Design thinking

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Design thinking is an approach that aims to solve problems and develop new ideas . The goal is to find solutions that are convincing from the user's point of view. In contrast to other innovation methods, Design Thinking cannot or is sometimes not described as a method or process, but as an approach based on the three equally important principles of team, space and process.

theory

Design thinking process in six steps
The design thinking process
The most important core aspects of design thinking
Design thinking core aspects

Design Thinking is based on the assumption that problems can be solved better if people from different disciplines work together in an environment that promotes creativity, develop a question together, take into account the needs and motivations of people and then develop concepts that are repeatedly checked. The process is based on the work of designers , which is understood as a combination of understanding, observation, point of view definition, brainstorming, prototype development and testing. At the same time, the word thinking stands for the fact that the feasibility and profitability of innovations are systematically examined, as in a research project. According to another understanding, Design Thinking means “any process that applies the methods of industrial designers to problems beyond how a product should look” (“any process that applies the methods of industrial designers to problems that go beyond the appearance of a product”). Design thinking thus combines three fundamental core aspects: benefit, feasibility and marketability. Accordingly, the benefits for people, the technological feasibility and the economic marketability are brought into harmony in order to create a perfect innovation and to solve the problem properly. All points should be weighted equally.


These six named and basic steps of Design Thinking can be described as follows:

Understand

The problem at the beginning is best defined with a team consisting of several people. It is important to create a general understanding and to bring everyone involved to the same level. Specific questions can be, for example: What should be newly developed? For whom should the development be relevant? Which essential (current or future) framework conditions have to be considered? Which final state should the solution achieve?

Observe

Observing is about being able to empathize with the customer. An analysis of the customer's will is possible, for example, through an interview or role play . It is important to let the customer do the talking. Good listening is the most important part of the job, otherwise misunderstandings can arise. The wishes of the customer are always in the foreground.

Define your point of view

The results of the first two steps are combined. Techniques such as personas or point-of-view are used to define the point of view both visually and in writing.

Find ideas

At the beginning of the brainstorming process there is a general brainstorming session in which any ideas, no matter how crazy or utopian , are brought together. The results are structured and sorted according to priorities. Questions about the efficiency , feasibility or profitability of the individual ideas are important. A glance at the competition is also not unusual.

prototype

A prototype is created for illustrative purposes. Perfection and completion are insignificant. More importantly, the simpler, the better. Creativity is given free rein. Techniques that are used in prototyping include wireframes , post-its , role-playing games , storyboards or models. The prototype is tailored to the needs of the customer. It is important that the customer can imagine the solution to his problem based on the prototype.

Testing

Finally, what has been developed must be tested. Feedback plays an important role in this. In addition, flexibility demanded. If an idea doesn't work, it can also be discarded. Customers are closely monitored during tests with the prototypes. Based on their reaction, further ideas and improvements develop. Design thinkers are also open to new suggestions at this step. If a defect is found during a test, it is eliminated and the steps are repeated with the improved or new prototype. It is quite common for new products to have several test phases until the customer is satisfied and the product can be approved.

Development and institutional background

The developers and representatives of the method are the computer scientist Terry Winograd , Larry Leifer and David Kelley , the founders of the design and innovation agency IDEO , who also market the concept. Conferences on this topic have been held since 1991 under the name “Design Thinking Research Symposia”.

Research and implementation of this concept are funded by Hasso Plattner . Design thinking principles have been taught since 2005 at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University in Palo Alto, the so-called "d.school". In October 2007 the School of Design Thinking at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam started studying. Research projects on design thinking are being carried out in an HPI Stanford Design Thinking Research Program with a budget of 16 million US dollars and led by Larry Leifer (Stanford University) and Christoph Meinel (Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam).

practice

Numerous international companies and organizations of all sizes use Design Thinking as a project, innovation, portfolio, analysis and / or development method. In particular, SAP SE uses Design Thinking as an approach to how the development units work together with customers and their end users. The former managing director of the Hanover Zoo, Klaus-Michael Machens , founded an interdisciplinary working group in 1995, which created a Zoo 2000 concept based on the methodology . According to a report by the Financial Times Deutschland from August 2010, it was successfully implemented. Other companies that use Design Thinking include Swisscom, Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn, Siemens, Airbnb, Pinterest and Francotyp-Postalia.

Methods

Depending on the area of ​​application ( knowledge management , prototype design , service prototyping , etc.), a large number of methods are used in design thinking, which are usually characterized by user orientation, visualization, simulation and iterative and often research-based procedures.

The important methods of design thinking that are mainly used in marketing include: a.

  • the customer journey mapping , in which the interaction processes with the customer and their effective preferences, experiences and emotions at the various touchpoints (customer interfaces and sales channels such as shop, telephone, email, web, app , etc.) are explored on the basis of interviews or other feedback and are displayed;
  • the creation of user models of a group of people with specific characteristics and behaviors in human-computer interaction . Such a model of a user group is called a persona .

