Design Thinking & Empathy
The first step of the innovation starts with asking the right questions and defining the challenge, especially a user-centric problem that we want to address. Although defining a challenge seems easy most of the time, it is mixed with wishes, solutions, and directions. Einstein is quoted as having said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” This indicates the importance of the problem definition. Throughout the innovation journey, it is the compass that we need to check and ensure about or direction. In the Define mode of design thinking, you should create an actionable problem statement, commonly known as the Point of View (POV). Design thinking POW steps provide different tools to frame the challenge statement. One of the techniques that I find quite beneficial is the How Might We statement technique. HMW opens up to Ideation sessions where you explore ideas that can help you solve your design challenge. By framing your challenge as a How Might We question, you’ll prepare yourself for an innovative solution in the third Design Thinking phase, the Ideation phase.
Once you define your challenge, then to initiate the innovation, you need to empathize with your potential customers or end-users. Design thinking provides tools for the Know People step of design thinking. Creating personas is one of the best tools that provide a holistic understanding of the target group in the know your people phase. Persona provides a deep understanding of customer behavior and needs. A persona can be defined as a fictional character that represents one segment of our potential customer or end-user of your service or product. This helps us align with the user and put the user first to create customer-centered products and services. Also, it allows us to check if this product is working for our character “John”. In addition to personas, empathy mapping is a handy tool that I have come across while working with different projects. This tool helps to identify the pain and gain points of the users and creates an excellent base for ideation exercises.
Innovation is a journey that we need to be inspired and intellectually challenged by knowledge. In the design thinking approach Research part, the known context is vital. Especially in our digital world, with access to a globe with a couple of keystrokes, we can access a significant amount of information by just conducting desktop research. But searching for the right information and categorizing the information based on our needs is a challenge by itself. Design thinking “know your context” step is quite essential. The first step of the approach is to create a work plan for understanding the context based on available time, resources, methods, and expected deliverables, which is a reasonable step to act with a calculated approach. Also, this step pushes the user to look at the topic from different angles reaching out to subject matter experts and analyzing the outcome from different perspectives.
Moreover, going beyond the tools mentioned earlier, the ideation and brainstorming activities must be conducted following the abovementioned outcomes. Trained minds with related problems and customer needs will tremendously solve the select challenges in remarkable ways to benefit the product or service.
Sources:
Kumar, V., & LaConte, V. (2012). 101 design methods: A structured approach for driving innovation in your organization
https://www.innovationtraining.org/create-personas-design-thinking/
https://www.creativityatwork.com/design-thinking-strategy-for-innovation/