What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a product development process used by many companies to create innovative products. It follows specific steps, guiding the creation of solutions that place the user at the center. Let’s take a closer look at the concept of Design Thinking.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a process of solving complex problems by focusing on the users. It has been translated into our language as "Tasarım Odaklı Düşünme" (Design Thinking). It aims to generate creative solutions for complex problems by incorporating prototyping and testing phases. As one of the methodologies for innovative thinking, Design Thinking is used by many organizations to develop user-centered products in their business processes.

Design Thinking seeks to identify problems more clearly by empathizing with the target audience, offering creative solutions, and ultimately producing a final product that the users will desire.

The History of Design Thinking

The history of Design Thinking goes back decades. Psychological studies on creative thinking processes began in the 1940s. The development of new creativity techniques in the 1950s and the introduction of design methods in the 1960s laid the foundations for Design Thinking.

The first writings on Design Thinking can be found in John E. Arnold’s 1959 book "Creative Engineering" and L. Bruce Archer’s 1965 book "Systematic Method for Designers."

In "Creative Engineering," John E. Arnold presents four areas of creative thinking: finding solutions for a new need or solving an old need in a new way, improving a solution's version, reducing production costs, and increasing marketability.

L. Bruce Archer, in his book "Systematic Method for Designers," outlines a systematic design process and advocates expanding the scope of traditional design.

John E. Arnold took the first steps towards Design Thinking through his work at Stanford University. His studies at Stanford paved the way for Robert McKim and Rolfe Faste to contribute to this field.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Rolf Faste introduced the idea of "Design Thinking as a Method for Creative Action" and continued his work at Stanford University. In 1991, Rolf Faste’s colleague from Stanford, David M. Kelley, founded the design consultancy firm IDEO and implemented Design Thinking in business processes. The final shape of Design Thinking was given in subsequent years by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, along with Roger Martin.

When Can Design Thinking Be Applied?

Design Thinking can be applied in various processes such as product, software, and service development. This approach is especially useful for tackling complex problems where repeated solutions have been attempted but no successful outcome has been achieved. It helps in generating creative, previously unthought-of, and innovative solutions with the user at the center.

The Design Thinking Process

The process proceeds through non-linear, iterative stages. It involves tasks such as user analysis, problem identification, idea generation, solution development, prototyping, and testing.

Design Thinking is particularly used to address "wicked problems." Wicked problems are design challenges with no formula, no right or wrong solution. This term, coined by Horst Rittel, refers to complex problems. Approaching such problems with a creative perspective enables the development of new or better solutions.

The Design Thinking process includes steps like analyzing the target audience, identifying the problem, creating prototypes, and testing them with real users. The entire Design Thinking process is carried out in five steps.

What Are the Steps of Design Thinking?

The Design Thinking process consists of specific steps. Essentially, Design Thinking occurs in five steps. Instead of being a linear process, it is an iterative cycle where steps can be revisited and repeated. First, let’s look at what these steps are, and then we can discuss how the cycle operates.

Empathize

The first step of Design Thinking is to empathize. In a product development process, you need to put yourself in the users' shoes and empathize with them. To do this, you need to interact with the target audience and observe their behaviors. The aim is to better understand the problems faced by the users within the target audience.

Define

After the empathy phase, it’s time to define. In the first phase, users’ behaviors were observed through empathy. This gives us data about the needs and problems experienced by the target audience. Based on this data, we can clearly define the problems that need to be solved. Once the problem is clearly defined, we can move on to idea generation.

Ideate

Now that you understand users’ behaviors and have a clear problem to solve, the next step is to generate ideas. This is where you brainstorm solutions to the problem. It’s important to think outside the box during this phase. Creativity plays a crucial role here. Techniques like brainstorming, role-playing, and mind mapping can be very helpful at this stage. From the ideas generated, you select the most logical and feasible solutions to move forward to the next stage.

Prototype

At this point, you have a problem and several potential solutions. The next step is to create simple, testable prototypes of these solutions. During the prototyping phase, new ideas may emerge, or you may find that the prototype cannot be implemented due to technical issues. In this case, you may need to return to the previous steps. Additionally, feedback from the testing phase can lead to further refinements.

Test

The final step in Design Thinking is the test phase. In this phase, prototypes are introduced to real users. The goal of the test phase is to gather feedback from a test group that represents the target audience. This ensures that the solution produced is accurate and effective. If the tests are successful, the product moves into production. If not, earlier steps are revisited.

As mentioned earlier, the Design Thinking process is not linear but cyclical, allowing for iteration between steps. If a product doesn’t deliver the desired results during testing, the team may return to the ideation stage. If it’s concluded that users weren’t correctly understood, the process might restart from the empathy stage. New issues or expanded scopes of the problem might arise during testing, requiring a return to the definition phase. More creative ideas may also surface during prototyping, prompting a revisit to the ideation phase.

The Benefits of Design Thinking

Each step of the Design Thinking process brings various advantages. Here are some of the benefits of Design Thinking:

• It ensures the target audience for the product is accurately identified.
• By fostering creative thinking, it facilitates the development of innovative ideas.
• Its iterative structure allows for the emergence of new ideas and repeated testing of product prototypes.
• Identifying the needs of the target audience and developing solutions through testing increases the likelihood that the final product will be accepted by users.
• It enables overcoming seemingly impossible problems by providing a new perspective.
• Design Thinking can be easily applied by all teams.

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