“THE POWER OF DESIGN THINKING”

“Systems are never final, they must be evolving”

                                                  -Vineet Raj Kapoor

“Hear the Wrong

See the wrong

Speak the wrong”

                                                                          -Vineet Raj Kapoor

Explanation:

Patience to unbiasedly Listen to the wrong about your/ product/ service

Critical eye to observe the wrong about your idea/ product/ service

Courage to speak the wrong about your idea/ product /service to the management!!

Design Thinking is not a new concept that we have come across but it surely is a ringing topic for discussion and a subject to think upon. It has been around for decades and all innovators in the diverse fields of art, music, science, literature, and business have for once or more thought of or practiced it in some capacity. It goes by the name which means to design a product, a service, a process, a business model, an experience in the most effective, efficient, novice, designer, and fun way within a creative space where creativity and mind can grow and flow. We have heard the concept of “Design Thinking” more often than not in these past few years, owing to the fact that the world, people, quality, environment, necessities, understandings, and much more has changed and is constantly changing. It is rightly said, “Change is the only constant”! and the earlier we admit the fact, the better.

Design Thinking is a dynamic process of re-defining a particular problem we are looking at with all of the minds, with a different perspective trying to look beyond what is normally and immediately visible, delving deep into the given problem, studying and understanding every action taken carefully, knowing why is it taken and if it is adding any value to the product or services, thereby finding the solution to complex problems and exploring innovative opportunities. The key component of Design Thinking is that it emphasizes speed, collaboration, and the most important aspect, Human-centered insights. For this, the experience of the Customer is the main focus, the Design thinkers work towards enhancing the day-to-day life experiences of the human being using the product or service. They facilitate easing their user involvement by ideating, iterating, inventing, and executing their plan of action for the people.

Since it is a full-on Human-centric approach, and customers are the hero of the story, their ease, and their feedback plays an important part in the innovation.

Several top-notch organizations and institutions around the world for e.g. Apple, Google, Samsung, Stanford University, MIT, etc. have inculcated the learnings and values of design thinking, not only the big companies and colleges but now every Technical, Managerial Institute is now teaching design thinking as an important curriculum, to inculcate withing budding youth the mind so creative and filled with innovative and interesting ideas which will later help them figure their way out from the basic and ordinary and excite them to move towards the interesting and promising careers. This practice of introducing Design thinking as a subject and curriculum is an excellent idea as it is going to nurture the people and build their minds in a way that works in problem defining, problem identifying, and finding solutions in an innovative and easy way.

Design thinking is thoroughly practiced in some renowned universities and Larry Leifer, the father of design thinking is a professor from one of those universities itself, he is basically the inventor of design thinking. Although this process was first described in 1970s by a computer scientist and Nobel Prize laureate Herbert A. Simon. There are many names associated with design, and therefore let’s not get into who invented it but embrace that it came to us and so we figure out the importance and Power of design thinking.

It is a methodology that imbibes the full spectrum of innovation activities with a Human-centered design ethos. Mentioning Ethos reminds me of all the modes of persuasion that Design Thinking utilizes, that is, Ethos, Pathos, Logos in every way possible, you need practical intelligence, an idea, and goodwill for people to trust your credibility. Logic is the most important part as it is your understanding of the people and their problems which you are eager to solve. And at last, Pathos is what you feel and apply by empathizing with the user and the difficulty that you think they face, and that is what you are here to solve. Here innovation is Powered by a meticulous understanding, through direct observation, of the basic requirements of people around, a keen understanding of their likes and dislikes about the design of the product, how they are made, wrapped/ packed, boxed/packaged, marketed, advertised, sold and later supported to retain its position in the market. We need to innovate at every step of the process. A purely technology-oriented approach to designing is going to be less sustainable now than ever, and a management philosophy based on picking from pre-existing strategies is more likely to get overpowered by new development. We need new products that balance the need of people and of society as a whole, new sustainable, efficient ideas that tackles the global challenge of Health, Poverty, Education, Climate, and Peace, New strategies that focus on the differences that matter, and gives a sense of purpose that involves everyone affected by them.

It taps into capacities we all have that are ignored by more conventional problem-solving methods. Along with being Human-centric, it is human in itself. It relies on the ability to be intuitive, recognize patterns, construct ideas accordingly, along with them having an emotional meaning and functionality. It is important to be practical, rational, and analytical but the touch of Empathy is what gives it the final finish.

Throwing some light on the kind of people design thinkers are will help us understand the motive even better. Design Thinkers are not only the people who graduate from a designing college or have a degree in it, these are the people who have a natural bend toward creativity, ideating, who can look thinks with different perspectives, analyze situations and empathize with people, have a problem-solving attitude and the ability have fun all along the way. These people come from all kinds of diverse backgrounds be it engineering, science, arts, philosophy, mathematics, business, physiology, etc. And this is the reason they are so creative when combined in a group. What they bring to the table is so diverse and intense, all because of their interdisciplinary variety. They apply their knowledge of the previous disciplines to their current project as and when needed.

