JIJIN P JOSEPH
B.TECH
CIVIL ENGINEERING
1ST SEMESTER
DESIGN THINKING
BTCE 107
31.10.2024
107 DESIGN THINKING
1. What is design thinking?
Ans: Design Thinking is more than a methodology. It’s a mind set and a culture that
the designers embrace to solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for
clients. Design culture is about empowering individuals in an organization that
promotes understanding and respect for customers, lays emphasis on careful and
intentional decisions, has high degree of tolerance for failure and rediscovers the
paradigm of human centered business. Design Thinking draws upon logic,
imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore potential possibilities and
create desired outcomes that benefit the end users.
2. Why is design thinking important?
Ans: In today’s marketplace, the mantra to survive is innovation. Innovation
distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Enterprises and companies, who
innovate continuously and smartly, understand consumers better to create
competitive advantage over their competitors to win the game.
Design thinking serves as a Swiss knife to address any kind of problems that:
Are poorly defined
Lack insights & data points to arrive at a solution
Have strong impact on human needs
Change based on context and situation
Design thinking allows companies to innovate and explore opportunities, address
unmet consumer demands and help them develop a better customer journey and
context awareness.
Companies like 3M and Apple adopted design thinking in most of their projects to
achieve and record.
3. What is the design thinking process?
The five key stages of Design Thinking approach include:
Empathize & Discover
Define & Interpret
Design & Ideate
Develop & Experiment
Scale & Evolve
It’s a framework that contains series of action phases that execute Design Thinking
Process. Design Thinking Action Plan consists of 5 phases and each action phase has
specific Activities, Tools and Deliverables to achieve desired objectives.
Empathize & Discover
During this phase, we need to pit ourselves into end user’s shoes, deep dive into
learning their needs, uncover the problem that we are trying to solve. The team
talks to key stakeholders and users through brainstorming sessions and interviews
to develop sound knowledge on their experiences, interactions etc.
Define & Interpret
We derive key insights, formulate hypotheses and informed decisions from the
inputs in phase. The goal here is to develop clarity on the problem by asking
relevant questions to stakeholders and users.
Design & Ideate
This is the critical and the most celebrated phase of Design Thinking. The team will
be challenged to think out of the box and brainstorm on myriad of ideas. The team
will suspend arriving at judgements and solutions since all ideas are accepted whole
heartedly with a simple premise that no idea is imaginative. This is the most fun and
enjoyed activity. The teams involved are encouraged to come up with maximum
number of ideas in a single session. (quantity is key here. More is always better).The
team members involved here wear the hats of dreamers, thinkers and future
visionaries.
Develop & Experiment
A prototype can be a paper model, story board, Wireframe or a cardboard box. It
allows us to quickly visualize and identify the best solution among several concepts.
Through prototypes, the idea is conveyed and shown to users. The fidelity of the
prototype does not matter as the goal here is to quickly show the model and collect
user feedback.
The fundamental aspect of prototype phase is to Experiment, Fail often and early.
Scale & Evolve
This is an iterative phase of the Design Thinking Process and provides the team with
user feedback based on rigorous testing of the prototype. The primary goal of the
testing is to learn what works, what does not and then iterate and improve.
This phase ensures that the team comes back to the essential core of the design
Thinking i.e. empathy with users and designing as per their needs.
4. Who can use design thinking concepts?
Successful companies in the Digtal age are always on the lookout for avenues and
strategies that give them competitive edge over the competition. Design Thinking
has taken the world by storm by bringing tectonic shifts in the way they address
pressing business challenges. Design driven companies such as Apple, Coca Cola,
IBM, Nike, P&G and Whirlpool have outclassed the S&P 500 over the past decade by
an extraordinary 219%, according to a 2014 assessment by the Design Management
Institute.
Brilliant design in products and services appeals users and brings in “a-ha”
moments. Leading global corporations like P&G, GE, IBM, Pepsi and SAP have
adopted Design Thinking to re-invent, re-imagine and re-launch their successful
products. Design thinking approach in successful companies demands the
leadership team embrace a growth oriented mind-set, since the crux of the design
thinking centers around Experimenting, Learning & Scaling.
5. What are the benefits of design thinking?
Enterprises and companies who innovate continuously and smartly, understand
consumers better to create competitive advantage over their competitors to win the
game.
Design thinking allows companies to innovate and explore opportunities, address
unmet consumer demands and help them develop a better customer journey and
context awareness.
