Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that builds on the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success. It began to be theoretically developed at Stanford University in California in the 1970s, and its first applicability for profit as "Design Thinking" was carried out by the IDEO design consultancy, which is today its main precursor.
This methodology consists of 5 stages carried out through an iterative process, that is, at any time you can advance to a stage or even return to previous stages to perfect certain features of the product or service you are developing. These stages are as follows:
Empathize: It is based on creating innovative and meaningful solutions you need to know your users. We must be able to put ourselves in the shoes of these people to be able to generate solutions consistent with their realities.
Define: Framing the right problem is the only way to create the right solution. At this stage, we must refine the information collected during the Empathy phase and keep what really adds value and leads us to reach new interesting perspectives.
Ideate: Developing ideas for solutions does not happen instantly, it takes a process, based on the compilation of what has already been learned from the problem and the generation of the greatest number of possibilities. There is not just one "correct" idea.
Prototype: Building your solution quickly will help you think and get feedback from users and colleagues. Building prototypes makes ideas palpable and helps us visualize possible solutions. In addition, it highlights elements that we must improve, refine or change before reaching the final result.
Test: Testing gives you the opportunity to learn about users and possible solutions. It also helps you define, change, or eliminate the solution you have experienced.
Design Thinking brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who are not trained as designers to use creative tools to tackle a wide range of challenges.