With the digitization of customer communication on more and more available communication channels and increasing diversification of sales channels , such processes are becoming more and more important for customer loyalty and sales success.

Definition from a company perspective

There is currently no uniform definition of design thinking. This state of affairs is usually attributed to the fact that design thinking is a multidisciplinary approach and is not just dominated by one science. Nevertheless, different “definitions” of Design Thinking have developed in the last few years, especially in the business context.

“Industrial Design Thinking is the name of the method that [...] is used for tricky innovation problems. Not only is the solution unknown, the challenges on the customer side are also in the dark. As the name suggests: the creative process uses visual and haptic impressions more than other methods. One of the strengths of design thinking is that it also detects needs that the user is not even aware of and that he cannot articulate. "

- Siemens

"... with Design Thinking you can see two dots, that don't make any sense, but somehow in your head you connect them in a new and different way."

"... with Design Thinking you can see two points that are pointless, but somehow you connect them in your head in a new and different way."

- Joe Gebbia : Airbnb

“A methodology solving wicked problems of identifying new opportunities using the tools and mindsets taught in Design Schools. Keys: consumer inspiration, abductive thinking, 'doing' to think in a 'low res' prototyping way, rapid iteration. "

“A method to solve tricky problems, to identify new opportunities, with the means and ways of thinking taught in design schools. Keys: consumer inspiration, abduction , 'do it' to allow fuzzy, prototypical thinking, quick revision. "

- Cindy Tripp, Marketing Director : Procter & Gamble

“Design Thinking is really being able to put yourself into shoes of a customer or a client, it's putting their needs as the top priority, and then building business and capability around that. [...] It's an approach that we borrowed from the way the designers approach designing physical products, and increasingly refining that it's a phenominal way of helping businesses solve problems. "

- Frank Farall, Lead Partner : Deloitte Digital

“Design Thinking is a method for practical and creative problem-solving, that evolved from fields as varied as engineering, architecture and business. At its core, Design Thinking focuses on understanding people's needs and creatively discovery of solutions to meet those needs. Its core concepts are understand, explore, prototype and evaluate. "

- IBM

“Design Thinking is a people-related approach to innovation that aims to create creative ideas and business models and focuses on people's needs. Design Thinking pursues the basic idea that you apply the approach and the methods of designers to the development of innovations (this is what the word design stands for) and at the same time systematically examine the feasibility and economic viability of innovations, like a researcher (this is what the word thinking stands for) ). "

- Christian Müller-Roterberg : Design Thinking for Dummies

“Design thinking is said to encourage divergent thinking to idea many solutions (possible or impossible) and then uses convergent thinking to show preference, and realize the best resolution. It's a process based around the building up of ideas without judgments. All this said, in the last decade it's been so abstracted, it's hard to tell what it currently is. "

- Robin Lanahan, Director Brand Strategy : Microsoft

criticism

The hypothesis that the creative process can be completely designed and that the presence of designers plays a decisive role is also criticized. Dev Patnaik contrasts design thinking with hybrid thinking - it is more important to put empathetic people with different training but the ability to hybrid thinking in the right places in the organization. As an example he cites Claudia Kotchka's innovative successes at Procter & Gamble . Claudia Kotchka's success at P&G does not indicate the triumph of the designers she has increasingly recruited in the creative process, she is a business economist herself. The challenge is not to form interdisciplinary teams, but to recruit individual members who are capable of interdisciplinary thinking in one person and to position them at key points.

The design theorist Wolfgang Jonas also criticizes the hype surrounding the fuzzy design thinking concept and, in contrast, emphasizes the role of design as an always independent transdisciplinary form of knowledge production in the sense of Herbert A. Simons Sciences of the Artificial as well as the evolutionary course of design processes, which, with all goal orientation, are always self-reflective redesign processes.

Urban planning scientist Natasha Iskander criticizes the fact that design thinking is fundamentally conservative and merely maintains the current state. She argues, “When the designer is the ruler of the meanings that go into the design process, the potential for connections is limited not only to what the designer sees as significant, but also to the relationships he or she can imagine. "

