{"id":22278,"date":"2021-01-01T09:59:07","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=22278"},"modified":"2021-01-04T00:21:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T04:21:35","slug":"design-thinking-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"The Design Thinking Approach: The Basics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the design thinking approach? How does it mean for designers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The design thinking approach is the process of examining a situation to discover solutions to the problem. The solution should improve the experience for the user.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the design thinking approach and how it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Design Thinking<\/strong> Approach<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDesign thinking\u201d is the process of examining a situation to discover the root problem, exploring possible solutions to that problem, testing those solutions, and making improvements based on those tests. This process is <em>iterative<\/em>, which means it is repeated as many times as necessary, each time with slight improvements based on previous iterations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design thinking is an important part of the philosophy of human-centered design. This chapter describes two models for thinking about the process of design thinking and compares these approaches to the traditional design process. But these approaches represent the ideal, and they\u2019re not always feasible in practice. The chapter ends with a discussion of the practical constraints that prevent designers from working through each step of the design thinking approach in full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Process<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Design thinking has two phases: finding the right problem and finding the right solution. Each of the two phases has two steps. The entire process is often described using \u201cthe four D\u2019s\u201d: discover, define, develop, deliver.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first step in the design process is <strong>discovering the problem<\/strong>. This seems like it would be easy, since designers are typically hired to solve a particular problem. But the problems designers are asked to solve are often downstream effects of the \u201creal\u201d problem. In other words, designers are hired to address symptoms, but good designers will go beyond that and dig into the root cause (tools like root cause analysis and \u201cThe Five Whys\u201d are especially useful at this stage).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next step is <strong>defining the problem. <\/strong>In the \u201cdiscover\u201d phase, design teams will brainstorm all the factors that could be influencing the problem, then investigate each of those factors to see which are most relevant. This helps the team decide on the actual problem they will attempt to solve.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the real problem is discovered and defined, designers can begin <strong>developing solutions. <\/strong>This is the part of the process that most people picture when they imagine designers at work\u2014a flurry of new ideas, rapid sketches, and rough prototypes. Instead of committing to a solution right away, good designers brainstorm as many solutions as possible, including ideas that are obviously not feasible. Even a seemingly ridiculous solution might have an underlying principle that ends up guiding the real design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, designers will choose the most promising solution and refine it into final form by continuously testing, making changes, and retesting. This process culminates in <strong>delivering the final design<\/strong> to the client.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the design thinking approach? How does it mean for designers? The design thinking approach is the process of examining a situation to discover solutions to the problem. The solution should improve the experience for the user. Read more about the design thinking approach and how it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,34],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-22278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-communication","tag-the-design-of-everyday-things","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Design Thinking Approach: The Basics - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is a design thinking approach? Design thinking refers to the idea that you look for the root cause of a problem and try to fix it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Design Thinking Approach: The Basics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is a design thinking approach? Design thinking refers to the idea that you look for the root cause of a problem and try to fix it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-01T13:59:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-04T04:21:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/startup-secrets-zerotoone-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1706\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"The Design Thinking Approach: The Basics\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-01T13:59:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:21:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\"},\"wordCount\":470,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/startup-secrets-zerotoone-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Design of Everyday Things\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Communication\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\",\"name\":\"The Design Thinking Approach: The Basics - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/startup-secrets-zerotoone-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-01T13:59:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:21:35+00:00\",\"description\":\"What is a design thinking approach? 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