Business 2600
Lesson 5
Design thinking is an approach an
entrepreneur can take to solve
complex problems for people.
Skills of designers
 Observation
 Listening
 Emotional intelligence
 Problem-framing
 Problem-solving
Design thinking
 Problem-solving process
 Identify people’s needs
 Create solutions to meet them
 Test solutions
What Is Design Thinking?
Video: Jonathan Pie
Duration: 10:18 min
Why it is important
 Places the customer at the center of attention
 Helps identify pain points customers have
 Uncovers needs customers may not even know they have
 Saves time and money through quick learning and experimentation
 Provides early evidence that a market exists for your product or service
 Encourages innovative rather than incremental thinking
 Requires early action to learn (like the entrepreneurship method)
A design thinking approach:
what do people need?
Human-centred approach
 How they behave
 What they think
 How they feel
Empathy: an essential skill for
design thinkers.
Empathy
 Social and emotional skills
 Understand others better
Empathy
Sympathy
 Experience what others experience
 Showing concern
 Experiencing feelings with
 Creates a bond
 Experiencing feelings for
 Create isolation and disconnection
Bringing Empathy & Collaboration
Video: V. Penman & A. Toepperwein
Duration: 4:14 min
Divergent
Convergent
 Empathize
 Prototype
 Define
 Ideate
 Test
Move from openness to
understanding, from abstract
to concrete, and from what is
to what can be.
The design challenge: How
might we. . .?
Empathy helps us see the
world through the eyes of
other people.
Empathize
 Observing people
 Engaging in conversation
 Listening attentively
Latent needs are needs people
have but don’t know they have.
Identifies needs and uncovers
problems encountered by users.
Generate and develop new
ideas to address (latent) needs.
A prototype is a product model
used to get user feedback.
At the heart of testing is lowcost experimentation.
Needs discovery techniques
 Observation
 Insight
Insight and observation
 Identify users’ needs
 Explain why
 What you see
Observation techniques
 Activities
 Environments
 Interactions
 Objects
 Users
The AEIOU framework
 Activities are goal-directed sets of actions—pathways toward things
that people want to accomplish.
 Environments include the entire arena where activities take place.
 Interactions take place between a person and something or someone
else.
 Objects are the building blocks or physical items that people interact
with.
 Users are the people whose behaviours, needs, and preferences are
being observed.
Observation and Insights
Video: Tom Kelley
Duration: 2:48 min
Interviewing skills
 Open-minded
 Flexible
 Patient
 Observant
 Good listener
Types of interviews
 Feedback interview
 Need-finding interview
Preparing the interview
 Interview strangers
 Ask one broad question
 Do not think you already know
Preparing for interview
 Day in the life
 Values related to the topic
 Connections to others
 Pain points
 Question, listen, then probe
Conducting the interview
 Take notes throughout
 Parroting
 Record basic facts
After the interview
 Revisit notes
 Write additional observations
 Look for themes and patterns
 Reflection is important
Say
 What sort of things did the person say?
 What struck you as being significant?
 Are there any exciting quotes you can use?
Do
 What behaviours were displayed by the person?
 Any particular body language that you noticed?
Think
 What might the person be thinking?
 What beliefs or attitudes might be relevant?
Feel
 What emotions is the person experiencing?
 Why?
Service design thinking
 Sustainable solutions
 Enhance the customer experience
 Cementing the brand image
Principles of service design
 User-centric
 Cocreated
 Sequencing
 Visualizing
 Holistic
From Design-to-Design Thinking
Video: Tim Brown
Duration: 16:25 min
Lesson 5