out into the unknown. Each day, I had 24 hours to observe a problem, attempt to solve it and then communicate the solution .

On my own shoestring budget, from grimy backstreet hostels to bustling cities, I travelled Europe attempting to solve a different social problem that I observed every day. The project itself was an incredible experience. Some days, my solutions were OK, some days I failed, and some days the solutions were great. The point, however, was not to succeed, but to get up every day and try again — even when I had failed the day before.

The adventure taught me an unbelievable amount about design’s power to solve problems and about my own capacities as a designer. Importantly, it honed my ability to think through and tackle problems rapidly.

In the first of three articles, I’ll share what travelling from the bustling metropolis of London to the cobbled backstreets of Turin taught me about the design process and about the power of empathy to foster innovation .

Tube Congestion

It was day 19 of my 50-day adventure. I found myself dashing to catch an underground train, running until I arrived at the station to find a sea of people crammed onto the platform. There were problems on the line, and trains were delayed. Surveying the scene, I decided to make this my problem for the day.

I took a step back, analyzed the situation in front of me and got to work. Having started my own design consultancy at 15 years old and now consulting as a user-experience lead, I knew how I would start:

• Observe . I examined the flow of people, watched them jostle for position and looked at the methods of entry and exit from the platform.
• Analyze . I calculated the time between trains, counted the number of people waiting to board and tried to identify patterns in the way people behaved.
• Interview . I spoke to people waiting to board, asked them how they felt and what would make this experience better.

I collected as much useful information as I could about the way people were engaging with the service…

… and came up with nothing.

At best, I had some pretty predictable solutions, chief of which was simply to increase the number of trains — a solution that hardly felt adequate.

Frustrated, I sat down. Then as the next train arrived, opened its doors and let on passengers, I heard a voice bellowing in the distance:

“Move! Come on! Move!”

I looked up to find a hefty underground attendant shouting at commuters. I walked over and asked him what the problem was.

“We can fit more people on the train, but they just won’t get on!”

I thought for a moment.

The next train rolled in.

Passengers started to board.

And I got on.

Immediately, the train pulled away, and I tried to find a place to stand, still surprised that I had decided to board. As I tried to find a spot among the sweaty mass of people, I suddenly understood the real problem.

There was space further down towards the middle of each carriage, enough to fit at least another 10 people. However, people didn’t want to move down the carriages. Instead, they crammed by the doors for fear of not being able to get off at their stop.

Whereas my best design processes had failed, getting on the train revealed the real problem to me as clear as day. I discovered the underlying problem not because I had observed, analyzed or interviewed, but because I had felt it myself.

Real Empathy

Trying to solve 50 problems in 50 days enabled me to realize, among other things, that the constraints of our design process can allow us to neglect a vital tenant of creating truly effective solutions: it can allow us to miss real empathy.

Real empathy is not naturally fostered in focus groups. It’s not uncovered in analytics. It doesn’t start with personas or empathy maps.

Real empathy starts with people .

Innovation Via Immersion

My adventure fundamentally challenged me on how we understand people as part of our design process. The quality of our problem solving is directly linked to our ability to understand the problem. As I tried to tackle a new problem every day, I learned that analysis of people’s behaviours and problems simply wasn’t enough — I had to make them my own .

From sitting with beggars on the streets of Turin (day 42) to getting lost in the streets of Antwerp (day 23) to having no money or energy in Zurich (day 38), my adventures immersed me in unfamiliar situations and enabled me to learn, analyze and solve more effectively than I ever could in isolation.

Empathic research helps us understand our users’ needs beyond the functional, enabling us to develop more appropriate design outcomes. It is one of a raft of valuable processes and tools, on its own seemingly no more important than any other. However, while good designers understand the tools, great designers understand people .

Methods For Anyone And Everyone

Empathic research is not new. Yet, it is too often treated merely as a tool to create new products or as the domain of pin-up design agencies that have the budgets and clients to accommodate this type of critical inquiry. This needn’t be, and simply is not, the case. The best-designed solutions, however small, are born from real understanding of the underlying, complex needs.

We can’t all travel thousands of miles every time we start a new project, and commercial realities constrain the time and resources of our projects. However, gaining a deeper understanding of people doesn’t require allocating drastically more time for ethnographic research or sacrificing other areas of the process.

Below are some of the methods I started to employ on my adventure, with many more picked up along the way. Use them, build on them, and develop your own. Our aim should be to understand people more deeply and, in doing so, to solve their problems more effectively.

