What is

D e s i g n
Thi n k i n g
and why
is it so

Po p u l a r ?
Try not to think of Design Thinking
as a ‘1.2.3. stop, rinse, and repeat
type of process.

Instead, design thinking is a

collection of working methods and
tools a leader can regularly use
during a project.

Christine Reynolds design

Andrew Edwards ACE
 “Empathy is about finding
echoes of another person
EMPATHIZE in yourself."
Empathy is the first and most crucial
- Moshin Hamid
step in the Design Thinking framework.

What is Empathy?
Empathy allows us to walk in the shoes of another person, or our user, and see
first-hand, what they experience.

I'm sorry I know

you are how you
hurt. feel...

SYMPATHY EMPATHY
recognition of someone sharing another person's
else's pain or suffering. feelings or motivations.

To effectively predict a user's behaviours and preferences, a team must first

understand their needs, objectives, motivations, products they prefer, and
services involved in their experiences.

How to practice Empathy:

Take a beginner's mindset: Approach the problem with fresh eyes like a
beginner.
Re-create pain points: Simulate the scenario to experience the users'
challenges and better understand the issue.
Connect with users: Host user interviews to dive deeper into their
experiences and pain points.

Are you looking for a resource to help

your team become more innovative,
create new ways of working, and build
stronger leadership skills?
Check out our Books
 “If I have an hour to solve a
problem, I'd spend 55 minutes
DEFINE thinking about the problem
and 5 minutes thinking about
Leverage what you learn in the
Emphasize Stage to translate insight the solution”
into a defined problem statement or - Albert Einstein
project’s vision.

What is the Define stage, and why is it so important?

Often the trickiest of the 5 stages, the Define stage in Design Thinking, is all about
diagnosing the right problem using the information a team gathers from their users
and stakeholders.
Prioritizing needs and deciding where to allocate resources can be complex.To
define a problem, create a synthesized view of the insights gathered in the
Empathize Stage. Leaders can then use these inputs to guide their teams when
describing the problem.

Writing a problem statement:

A good problem statement avoids naming specific solutions, keeps the scope open
enough to inspire creativity but specific enough to enable the team to move
forward, and avoids jargon.

Get started with a problem 40 words

funnel:
Are you having trouble explaining a business
problem? 20 words

Try a problem funnel: 10 words

State the problem in 40 words
Next, state it in 20 words
Refine to 10 words 5
Finally, to just 5 words words

Are you looking for a resource to help

your team become more innovative,
create new ways of working, and build
stronger leadership skills?
Check out our Books
 "You can't use up

IDEATE creativity. The more you

use it, the more you have.
Ideation is the third stage of Design
Thinking and the least structured. - Maya Angelou

What is ideation?
Ideation is an exciting part of the process when the imagination can run wild. The
objective is to produce many ideas that the team can then narrow down to the
best and most useful ones. Ideation ignites innovation and aims to get apparent
solutions out of the team's head early and steer beyond them.

Business strategies are based on ideas. Although interior ideas are essential,
customer ideas are becoming more critical. The users are the ones who buy the
products and use the services, so making sure to deliver what they should be is a
top priority.

Hosting an Ideation Session: Diverge Then Converge

The pain points identified during the empathize phase will guide the ideation
stage of the design thinking project. The team's goal is to propose solutions to
these challenges.

In design thinking, ideation is about developing ideas that can be prototyped and
tested. Select the ideas that will be prototyped and keep a record of those in an
idea parking lot.

1. Diverge: generate as many ideas as

possible.
2. Converge: Prioritize ideas based
on impact/feasibility

Are you looking for a resource to help

your team become more innovative,
create new ways of working, and build
stronger leadership skills?
Check out our Books
 "Prototype as if you are
PROTOTYPE right. Listen as if you
Design Thinking and User Experience are wrong."
design benefit from prototyping, - Diego Rodriguez (IDEO)
enabling us to test and improve our
ideas quickly.

