Creativity and innovation are terms that are often mentioned in the context of business. But are these skills reserved for the great minds, or can anyone be capable of them? Well, with design thinking, creativity can be practiced and honed! It is a method that stimulates our creativity and helps us find innovative solutions to complex problems of the company and its clients.
What is design thinking?
Design thinking is a problem-solving method that focuses on the actual needs of users and aims to create innovative and practical solutions by involving a human-centered approach. Built in 5 steps, this method uses a combination of creativity, analysis, and implementation to solve complex problems in many areas such as business, communication, technology, education, and health. The ultimate goal is to create products, services, and experiences that meet the needs and desires of users while generating value for companies.
Design thinking can also be applied to address needs within your own company. It can be very useful for change management, team cohesion, promoting a culture of innovation and collaboration, or even for improving existing processes.
So, where to start?
The design thinking process generally consists of five steps:
- Empathy: This involves putting yourself in the shoes of users, understanding their needs, and knowing their point of view in order to better understand the problem to be solved. This step often requires interviews, observations, and surveys with users.
- Define the problem: All the information gathered in the previous step is synthesized to formulate a design question that meets the needs of users. This step defines the problems to be solved and the goals to be achieved.
- Ideation: Creative and innovative ideas are generated to solve the problems identified during the problem definition phase. This step encourages participants to step out of their comfort zone and think divergently.
- Prototyping: Small-scale prototypes of our ideas are created to test and refine our solutions. This step allows us to visualize and materialize the ideas generated during the ideation phase.
- Testing: Prototypes are tested with users to evaluate their effectiveness and user-friendliness. This step allows us to validate or invalidate our design hypotheses and determine whether our solutions meet the needs of users.
Whether it’s to optimize the impact of your messages on your target audience, offer new innovative products that better meet the needs of your customers or improve collaborations, design thinking is a highly effective and creative way to find innovative solutions that put humans at the center of concerns.
Interested in trying it out?
Sources: Why Design Thinking Works, What is Design Thinking & Why is it important, Harvard Business Review. An introductory guide to design thinking, Adobe