Get Into A Cold Sweat

Do everything you can to feel what your audience feels, whether it’s ecstasy, powerlessness or relief. Say you are tasked with creating a journey-planning website. It is too often a temptation to unquestioningly rely on the conventions we’ve accumulated from other designed experiences. Innovation is born out of a natural distrust of convention and a desire to create smarter, more intuitive experiences.

Pick two locations you’ve never been to and try to travel from one to the other without using any technology. You’ll soon have that unnerving feeling of being lost in unfamiliar surroundings. Doing so will surface valuable, first-hand insight into the interventions you’ve relied on when no technology was at hand. How did you find your way? Which landmarks guided you? What processes did you rely on? How can these tools be translated into your service? The empathic research process is grounded in understanding an experience from the user’s perspective. Feeling what your users feel will enable you to understand complex scenarios more intimately and, in doing do, to solve them more effectively.

Interview People Meet People

To gain empathic understanding, rather than distanced analysis, go to meet people where they are — in their environments, not in our labs. Focus groups give us some insight into people’s experiences, but they can’t enable true understanding. We’re aware that experiences are felt: they are predominantly emotional not rational. By asking people to communicate their experiences in our settings, we are asking them to rationalise their thoughts and actions. This can never paint an totally accurate picture.

Rather than interviewing users, we should look to meet people. Take creating an e-commerce website for a bathroom retailer. Go down to a showroom and watch how people interact with the products. Meeting people in their environments allows us not only to ask them what they think of the products in front of them, but to physically see how they form their opinions . What stages of decision-making did they go through? Where were they looking? What did they compare the product to in order to reach their decision? These insights will inevitably inform better decisions and foster more intuitive results.

Everyone Is A Designer

If empathic research teaches us anything, it’s to be humble and realize that everyone on the planet is a designer — and is usually better at solving problems than we are . We all commit deliberate acts of organization to overcome problems, from the way we arrange our desks to the way we use a window to catch our reflection. Empathic investigation helps us to observe the ways in which people are already overcoming obstacles, and it often uncovers solutions that are more elegant than we’d expect.

Trying to design a daily news-feed mobile app? Walk into any library and spend some time looking at how people physically interact with information. From bending page corners into bookmarks, to underlining in pencil to make scanning faster, to positioning journals side by side for easier cross-referencing, once you start to really look, you’ll gain insights that enable you to combine people’s half-solutions into even more useful experiences.

Prototype In Situ

When we try to consolidate what we’ve learnt into design decisions, we do so in our studios, often on our high quality screens. Try picking up your pen, getting out of the office and finding a location in which someone might typically use the service you’re creating. Now try to design. You’ll soon have to deal with the same distractions, complications and restrictions that some of your users face. How does that affect your design decisions?

There are many more techniques for getting under people’s skin, but these are just a few to start. Ultimately, empathic research is not about asking users what they want, but about understanding their needs for ourselves.

The Solution… Not Quite

So, what was the result of getting on that underground train, being squashed among busy commuters and feeling people’s anxiety for myself?

Initially, the result was another pretty predictable solution .

I leveraged the closing of the train doors to suggest that people move closer together. This didn’t feel good enough — more like a public-service announcement than an effective solution.

The Solution: Play

So, I thought harder, drawing on my experiences and instinctive responses, and I ended up asking myself the question, “How can I turn a logistical problem into an enjoyable experience that people actually want to engage with?”

The solution? To introduce “play”. I transformed the floors of the underground carriage into a game of Monopoly. Rather than standing in jail, people are encouraged to move down the carriage, towards Mayfair — an engaging and participatory solution to a complex problem.

Since being published, 50 Problems in 50 Days has received some super press and some unexpected awards. This particular solution was one of the most discussed and has been one of the most widely shared.

Empathetic understanding is a vital tool in fostering innovation. If we can better understand the people we are designing for, the better our decisions, designs and results will be. Travelling 2517 miles taught me that if we wish to innovate, we must go beyond analyzing people’s experiences and try and make them our own.

Understanding people better often requires us to get outside and get our hands dirty but, in doing so, allows us to better analyze and solve. In the words of Diego Rodriguez , partner at IDEO:

"In doing, there is knowing. Doing is the resolution of knowing."

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more problems, solutions and learning from my 2517-mile adventure. In part two, I’ll describe how trying to solve 50 problems in 50 days taught me it’s OK to be an utter fool… and how it’s OK for you to be one, too.

Further Reading

• Design Something Every Day!
• Why Transitions Are Important
• Taming The Wild Mind
• The Vanilla Web Diet

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