What is a prototype?
A prototype is a mock-up of a concept built with the purpose of testing with small
user groups. This process can validate the hypotheses and potential solutions
discovered during previous design stages.
Design teams create prototypes to test their idea before investing resources in
them. So prototyping is the step between formalizing a concept and testing it with
larger user groups. As a result, prototyping allows designers to test a design's
feasibility and investigate how trial users perceive it. Doing so allows design
concepts to be thoroughly tested and explored before too many resources are
committed.

Low Fidelity prototypes: High-Fidelity prototypes:

Start with simple, low-tech Close to the finished product.
concepts you can test quickly. Including almost all the features.

Sketches Paper Video Beta Apps

Wireframes Lego Micro-sites

Are you looking for a resource to help

your team become more innovative,
create new ways of working, and build
stronger leadership skills?
Check out our Books
 "Design is not just what
it looks like and feels like.
TEST Design is how it works."
Testing may stimulate new ideas - Steve Jobs
for solving the user problem.

What is testing?
At this point in the process, we need to test the solutions to continue building on
them and refining them into scalable solutions. It is crucial to try out our concepts
with real people before going to market. To define a minimum viable product, the
team can test end-to-end with users to crawl before walking and running to
launch.

Defining a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

An MVP is a version of a new product with "just enough" functionality to engage
and satisfy early users. In addition, an MVP enables them to provide feedback we
can use to iterate the final product.
This method has proven to be the fastest and least costly approach to designing
and validating a product before investing time, money, and effort to build and
launch it. In addition, using feedback from the prototyping phase can pinpoint the
features that drive the most value and meet the most critical user needs to make
the MVP.

Are you looking for a resource to help

your team become more innovative,
create new ways of working, and build
stronger leadership skills?
Check out our Books
 5
Icebreaker Cards
jumpstart your next conversation

ICE BREAKER CARDS

Start a Meaningful Conversation
Ideal for team-building activities and professional
relationship development. You can even use it for
personal use to improve interpersonal connections.

Buy the DesignACE ICE BREAKER CARDS

Thank you, from our Team
Co-creating data-driven, human-centred
strategies that deliver results.

Andrew Edwards
As an experienced digital leader, I bring energy
and expertise that motivates teams to grow
their skills, share their learnings, and transform
their organizations.

Working with dynamic teams to implement

human-centred, data-driven strategies is my
forte. I believe active listening and user-based
research should guide decision-making, and
there is "no time but the present" to make
Profile photo of Andrew Charles Edwards

meaning of stakeholders' and user needs.

Christine Reynolds
My passion is triangulating user insights, global
trends, and organizational needs to innovate
and improve business-to-customer interactions.

Throughout my career, I have designed and

implemented best-in-class customer strategies
for start-ups and large corporations across
telecommunications, retail, and finance.
eBook
Learning Goals
DISCOVER
The benefits of Design Thinking for
businesses, including how human-centred
design methods can help them understand
and observe their customers.

PREPARE
Design Thinking is iterative and leverages
human-centred design methods to help
businesses understand and observe how
their customers interact with their
products and services.

TEST
Start applying Design Thinking methods
and experimenting with human-centred
design tools like Empathy Mapping.
Community Philosophy
Designers are all part of a small, thoughtful community.
A community that has for years provided us with fresh
outlooks and continues to help us see different and
appreciate different perspectives and the uniqueness
and beauty of human beings.

Our goal is to connect these communities and help

them make the world a better place through human-
centred design.

WE BELIEVE IN SHARING.
Sharing is in our DNA. When we hear fantastic ideas or discover new
techniques, our impulse is to learn by doing, then master it by sharing
and mentoring. We believe that when our community thrives, so do we.

WE KEEP IT REAL.
An authentic, dynamic, respectful community is what we envision.
Where designers can give and get feedback and build on each other's
ideas. We are here to help you thrive, plain and simple.

WE FOSTER CREATIVE CONFIDENCE.

We believe doodling and sketching bring fresh, buildable ideas and
instill a creative spark in others. Drawing and creating clarify our
thinking process and enables us to learn and grow as one community.

WE CELEBRATE MOMENTS THAT MATTER.

In our community, we strive to learn and grow from every failure and
remember to stop to celebrate every success. We root our process in
the Design Thinking mindset to run productive workshops, provoke
thoughtful discussions, and pause to make meaning of insight.