It needs a clear definition and purpose, so its value is better understood.
A few months ago, Mauro Porcini, SVP and Chief Design Officer for PepsiCo posted a simple question on LinkedIn. “What’s your definition of Design Thinking?”
The results were fascinating and exposed the primary issue that surrounds design thinking; we’re not aligned with the definition or the purpose of design thinking. The answered ranged from a simple one-word answer, “Empathy” to more esoteric ones:
“A postmodern tribal articulation of legacy (albeit rather varied) methodologies for practical problem solving drawing on science, emotion, analysis and synthesis AKA and all together … the heart and the head. DT has good DNA as you can see fingerprints from Buddhism, Socrates, Leibniz, Morgan, Asimov, Rittel and many many more all over it.”
Others were simple and to the point,
“A customer centric and thorough product development process.”
and finally, this pessimistic one.
“design process is nothing more than marketing”
This simple question presents the greatest threat to design thinking. There’s not one clear understanding of what it is. This issue has exposed a gap that I have experienced over the past few years. If design wants a voice at the table, we need to make sure its purpose and value is understood by everyone.
Solving the problem and getting to the core issue
A few years ago, I started a blog site called itsdesignthinking.com. Its purpose was to share my thoughts on design thinking. This helped me focus my ideas and gave me a platform for my research. At the time of the launch, I defined design thinking as “a creative problem-solving discipline that connects creativity, human resources, and technology/tools to business needs to form strategic business systems.” However, design is an iterative process that needs to be tested and evolved as necessary, and it’s apparent now that I need to update my definition.
My primary goal here is to present a revised model that puts design thinking into a more focused context and gives it an inherent purpose. My secondary goal is to share the value of the methodology and process and demonstrate how design thinking is connected to our current environment.
Porcini’s LinkedIn question exposed the fact that we need to have a more focused discussion on how to define design thinking and describe its purpose and value to human-centered design and business goals. In recent history, design has gone through many changes. In the past 25 years, we have seen the development of the desktop computer, the Internet, and mobile technologies. All have had an impact on how design is created, used, and its perceived value. I have great respect for Tim Brown, Roger Martin, David and Tom Kelley, Richard Buchanan, and others who have pioneered the shift of design from a verb to a noun; from little “d” (design) to big “D” (Design). However, the design field has evolved, and it’s necessary to revisit the way we discuss design.
Inspecting design thinking
©IDEO
Design thinking is a methodology that is used to solve complex problems that place the person at the center of a solution. It has been commonly defined by Tim Brown, president and CEO of IDEO as; “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” The graphic below presents the IDEO’s design thinking model.
Design is an open-minded, curious, and creative process and with no disrespect to IDEO, who pioneered the design thinking conversation, I have come to question if this model is too vague for the complexities in today’s world. How does it connect to the current environment and human-centered needs? We are currently living in an industrial revolution, and it has had massive impact on our culture and technology. Additionally, the words “design” and “innovation” have different definitions for different people and industries. Without understanding these basic ideas, it’s hard to know how to use it, and it has become a buzzword or called academic theory. I felt that we needed something that a broader audience could understand.
Updating design thinking
The foundation of design thinking is design, and this is where we need to begin. Design can be defined as the development and implementation of a product, a service, or a system with the intention of creating an experience that modifies people’s behavior towards a specific problem. The key word is “behavior.” Behaviors are impacted and influenced by our personalities, values, culture, and these days, technology.
Through my experiences and research, I have redeveloped the following definition of design thinking. Design thinking is a methodology that creates human-centered or relevant insights towards solving a problem/s. This is accomplished by collecting information and data on the business needs and landscape, available and future technology, cultural trends, and human behavior. Insight is developed by connecting research with a creative process that operates at the intersection of these categories. Ideation, prototyping, testing, and feedback loops build on hypothesis, data, and information collection to create solutions within a rapidly changing and evolving world. Design is the action of taking those insights to create a relevant user experience or human-centered solution. Design thinking is different for different industries, but the focus on behaviors, research, a creative process to design human-centered or business solutions is consistent for everyone.
I have worked with creative briefs that contained user information on how they would react towards a specific scenario. I don’t believe that this is comprehensive enough anymore. It’s important to know more about people’s behaviors; WHY people behave a certain way, WHAT people expect, and HOW people want to do something. There is a lot to be learned from understanding people’s personality traits, behaviors, and the research and data that is collected needs to reflect those pieces.
Behaviors are not influenced by linear processes, and it’s especially important to look at gathering insights from outside of a specific industry. For example, healthcare can benefit from collecting data from consumer demographic and lifestyle information. This can be “disparate demographic and lifestyle information such as income, home ownership, household composition, buying patterns, voting history, transportation choices, social networking activity and physical activity as measured by tracking devices.” This data has helped healthcare systems create predictive models on how people use emergency rooms and create medical cost savings and improvements in care-management program engagement.
