My Design Thinking Process
Design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process that centers around understanding the needs, wants and behaviors of users when designing a product, service or experience. I personally do not believe the concept of a perfect design thinking process exists since every project is different. It’s important to find the right way to tackle it and the only way to do that successfully is by implementing a user centric approach and really understanding our end-users, as well as collaborating cross-functionally with diverse teams to ensure a well-rounded approach to problem-solving and encourage innovation.
When starting a project, I begin with a blueprint consisting of several key steps that will enable me to create a solution that is intuitive, easy to use, and provides value to the users. UX design thinking is an iterative process and it often involves cycling through these steps multiple times, jumping between steps, or even doing steps at the same time to refine and improve the design. A designer should always be ready to pivot the entire project if necessary but these key principles aid in a more successful outcome and user-centric solution.
Key Steps
Empathize
Research user needs and business needs
Understand current landscape and assumptions
Identify current user behavior
Might involve capturing insights through research, stakeholder interviews, project canvas, empathy map, and product strategy
DEFINE
Define strategy
Define scope of work and time needed
Define success criteria
Might involve gathering requirements, creating epics and user stories, and estimating time and resources needed
IDEATE
Design potential solutions by outlining flow, features, format, and structure
Might involve sketching basic designs, organizing journey flow and features, and journey mapping
PROTOTYPE
Collaboratively design solution
Document design decisions
Might involve further design and content exploration and using collaborative tools to design the proposed solution
REVIEW
Stakeholder and peer reviews
Tech feasibility reviews
Work with Content, Legal, ADA, and Marketing to ensure alignment
Might involve crits, stakeholder feedback sessions and show and talk sessions
IMPLEMENT
Providing detailed design specifications and assets to developers for implementation
Might involve grooming, QA and demos
TEST & LEARN
Test your solution through AB testing, usability testing, or against success measures
Report on progress
Create hypothesis for optimization