Organizations that employ a design thinking approach increase revenues and investor returns at twice the rate of competitors, according to a McKinsey study. The study also found that “design-led companies” outperformed the S&P 500 by 219 percent over a ten year period.
Design thinking has been one of my favorite subjects. As part of the inaugural class of the Stanford d. school in 2005, I have been applying the human centered design principles to many of my product development and consulting projects. It has been invaluable for uncovering underlying needs and creating new solutions for companies.
This article will discuss the elements of design thinking and how it can benefit organizations of all types.
Design thinking has been called “human centered and user specific,” in that it explores ways to increase utility, engagement, and delight. Design thinking is a way of discovering creative solutions by focusing on how end users experience products and services.
The first step in the design thinking process is to grasp the problem fully. The focus should be on the needs of the end user, not the preferences – or biases – of the organization.
That may seem obvious, but too often organizations fail to explore problems thoroughly and rush into solutions, according to the MIT Sloan Review. Team members may see issues through the lens of their own experiences, instead of the user’s, leading to a false sense that a problem has been solved.
Design thinking puts the needs and experience of the user first. One author calls the process “immersion.” She urges organizations to “Identify hidden needs by having the [designer] live the customer’s experience.” The process may include interviewing users about their experiences and observing how they interact with a product or service.
The second step in the design thinking process is brainstorming, sometimes called “ideation.” The first rule of brainstorming is to suspend judgment and encourage all ideas, even wild and impractical ones. According to MIT Sloan, “If we want 100 ideas to choose from, we can’t be too critical.”
It’s also important to get ideas from different constituencies to avoid becoming too narrowly focused. If the goal is to design a product, for example, assembling a team with members from engineering, marketing, and customer service backgrounds will be useful.
One obstacle to productive brainstorming can be the sheer volume of information gathered in the above investigation step. The Harvard Business Review suggests creating a “Gallery Walk” of large posters summarizing the most important data points.
Stakeholders are invited to view the gallery and use Post-It notes to write down “the bits of data they consider essential to new designs.” Their observations can be collected and sorted into themes to generate new ideas.
The process of organizing and winnowing ideas allows the group to choose the most promising directions for follow up and testing.
When the best ideas have been identified, the design thinking process shifts to cycles of prototyping and testing. “We design, we build, we test, and repeat – this design iteration process is absolutely critical to effective design thinking,” according to Steve Eppinger of MIT.
“Prototypes should command only as much time, effort, and investment as are needed to generate useful feedback and evolve an idea,” according to the Harvard Business Review. Investing too much in a single prototype can discourage further change.
Prototyping may bring to mind physical products, but services and processes can also be prototyped through customer journey maps, storyboarding, role-playing, and other tools.
User feedback remains critical during the prototyping process. It can make the difference between an ordinary design and an outstanding one.
To create customer delight, pay attention both to emotional resonance and practical utility. As the Harvard Business Review notes, “Many products built on an emotional value proposition are simpler than competitors’ offerings.” Apple products are a prime example of clean, simple design creating a devoted user base.
The fourth step in the design thinking process is implementation. Once prototypes have been created, tested, and improved, the product or service can be rolled out to end users in the real world. As with prototyping, however, implementation is a journey rather than a destination.
Despite the developers’ best efforts to test and prototype, real world use may bring to light unexpected shortcomings and limitations. In that case, the design thinking process returns to an earlier phase to identify the problem, generate ideas, and test solutions.
The more thorough the design team has been in the first instance, the more straightforward it will be to revise the end product. The key is to remain open to questioning, testing, and improving.
Whether your organization offers products or services, design thinking provides a framework to keep customer needs in focus throughout the development process.
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Copyright ©️ 2025 by Stephen Wullschleger. All rights reserved.
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