Because design thinking intentionally begins with the needs of the people and not the technology, features or assumptions internally, it has become one of the most popular methods for product innovation. It is an iterative, human centered process that promotes the creation of desirable, technologically feasible and commercially viable solutions. Human-centred design teams often unearth insights missed by the traditional, stepwise development process, by constantly empathizing, defining the real problem, ideating, creating rapid prototypes and testing them in the real world. It’s not just an incremental step, sometimes it could also be a step-change for the market. This empathy is the foundation of the innovation support in design thinking.
Instead of using surveys or secondary research of the market, designers are told to spend time with people in their homes and workplaces, listening to stories and observing the pains and gains that are often not communicated explicitly to customer service teams or market research groups. Such qualitative research will frequently uncover latent needs, solved problems that have been adapted to by the user and whom he may not be able to communicate to the manufacturer. The product teams also redefine the assignment in human speaking terms rather than as a list of feature requirements and because of this the products are more likely to find a hit with users. Once the problem is well-framed, the same process opens up our thinking for generating ideas.
Cross-disciplinary panels like designers engineers marketers, and customers in the room can ideate without judging or screening or objectively maximizing or minimizing until the concept has been developed through multiple rounds of refinement. Cross-discipline insight will form new breakthroughs that a single discipline can hardly imagine.
Once the best concepts are culled, these organizations can go through the prototyping and iterative testing stages as “a form of risk management strategy” because the prototypes for even multi-million-dollar projects (can be) built inexpensively and quickly. The inexperience of the prototypes removes “bias, prejudice, and management expectations” has added benefits of deploying an customers’ minds much earlier and learning from real user needs and problems, fast. In the end, the organization tends to end up with faster time-to-market and healthy innovations.
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These examples show how these principles can be translated into actual innovations. For instance, Airbnb’s initial success soared when its co-founders implemented a design thinking approach by visiting their hosts in person, taking photographs of their listings and suddenly seeing how investing in top quality images much increased room bookings. Followng a similar process of observation and rapid prototyping, P & G developed the Swiffer which successfully tapped into a neglected cleaning need and delivered significant first year revenue.
More recently, financial services providers like PNC have adopted similar thinking to create new digital banking features like the Low Cash Mode which brings customers with better insight into and control over their accounts, and is guiding industry practices around overdraft fees; and IBM has implemented scaled design thinking processes across tens of thousands of staff delivering faster launch times and improved alignment on the customer goals between technical staff.
It is not only the design of products or services that matter but the entire culture of a company that can also be influenced by the design thinking mindset. Design thinking helps a company work in sync by removing barriers and promoting psychological safety so people feel free to try out different ideas. It reframes failure as valuable learning and not a setback to one’s career. When design thinking is joined forces with other techniques like agile development, it makes for an ongoing user feedback mechanism that keeps products improving even after launch. A series of research on leading design companies revealed that such firms are often the top performers and the ones that are most profitable with customer satisfaction.
The underlying factor to those outstanding business results is probably the consistent application of empathy, collaboration and repetition through design thinking. With customers’ demands changing fast and an awful lot of products going unnoticed, design thinking is the ideal approach to a customer-oriented mindset and innovation through design that allows people not only to get what they want but also to continuously use it. In essence, design thinking is an effective method that allows organizations to work closely with customers, identify unmet needs and come up with a solution that people will love and use regularly.