See also

literature

  • Pierre Sachse, Adrian Specker: Design Thinking: Analysis and support of constructive design activities. Series Mensch, Technik, Organization, Volume 22.vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 978-3-7281-2701-3 .
  • Tim Brown , Barry Katz: Change by Design. How design thinking can transform organizations and inspire innovation. HarperCollins Publishers, New York NY 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-176608-4 .
  • Tim Brown: Design Thinking . In: Harvard Business Review. June 2008, pp. 84-92, ( hbr.org ).
  • Ingrid Gerstbach: Design Thinking in the company. A workbook for introducing Design Thinking . GABAL, Offenbach 2016, ISBN 978-3-86936-726-2 .
  • Wolfgang Jonas: Dizziness - Design Thinking as a General Problem Solver? EKLAT Symposium on Design Science, TU Berlin, May 6, 2011 8149.website.snafu.de (PDF; 735 kB)
  • Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman: The IDEO Innovation Book. How companies come up with new ideas . Econ, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-430-15317-1 .
  • Dev Patnaik, Peter Mortensen: Wired to Care. How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy. FT Press / Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ 2009, ISBN 978-0-13-714234-7 .
  • Hasso Plattner , Christoph Meinel , Ulrich Weinberg: Design Thinking. Learning to innovate - opening up a world of ideas. mi-Wirtschaftsbuch - FinanzBuch Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86880-013-5 .
  • Christoph Meinel, Ulrich Weinberg, Timm Krohn: Design Thinking live. How to develop ideas and solve problems . Murmann Verlag, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86774-427-0
  • Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, Larry Leifer (Eds.): The Design Thinking Playbook. With traditional, current and future success factors . Vahlen, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8006-5384-3
  • Dark Horse Innovation: Digital Innovation Playbook. The indispensable workbook for founders, doers and managers. Murmann Verlag, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-86774-556-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hester Hilbrecht, Oliver Kempkens: Design Thinking in Companies - Challenge with Added Value . In: Digitization and Innovation . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-658-00370-8 , p. 347-364 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-00371-5_18 .
  2. ↑ Wikimedia Germany e V: English: The Design Thinking process, referring to an Anja Wölbling, Kira Krämer, Clemens N. Buss, Katrin Dribbisch, Peter LoBue, and Abraham Taherivand 2012. “Design Thinking: An Innovative Concept for Developing User-Centered Software ”, in Software for People, Mädche, Alexander (eds.), Berlin: Springer, pp. 121ff. July 30, 2014, accessed October 17, 2016 .
  3. ↑ MIT World: Innovation Through Design Thinking , video of Tim Brown's talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , March 26, 2006.
  4. ↑ MULLER-ROTERBER, C .: DESIGN THINKING FUR DUMMIES . WILEY VCH, 2020, ISBN 978-3-527-82602-5 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 20, 2020]).
  5. ↑ a b Dev Patnaik: Forget Design Thinking and Try Hybrid Thinking . Fast Company. August 25, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  6. ↑ What is Design Thinking? | HPI Academy. Retrieved June 19, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Design Thinking - Method, Process and Workshops. In: iconstorm. Accessed June 19, 2020 (German).
  8. ↑ Andreas Diehl: Design Thinking - In 6 steps from the idea to the solution. In: Andreas Diehl (#DNO). July 3, 2018, accessed June 19, 2020 (German).
  9. ↑ Esther Gensrich: The Design Thinking Process: 6 steps of innovative idea implementation. Retrieved June 19, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Design Thinking will creep in , Interview: Golem.de in conversation with the computer scientist Terry Winograd on March 3, 2008.
  11. ^ "Hasso Plattner Institute and the Stanford University School of Engineering are cooperating in a joint Design Thinking Research program" ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) (University of Potsdam)
  12. ^ Design Thinking Research Symposia , Open University, accessed April 18, 2009
  13. ↑ Design Thinking: New studies for creative thinkers , article about the d.school, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from October 20, 2008
  14. ↑ HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  15. ↑ Hester Hilbrecht, Oliver Kempkens: Design Thinking in Companies - Challenge with Added Value . In: Digitization and Innovation: Planning - Development - Development Perspectives . Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-658-00371-5 , p. 347-364 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-00371-5_18 .
  16. ^ Design Thinking at Hannover Zoo ( Memento from September 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Financial Times Deutschland from August 6, 2010.
  17. ↑ Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, Larry Leifer: The Design Thinking Playbook. With traditional, current and future success factors . Verlag Franz Vahlen GmbH, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8006-5384-3 , doi : 10.15358 / 9783800653850 .
  18. ↑ Industrial Design Thinking at Siemens . siemens.com. March 12, 2015. Accessed March 23, 2016.
  19. ↑ How design thinking transformed Airbnb from failing startup to billion-dollar business (from 0:01:56) on YouTube
  20. ↑ Cindy Tripp: How P&G is Using Design Thinking as a Competitive Advantage on YouTube
  21. ↑ Design Thinking . deloittedigital.com. July 15, 2013. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
  22. ↑ How It Works: Design Thinking on YouTube
  23. ↑ What Is Design Thinking Anyway? . psfk.com. June 9, 2012. Accessed March 23, 2016.
  24. ↑ Design Thinking Is Fundamentally Conservative and Preserves the Status Quo. Retrieved April 28, 2020 .