There are certain qualities associated with Design Thinkers, which are;

Empathy: They have this ability to put themselves in others’ shoes and experience people’s problems and situations in minute detail. By putting the “People first” approach, they can imagine solutions that meet the explicit or latent needs.

Integrative Thinking: have the ability to analyze process and see the salient features and create a new solution altogether.

Experimentalism: They pose questions and explore constraints in creative ways that proceed in new directions.

Collaboration: The best of design thinkers works together with interdisciplinary collaborators, create and learn from their own mistakes and of their colleagues’ mistakes. They Brainstorm together putting all of their ideas upfront and figuring out a solution.

Friendly: Many companies have clearly mentioned, they hire only those who are comfortable with team members and partners, it is one important point to have good interpersonal skills and empathy, and cordial relations with your teammates. For e.g. IDEO.

The Power of Design thinking is getting even meaningful and stronger with the brilliant minds getting together to Brainstorm the idea in a creative open space, which is specially designed for working and letting the idea flow, unlike some blocked office cubicles.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative, looping back process, but it is not disorganized or undisciplined but a fundamentally exploratory process, the process requires you to go back again and again and correct a process until the end product is what you and your customers desire. It is very different from the traditional method of building which includes Thinking of an idea, a product, or a service, putting their in building that product, introducing it in the market, and waiting for it to work and gain the market share, instead, what has improved through design thinking is that it is completely different from the conventional approach and it moves forward with small steps in hand. The Thinkers works with an open-ended, open-minded, and iterative process. The process here is less or near to not predictable and hence not boring., therefore it requires an experimental set of people, to share the process, encourage the collective ownership of ideas, and enable mutual learning. The process starts with defining constraints, and which is important and establishing a framework of evaluating them, best visualized in term of:

1.    Feasibility – If it is functionally possible in foreseeable future.

2.    Viability – If it is likely to become a part of a sustainable business model.

3.    Desirability – If it is desired by the consumers, is there a demand or probable demand.

A designer will resolve all of these but a design thinker will bring about a harmonious balance amongst the three.

Other than this what the thinkers do is they move forward with their team step by step, they observe their surroundings, people, product, and services being used by the people. Listen to what feedback is coming from the users, empathize with the user, and then define what the problem statement is, if any. Upon figuring out a problem, mostly what happens is that they ideate a new plan completely instead of making improvements in the older model. It helps them start from the top and keenly observe what are the improvement done in every step of the designing keeping in mind the Human-centric approach and user-friendliness. Because at the end of the day all of it is done to improve the UI and UX. Upon properly brainstorming along with the multi-diverse team and ideating accordingly keeping in mind all the important stakeholders, the team comes down to a final Model which is agreed upon by all of them as of that moment. The next step is creating a Prototype! A Prototype is an inexpensive, scaled-down version of the product or the specific feature found in a product, so they can investigate the problem-solution if any generated. It can be shared and tested in the team itself, or outside the team in small groups. It is an experimental process, aims to identify the best possible solution.  The solutions are implemented within the prototypes, and, one by one, they are investigated and either accepted, improved, and re-examined or rejected on the basis of the users’ experiences.

By the end of this stage, the design team will have a better idea of the constraints inherent to the product and the problems that are present, and have a clearer view of how real users would behave, think, and feel when interacting with the end product.

The last step is testing, where the product is rigorously tested. In an iterative process, the result generated during the testing phase is often used to redefine one or more problems..

Great designs satisfy both our needs and our desires, and the empathy shown by the Design Thinkers is somethings that engages the customers in the first place. Many times, we find products that might not market the first but they appeal to us emotionally and functionally. All thanks to design thinkers and their zeal to innovate. As more of our day-to-day needs are met, we expect sophisticated experiences that are emotionally satisfying and meaningful. These will be the products inculcated with the little efforts of the Thinkers. I would like to mention the companies that are touching new skies by innovating and enhancing the user experience by keeping the customers first, Always and Forever! Which includes Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, PepsiCo, Nike and none other than IDEO – committed to creating positive impact.

We have seen innumerable no. of products being built, upon this wonderful approach which is helping people ease their life and experience the happiness and we are hopeful to see many such ideas to surface and show us the unexpected in the upcoming future. People Believe and youth has power to build, hope and determination can take us places we can’t simply imagine so let’s boost the morale To indulge deeper into the genre and bring out some interesting new minds!! Lets capture unexpected insights and produce innovation that more precisely reflect what Consumers want!!

                                                                                                                                       -Adios