Complex and changing times
Industrial revolutions bring a lot of changes to our world, they bring technological advancements, but they also produce massive changes to our culture. During these periods, culture and technology have a very close symbiotic relationship, and they are connected like the warp and weft of fabric. For example, during the 1800s, manufacturing processes instigated a movement transforming agrarian into urban culture. Henry Ford’s mass-produced automobiles developed a culture of travel and suburban living. Television changed how music, movies, and news impacts us. We’re living at the intersection of technology growth, and culture changes and the following diagram visualizes this current state.
Being human-centered
Design thinking definitions typically use human-centered solutions as its focus. However, sometimes people do not know what that means. Instead of calling it human-centered solution the design thinking process could end with a Relevant Experience. Both are presented in the model. Something that is relevant is essentially human-centered. It fulfills our needs, such as the ones from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and they connect to a problem or a solution.
To design relevant and human-centered experiences for people, we need to look at three categories:
Goals or problems: It starts with a problem that needs to be solved or a goal that needs to be fulfilled.
Storyline: The narrative that creates the context and the emotional connection for the user.
Awareness: How much information or understanding of the goals or problems does the user have? How does the user gain, learn, or build awareness and knowledge?
When combined with the Culture and Technology environment, the model looks like this.
This model does not eliminate the fundamentals of design thinking that IDEO presents, HUMAN, DESIREABLE, VIABLE, and FEASIBLE, but it readjusts those relationships to what is more aligned with the today’s environment. It’s here that we link Culture and Technology to the person, behaviors and the business goals or problem. The Relevant and Human-Centered Experience now sits in the center.
Culture (Human): This is who we are, our personalities, values, beliefs, history, trends, influencers, groupthinking. This is the connection to the people that impact who we are.
Technology & Data (Feasible): These are the tools that we need to help us solve our problems. What exists now, what is technically feasible, what’s being developed, how and why do we use them? This also makes a connection to the data-driven approaches that we implement today.
Storytelling (Desirable): We need a narrative to connect to people, to engage them, and to change their behaviors. We use stories to connect to people’s emotions and needs. Throughout history, stories have been heavily influenced by culture and are used to share information and to join people together and move them to action.
Goals/Problems (Viable): What are the human or business problems that need to be solved? What are the goals that need to be achieved? These are heavily influenced by technology. It’s important to consider the financial goals too. Human-centered solutions are only half of the conversation. The economic parts are a necessary part of the conversation as well.
Awareness (Knowledge): This is the knowledge base of the user. How much do they know, what do they know, and how do they learn? We learn through both Culture and Technology.
Human behaviors play a big part in this model. Design thinking research and analysis will dig further into how human behaviors are affected by each category. The intersections of the categories are important in understanding the context and purpose of the process.
Message or Purpose: The problem statement, brand message, or a goal’s purpose.
User Learning: How do people learn? What are the pain points in getting information to them? What’s the story that will resonate? What narrative or story teaches the user the message?
User Understanding: How do we understand the goals and problems and what media or technology channels are used to pass that information to the user.
Design thinking process
The 4D (Discover, Define, Design, Deliver) design process and tools fit within the intersection of these pieces. This is where the research, analysis, creativity, collaboration, and design work happens. The proper storyline, communication channels, tools, and content are worked on to fulfill the parts seen in the intersections. This results in the design of the relevant or user-centered experience.
By putting the human experience at the center, the model shows how we need to focus on collecting and analyzing a broader range of information that is significant to our HOW and WHY we behave. The behavioral information and data that we can collect are critical to designing new systems and products that solve challenges or problems. Tactical steps such as scenario planning and journey maps will be used to identify the touchpoints that need to be designed for the optimal experience. Combined with the research, a designed narrative or prototype can be created.
We need design more than ever
We have created a culture and technology that focuses on providing personalized experiences for us. This is what we all demand now. Design is the interface experience between the technologies and our human needs. We need to create ethical products and systems that work for both people and businesses. This is not currently the status quo. Every day we see examples of unintended consequences of our technology affecting people. This ranges from algorithms with biases towards race and economics, the weaponization of our social media to create discourse in our country, to a generation of children that are depressed because of mobile devices and screen time. We need to design systems and products that bring good to the world and our society; focus on positives that help people and sustain economies. However, it’s imperative that design has a seat at the table. For this to happen, we need to all have a better understanding of the purposes of design thinking and the value of the design process. I hope that this updated model can create new and different conversations that will elevate the importance of design.
Designers are natural storytellers and can connect research and thoughts to create solutions. But it’s important to put the creative work in the context of the real world. The goal is to create clarity towards the purpose by connecting the model to the rapid changes in our technology and culture that affects our lives every day. Design thinking isn’t just about business problems. It can be implemented towards any “wicked problem.” If we can focus design thinking on solving problems that create relevant experiences or human-centered solutions, then we can create endless opportunities for design.