Let’s begin with a suitable quote:

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” – Tim Brown

The design process approaches problem solving through a data-driven approach. It forms a hypothesis, considers several quick/low cost solutions that are tested and refined through iterative improvement.

The process can be thought of as a cycle with three main steps (design, evaluate, prototype) that take you from initial design to final product.

It’s All About Iteration

The complexity of design problems is better served through an iterative and user-centered approach (by which I mean collecting data and input from real users). Due to the nature of the questions being addressed as real world needs, preferences and use cases are constantly changing.

The first step of the design process is to determine the problem that your users are looking to solve. Their “problem” is the reason they will buy your product (they find it useful or valuable in some way).

In such cases that the proposed solution is wrong, it is fixable in an iterative design process. Issues should surface from speaking with users and by determining the priority of user needs.

The implications of working in a team practically require buy-in and approval from others, and an iterative process better serves the needs of those collaborating with various partners or stakeholders.  

Up Next..

In our next UX design nugget, we’ll talk Usability Testing. See you there!