Design Thinking Works
“Design Thinking is 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.”
— Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO
I’ve been in the creative industry for a couple decades now at different capacities. I was in film, making music videos, corp videos, and short films (at a young age). I was a visual designer working on branding, web design, and marketing campaigns for Bay Area startups and Fortune 500 companies. Most recently, I’ve been a Creative Director, conceptualizing campaigns for ambitious brands, creating design systems / frameworks, and leading teams of talented designers, writers, and strategists.
All those hours of hard work have led me to look for better ways of doing things. Design Thinking is a flashy phrase that gets thrown around a lot but I’ve found that a few simple design thinking concepts have been helpful for me. I’ve collected some of my findings and recommendations about design thinking to share here. I hope these help you as you go along your creative journey.
“Design is not just what it looks like and how it feels.
Design is how it works.”
— Steve Jobs
Design thinking uses creative activities to foster collaboration and solve problems in human-centered ways. We adopt a “beginner’s mind,” with the intent to remain open and curious, to assume nothing, and to see ambiguity as an opportunity.
Co-Designing Schools Toolkit (Website)
IDEO Design Thinking (Website)
To think like a designer requires dreaming up wild ideas, taking time to tinker and test, and being willing to fail early and often. The designer’s mindset embraces empathy, optimism, iteration, creativity, and ambiguity. And most critically, design thinking keeps people at the center of every process.
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Here Are a Few Design Thinking Frameworks to Consider:
Google Design Sprint
Google has all kinds of goodness to share. Set the Stage: Before the sprint begins, you’ll need to have the right challenge and the right team. You’ll also need time and space to conduct your sprint.
The Google Design Sprint (Website)
Design Sprint (Book)
IDEO Design Thinking Process
From IDEO — We teach the phases of design thinking as linear steps, but in practice, the process is not always linear — the phases combine to form an iterative approach that you can try out and adapt to suit your specific challenge.
IDEO Design Thinking (Website)
Nielsen Norman Group Design Thinking 101
Design Thinking 101 (Website)
A 5-step process for nearly anything
by James Clear
I love the simplicity of this one. Sometimes the best methods are easy and practical.
5-step process (On James Clear Blog)
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A Few Good Design
Stories to Consider
Edison’s Grit
“I have not failed.
I’ve just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”
— Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison and his lab associates conducted thousands of experiments to develop the electric light bulb. To make it functional, each step required the invention of a new component, from vacuumed and sealed glass bulbs to switches, special types of wire and meters. The greatest challenge was coming up with a material that could serve as a long-lasting filament. After testing thousands of materials, including over 6,000 types of plant growths, they found the best substance was carbonized cotton thread.
Later, he and his researchers found that the ideal filament substance was carbonized bamboo, which produced over 1,200 hours of continuous light. The first large-scale test of Edison’s lights occurred September 4, 1882 when 25 buildings in New York City’s financial district were illuminated.
Design Thinking tenets:
Team Collaboration — Hyper-Experimentation — Optimism
Ford’s Vision for Scaling
“Employers only handle the money —
it is the customer who pays the wages.”
— Henry Ford
On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.
Ford’s Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple, sturdy and relatively inexpensive–but not inexpensive enough for Ford, who was determined to build “motor car[s] for the great multitude.”
“When I’m through,” he said, “about everybody will have one.” In order to lower the price of his cars, Ford figured, he would just have to find a way to build them more efficiently.
Design Thinking tenets:
Needs of People — Possibilities of Technology — Requirements for Business Success
A Bold “Pivot”. The birth of Slack.
The communication application, Slack, was born out of a failed game, showing there are learnings and opportunities that can come from failure if you keep your eyes and mind open.
2012
“Glitch (a video game) has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself,” an announcement in the fall of 2012 revealed. Butterfield (Canadian Entrepreneur) went to Twitter to inform the world that while Glitch was dead, Tiny Speck (the company making the game) was not.
2013
An internal communications tool developed to connect Speck’s Canadian and US offices had proved invaluable, which sparked the birth of Slack.
2014
In early 2014, Slack was announced: “Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go,” the startup said. “That’s Slack.” By the end of the year, the company had raised a $120 million round, valuing the startup at more than a billion dollars — making it the fastest-growing startup ever, anywhere.
Design Thinking tenets:
Open to Change — Design with Empathy — Recognize and Serve a Real Need
To sum up …
Design Thinking is a mindset. Design thinking gives you faith in your creative abilities and a process into transforming difficult challenges into opportunities for design.
It’s Human-Centered.
Design Thinking begins from deep empathy and understanding of needs and motivations of people.
It’s Collaborative.
Several great minds are always stronger when solving a challenge than just one. Design Thinking benefits greatly from the views of multiple perspectives, and others’ creativity bolstering your own.
It’s Optimistic.
Design Thinking is the fundamental belief that we all can change — no matter how big a problem, how little time or how small a budget. No matter what constraints exist round you, designing can be an enjoyable process.
It’s Experimental.
Design Thinking gives you permission to fail and to learn from your mistakes, because you come up with new ideas, get feedback on them, then iterate.
It’s Fearless.
I love this commercial about overcoming the fear of failure.
Deep empathy for people makes our observations powerful sources of inspiration. We aim to understand why people do what they currently do, with the goal of understanding what they might do in the future.
— David Kelley, Founded IDEO over 42 years ago
Nice related resources to watch 👀
IDEO on 60 Minutes (On YouTube)
Abstract: The Art of Design (On Netflix)
My Octopus Teacher (On Netflix)
Design Thinking: Design for New Experiences (On Skillshare)
The Creative Toolkit: 6 Techniques to Spark Original Ideas (On Skillshare)
