Design Thinking

Watch

• 5 steps to designing the life you want | Bill Burnett | TEDxStanford ↗TEDx Talks
• Psychology Behind UI/UX Design | Harrish Murugesan | TEDxUTA ↗TEDx Talks
• The first secret of great design | Tony Fadell ↗TED
• Stanford Design Thinking Protocol || How To Train Your Dragon? version ↗Design School MITS
• The Design Thinking Process ↗Stanford Life Design Lab

Read

• The Design of Everyday Things ↗A foundational text revealing how good design anticipates human behaviour, and poor design frustrates it, offering crucial insights for user-centric innovation.Don Norman
• Design ThinkingThe seminal article that introduced design thinking to a broad business audience, outlining its principles and potential for strategic innovation.Tim Brown
• Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation ↗From the CEO of IDEO, this book articulates how design thinking can be a systematic approach to innovation, applicable across business challenges.Tim Brown
• Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All ↗Written by the IDEO founders, this work champions the belief that creativity is a learnable skill, essential for fostering an innovative design thinking mindset.Tom Kelley and David Kelley
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days ↗A practical guide from Google Ventures on rapidly prototyping and validating ideas, offering a disciplined approach to design thinking's iterative core.Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz

Voices to follow

• Tim Brown ↗A leading evangelist for design thinking, he champions its application beyond product development to tackle complex organisational and societal challenges.Executive Chair, IDEO; Author
• Don Norman ↗His seminal work on user-centred design and usability underpins much of modern design thinking, advocating for products that truly serve human needs.Co-founder, Nielsen Norman Group; Author; Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego
• Jeanne Liedtka ↗She translates design thinking principles into practical, actionable strategies for business leaders, demonstrating its utility in fostering innovation and strategic growth.Professor Emeritus of Business Administration, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia; Author
• David Kelley ↗As a pioneer in human-centred design, his work at IDEO and the d.school has been instrumental in popularising design thinking as a methodology for innovation.Founder, IDEO; Founder, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford University

Glossary

• DefineTo define means to clearly state the problem you are trying to solve in a way that is focused and actionable. After understanding people's needs, you pinpoint the exact challenge. For example, after empathizing with students about their school bags, you might define the problem as: "Students need a way to carry heavy books comfortably without hurting their backs."
• Design ThinkingDesign Thinking is a way of solving problems by focusing on the people who have the problem. It involves understanding their needs, coming up with many ideas, building simple versions of solutions, and testing them out. For example, if your school wants to reduce food waste in the cafeteria, Design Thinking would involve talking to students about why they throw food away, brainstorming new menu ideas or serving methods, making a small trial of a new system, and seeing if it works.
• EmpathizeTo empathize means to truly understand and share the feelings or experiences of others. In Design Thinking, it means putting yourself in someone else's shoes to understand their needs, challenges, and desires. For example, if you're designing a new school bag, you'd empathize by observing how students use their current bags, asking them what they like and dislike, and even trying to carry a heavy bag yourself.
• FeedbackFeedback is information, opinions, or reactions from users about your prototype or idea. It helps you understand what's working well and what needs to change. For example, when you test your padded backpack, a student's comment like "The extra padding is great, but it makes the bag too bulky" is valuable feedback.
• IdeateTo ideate means to brainstorm and come up with as many creative ideas as possible to solve the defined problem, without judging them at first. The goal is quantity over quality in the beginning. For example, to solve the "heavy school bag" problem, you might ideate ideas like "bags with wheels," "lighter textbooks," "digital lockers," "backpacks with better padding," or "school delivery service."
• IterationIteration means repeating a process, often with improvements, based on what you learned from previous attempts. In Design Thinking, you often go through the steps (like prototyping and testing) multiple times, making changes each time until you reach a good solution. For example, after getting feedback on your first padded backpack prototype, you would make changes to the padding, create a new prototype, and test it again – this is an iteration.
• Problem StatementA problem statement is a clear, concise sentence or two that describes the specific challenge you are trying to solve for your users. It usually includes who the user is, what their need is, and why it's important. For example, "Teenagers (user) need a way to easily find reliable study resources online (need) because current search results are often overwhelming and untrustworthy (why it's important)."
• PrototypeA prototype is a simple, early version of your solution that you can quickly build and test. It doesn't have to be perfect or fully functional; its purpose is to show your idea and get feedback. For example, if you ideated a backpack with better padding, your prototype might be a regular backpack with extra foam taped inside, or even just a drawing of how it would look.
• TestTo test means to try out your prototype with real users to see how it works and gather their feedback. This step helps you learn what's good about your solution and what needs to be improved. For example, you would ask students to try carrying your padded backpack prototype and tell you if it feels more comfortable or if the padding gets in the way.
• UserA user is the person or group of people who will actually use the product, service, or solution you are designing. Understanding their needs is central to Design Thinking. For example, if you're designing a new app for homework reminders, the users would be students, parents, and teachers.

Threads 3

Where this connects to other fields, and why it's worth knowing.

• Causal Inference & Experiments Mathematics

  When a designer builds a rough prototype, they're really running a science experiment. The prototype is a guess, 'people will find this easier,' built cheap so you can quickly prove it wrong. That's the same logic as A/B testing, where you try two versions and let real results decide. Good design is testing hypotheses first, and looking pretty second.

• Behavioral Economics Economics

  Some countries have 90% of people signed up to donate organs, others barely 15%, and it mostly comes down to one line on a form: are you opted in by default, or do you have to tick a box? People almost always stick with whatever's already checked. That means the person designing the form shapes behavior more than any heartfelt speech ever could.

• Healthcare Systems & Access Health

  A simple surgical checklist and better-designed pill packaging have literally saved lives in hospitals. The trick is treating a mistake as a design flaw, something to engineer away, instead of blaming a person for being careless. Good design becomes a patient-safety tool as powerful as any drug.