Why is Design Thinking still a thing?

Why is Design Thinking still a thing?


I want to delve with you into the fascinating realm of Design Thinking and its transformative impact on enhancing product development and customer experience across many industries where I have seen it work, firsthand. Design Thinking, with it empathetic and customer-centric approach, has become a key driver in revolutionizing how businesses interact with their customers.

In my roles as Head of Innovation, Chief Growth Officer and Innovation Consultant, I have extensively applied Design Thinking principles in all my work, and have seen how, not only it transformed product or service designs, but shaped people’s mindsets and believes on customer centricity and product engineering.  

To start on the basics, Design Thinking is a problem-solving methodology that prioritizes the end-user, by placing the customer at the heart of the design process. This approach goes beyond merely providing a product or service or solving a problem. It aims to create meaningful and memorable interactions that resonate with customers on a deeper level.


Central to Design Thinking is a concept called Empathy.

And why Empathy is so important, is because it helps businesspeople understand not only the job that the customer is trying to get done, but also how the customer is feeling along the process. When empathizing, we can go beyond words and expression of needs and try to feel what the customer is feeling.

Not all products or services require a high degree of empathy for the development process, and in some industries, Design Thinking is not even recommended as methodology. Except for those cases, I can firmly say that Design Thinking is a game changer for many other industries and for those companies that apply the methodology correctly and consistently.


Design Thinking in action.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how Design Thinking has revolutionised customer experience or product development in the case of few of my customers:

·      Insurance: by applying Design Thinking in the product development process, we managed to design a simple insurance product that had incredible traction (pull product) amongst clients, versus the traditional products that required a push approach in the sales process. The product outperformed similar ones in the portfolio by 400% in yearly sales and tapped into a completely new customer segment.

·      Healthcare: patient journeys are usually the main blocker in how people respond to prevention nudges. Sometimes the experience is so negative that people even delay treatment of existing conditions. A client in the digital health sector wanted to transform the patient journey, from how people discover relevant health information, to how they access prevention services or interact with their doctor.  To do so, we spent 3 months in sprints of discovery and experimentation phases, working side by side with patients and doctors. The product is freshly cooked and ready to hit the market this fall. There are no numbers now to highlight the success, but I have full confidence on the product, simply by knowing how many pain points we uncovered and how diligently the project team worked on addressing them.

·      Technical University: research and development play an important role in the academic activities, but in many cases the research remains unused. This usually happens when the research activity is not anchored in a real market problem or technological opportunity. In order to change the odds on academic research, I decided together with the customer to focus first on increasing the innovation literacy of the researchers, and further continue to insert elements of Design Thinking in the research and design phases of their projects. 25% of the research projects pivoted and are now able to move into a business model generation phase due to a better understanding of their customer needs.

·      Fintech: financial services are for long time, not so much about the product, but the customer/user experience. We are now able to do so many transactions online, from opening accounts, getting loans, issuing insurance or investing in mutual funds, things that were not possible 7 – 10 years ago. And as a former employee in the financial industry, I remember that, for many people, it was unconceivable that we will do all that online. To understand how to reshape the whole user experience in a digital environment, together with the project team, we spent 3 months empathizing and experimenting with mock-ups to test our solution. Not developing anything at first and starting the project with the mindset that we don’t know anything, made it so much easy for the project team to kill the redundant ideas. And focus only on listening and understanding the customer feedback.


The future of Design Thinking

Design Thinking is known to be used in solving wicked problems. And business challenges are becoming wicker than ever. So, it goes without say, that Design Thinking will continue to play a significant role, not only in product development or customer experience, but in all other business aspects that involve humans.

But like all other things, Design Thinking is not static and will continue to evolve and adapt itself to challenges and opportunities.

  1. We are already integrating AI in idea generation or solution design phases of the Design Thinking process and some companies have tried Augmented Reality to simulate the Customer Experience and product usability.
  2. Design Thinking is not just for the design teams or product teams or digital teams to use. Design Thinking is a skill that all employees will have to master for an organization to become truly customer centric. Everything that happens in a business impacts, one way or another, the customers.

  • At the speed of today’s technology and global changes, businesses are challenged to look much more into the future that they used to 10 years ago. If foresight was a one-time event, most probably taking place during a company’s strategic planning, we learn from most visionary organizations, that foresight is something to have on day to day agenda. So, to keep the eye on the future but through the customer lens, we are combining elements of Foresight and Design Thinking for a customer-oriented outlook.


Design for the future.

Design for the customer.

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by Alexandra Popescu-Zorica, ACIM, Alumni

  • Make an impact.

    Make an impact.

    In the human existence, fear has served as both a sentinel of survival and a shackle of stagnation. It is the primal…

  • Călătoria pacientului.

    Călătoria pacientului.

    O intersecție complexă între CX, servicii medicale și tehnologie. În zilele noastre, zilele erei digitale, granițele…

    2 Comments
  • Dialogul inovării

    Dialogul inovării

    Cea mai mare provocare în business nu a fost să conving echipele de leadership să pornească inițiative de inovare. Din…

    4 Comments
  • Navigating Uncertainty: Effectuation as the Guiding Light for Organisational Innovation

    Navigating Uncertainty: Effectuation as the Guiding Light for Organisational Innovation

    In a time saturated with buzzwords like "innovation" and "unpredictable future," we've reached a point where these…

  • Focus first on these 4 areas for business growth

    Focus first on these 4 areas for business growth

    Growth is a natural phase for all businesses. We hear and read about it more often when referring to startups or…

    4 Comments
  • Lean startup, before and after.

    Lean startup, before and after.

    I’ve spent 4 years in the corporate environment learning and applying lean startup methodology for product design and…

    6 Comments
  • The Chief Wellbeing Officer

    The Chief Wellbeing Officer

    What is wellbeing or how is it defined? There is no one size fits all definition for wellbeing, but CDC (Centers for…

  • Partnerships. What moves the needle?

    Partnerships. What moves the needle?

    Partnerships are created for many reasons, but the underlying scope is usually to generate growth. This can happen in…

    3 Comments

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics