How Design Thinking can help YOU create value for customers
Focus on addressing real needs and pain points
We're always looking at how we can develop new products and services to best suit the needs of our customers, but sometimes the hardest thing to do is actually come up with the ideas. Introducing Design Thinking, a new technique to help you do just that...
1. Why Design Thinking?
Design Thinking may be seen as the latest buzz word, but it has been impacting the approach creatives take for quite some time.
It provides a sense of structure, whilst remaining unrestricted. It can be difficult to find that balance between creativity and order when trying to innovate and develop new ideas, that's where design thinking brings control to that chaos.
We all fall victim to our assumptions of the customer, this is unfortunately apparent of human nature. However, Design Thinking keeps the attention on the customers needs and ignores any preconceived notions of what they might want.
There are many methods of idea generation, but Design Thinking takes it beyond the idea phase and into tangible visions of what could be.
There are many reasons why we should consider Design Thinking, here are a few of them :
- It brings control to the chaos of creativity
- It encourages multi-disciplined team work
- It is a powerful tool for tackling the unknown
- It is a customer focussed approach aimed at discovering people’s hidden needs.
- It is a methodology to ensure that meaningful and helpful solutions can be found.
2. The process
Source: Eurapco academy
Design Thinking is an iterative process, beginning with need finding, then ideation, to prototyping/testing, before definition or going back to the drawing board. So now we know how it actually works, let’s take a closer look.
Phase 1 - Need finding and Synthesis
We recently put our understanding of the theory in to practice. We observed the daily problems that we, as consumers face. From this, we highlighted a few key areas that we wished to research further. At this point, we ventured in to the busy streets of the town centre and asked shoppers some open questions about their thoughts on the problem we had highlighted.
This led to open engagement and some interesting discussions with people from all walks of life.
Here are the key points :
- Try to understand your customer
- What are their needs? What problems do they face?
- Don’t just assume, go out and assess the customer base
Phase 2 - Ideation
Ideation is where you start thinking of ideas with your team.
Although difficult, it is important not to solutionise at this stage, but rather think of ideas that address the problem.
There are various creative techniques you can use to generate ideas, such as brain writing, headstand ideation and “how might we” questions.
Start by putting together a multi-disciplined team. It is important to bring together individuals with varying backgrounds, experience and knowledge. By operating with a multi-disciplined team, you are able to draw from different perspectives and develop greater ideas.
You could perhaps incorporate the Walt Disney Method, which breaks a team down into 3 distinct characters;
- The Dreamer,
- The Realist,
- The Critic.
The Dreamer asks WHAT do you need? They develop a pool of ideas
The Realist asks HOW can we achieve this? They create a plan to make the idea a reality
The Critic asks WHY is this a necessity. They think about what can go wrong and what is missing
You can then use your learnings to generate ideas with your team.
“Yes, and…”, also referred to as “Yes, and…thinking" is a rule-of-thumb in improvisational comedy that suggests that a participant should accept what another participant has stated (“yes”) and then expand on that line of thinking (“and”). By following this method, our team were able to generate dozens of ideas before categorising them into themes through a process of nuggeting.
Phase 3 - Prototyping
This is your chance to bring your idea to life. This could be a brochure, an interactive app or any solution you are able to offer your customers. Below is an example of storyboarding, which highlights the key elements of a customer journey. This is especially useful when prototyping mobile apps and websites.
Use as little resource as possible to create a viable prototype. It doesn’t need to be completely functional either, it just needs to show the highlights of your product.
Don’t get bogged down in the fine details of your prototype, it doesn’t need to be a finished masterpiece! Customers just need to know what you need them to know about your product.
Phase 4 - Testing
Now that you have a prototype created, take it to your end customer. Test to see if it meets the needs you thought of.
- What works?
- What needs improving?
This stage is vital as you can potentially come out with a completely different product. It also helps you improve on your educated assumptions of the customers needs. Have they been proven or rebuked?
A key point to remember here, is that testing does not mean selling. This stage is all about listening carefully to feedback, gauging the customer’s response and understanding of the product.
By focussing on what they like or dislike and why they think that, you will quickly be able to make any adjustments necessary.
Phase 5 - (Re-)definition
This is the the fifth and at times, “final stage” of the cycle. It is at this point where you sit down and discuss what you’ve found. Did your product meet your customers wants and needs. What issues need resolving, what changes should be made. If you haven’t got your final answer, you can go back to the drawing board and start the cycle again. Here is where you should:
- Discuss your learnings with your team
- Challenge your original question and rephrase it
- Decide on your next steps; Kill, Pivot or Continue?
An important decision must be made in this phase. Do you Pivot your idea as it solves another, unrelated problem? Do you kill the project entirely and start from scratch? Or have you received positive feedback and decide to continue in to a second phase of testing/prototyping?
No matter what your decision, you can flow back through the Design Thinking Micro Cycle to help you on your way.
3. Conclusion
As a concept, Design Thinking is geared towards creative tasks. However, it is worth bearing in mind that as an idea, it can be shaped and moulded to the individual's needs. The most important issue is, of course, to never lose sight of the fact that this is aimed at creating value for the customer, which could consequently improve customer relations.
-Ends-
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