Design thinking serves as a swiss knife to address any kind of problems that:
Are poorly defined
Lack insights & data points to arrive at a solution
Have strong impact on human needs
Change based on context and situation.
6. What is empathizing in listening?
Empathic listening is the practice of being attentive and responsive to others’ input
during conversation. Listening empathically entails making an emotional connection
with the other person and finding similarities between their experience and your
own so you can give a more heartfelt response. Also called active listening or
reflective listening, empathic listening requires you to be considerate of the other
party’s input. One main quality of empathic listening is giving support and
encouragement rather than advice or criticism.
7. What are the different stages of empathic listening?
The four stages of empathic listening are:
Mimicking content: Repeating the other person's words back to them
Rephrasing content: Restating what the other person said in your own words
Reflecting feelings: Considering how the other person feels about what they said
Rephrasing content and reflecting feelings: Combining the second and third stages to draw
the speaker closer to the listener.
8. What do you mean by structured open ended approach?
A structured open-ended approach is a method that uses open-ended questions in a
structured interview, where all candidates are asked the same questions in the same
order. Open-ended questions are free-form questions that allow respondents to
share their experiences, thoughts, and knowledge in detail.
Here are some benefits of using open-ended questions:
Gather detailed responses
Open-ended questions can help you get a deeper understanding of people's perspectives
and experiences.
Learn about feelings and views
Open-ended questions allow people to voice their feelings and views, which can be
beneficial for the person asking the questions.
Draw out considered opinions
Open-ended questions can help you get well-thought-out opinions from people
9. What is brainstorming?
Brainstorming is a creative thinking technique for coming up with new ideas and
solving problems. Teams use this ideation method to encourage new ways of
thinking and collectively generate solutions. Brainstorming encourages free thinking
and allows for all ideas to be voiced without judgment, fostering an open and
innovative environment. This process typically involves a group of people, although
it can be done individually as well.
10. What are frameworks in design thinking?
It’s a framework that contains series of action phases that execute Design Thinking
Process. Design Thinking Action Plan consists of 5 phases and each action phase has
specific Activities, Tools and Deliverables to achieve desired objectives.
11. What are the 5 steps for the design thinking framework?
It’s a framework that contains series of action phases that execute Design Thinking
Process. Design Thinking Action Plan consists of 5 phases and each action phase
has specific Activities, Tools and Deliverables to achieve desired objectives.
Empathize & Discover
During this phase, we need to pit ourselves into end user’s shoes, deep dive into
learning their needs, uncover the problem that we are trying to solve. The team
talks to key stakeholders and users through brainstorming sessions and interviews
to develop sound knowledge on their experiences, interactions etc.
Define & Interpret
We derive key insights, formulate hypotheses and informed decisions from the
inputs in phase. The goal here is to develop clarity on the problem by asking
relevant questions to stakeholders and users.
Design & Ideate
This is the critical and the most celebrated phase of Design Thinking. The team
will be challenged to think out of the box and brainstorm on myriad of ideas.
The team will suspend arriving at judgements and solutions since all ideas are
accepted whole heartedly with a simple premise that no idea is imaginative.
This is the most fun and enjoyed activity. The teams involved are encouraged to
come up with maximum number of ideas in a single session. (quantity is key
here. More is always better).The team members involved here wear the hats of
dreamers, thinkers and future visionaries.
Develop & Experiment
A prototype can be a paper model, story board, Wireframe or a cardboard box. It
allows us to quickly visualize and identify the best solution among several
concepts.
Through prototypes, the idea is conveyed and shown to users. The fidelity of
the prototype does not matter as the goal here is to quickly show the model and
collect user feedback.
The fundamental aspect of prototype phase is to Experiment, Fail often and
early.
Scale & Evolve
This is an iterative phase of the Design Thinking Process and provides the team
with user feedback based on rigorous testing of the prototype. The primary goal of
the testing is to learn what works, what does not and then iterate and improve.
This phase ensures that the team comes back to the essential core of the design
Thinking i.e. empathy with users and designing as per their needs.
15. What is mind mapping?
Mind mapping is a visual technique that helps you organize and capture your thoughts,
ideas, and concepts:
How it works
You start with a central idea or theme in the middle of a diagram, and then add related
ideas branching out from the center. The most important ideas are closest to the center,
and each additional tier rolls up to the one before it.
Benefits:
Mind mapping can help you:
Understand concepts by breaking them down into their component parts
Generate new ideas
Solve complex problems
See connections and provide an overview of key points
Make decisions effectively.
