Introduction
Design Thinking is a creative process identified by multiple steps to design new concepts, technologies, or products. Ideo is a thought leader in this space and they identify the following steps in the design thinking process.
Moving through the phases of design thinking can take you from a blank slate to a new, innovative solution.
- Frame a Question - Identify a driving question that inspires others to search for creative solutions.
- Gather Inspiration - Inspire new thinking by discovering what people really need.
- Generate Ideas - Push past obvious solutions to get to breakthrough ideas.
- Make Ideas Tangible - Build rough prototypes to learn how to make ideas better.
- Test to Learn - Refine ideas by gathering feedback and experimenting forward.
- Share the Story - Craft a human story to inspire others toward action.
When done right, design thinking will help you understand the mindsets and needs of the people you’re creating for, surface opportunities based on these needs, and lead you to innovative new solutions starting with quick, low-fidelity experiments that provide learning and gradually increase in fidelity.
Historically, the design thinking process has been defined as a five step process - 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype, 5. Test. This career foundry article summarizes the process well.
Articles
We have curated this list of articles that relate to the design thinking process and the soft skills we will be developing throughout the semester. This list will be updated at times during the semester.
Books
A More Beautiful Question is recommended. However, you can choose from this list of recommended books for your design and mindset reading time.
Blogs
Some of the articles above have been gleaned from the following blogs. Feel free to browse through these blogs to find readings related to our course.
Digital Experience Design
Metacool: Thoughts on Design and stuff
Innovationship
Ideo: Tim Brown on Design Thinking
The Design Gym
Designthink
