Design an exceptional user experience for your digital products
Designed for all types of users
01.
Empathise
Critical starting point
The initial phase of the process involves familiarizing ourselves with the user and comprehending their desires, requirements, and goals. This entails observing and interacting with individuals to gain insight into their psychological and emotional perspectives.
During this stage, the designer endeavors to put aside their preconceptions and gather genuine insights about the user. Explore various empathy-building techniques to gain comprehensive knowledge.
02.
Define
Defining the problem
The second phase of the Design Thinking process is dedicated to problem definition. You will consolidate all your findings from the empathize phase and begin to make sense of them: What challenges and obstacles are your users encountering?
What patterns do you observe? What is the significant user issue that your team must address? By the conclusion of the define phase, you will have a well-defined problem statement. The crucial aspect here is to articulate the problem in a user-centric manner; instead of stating 'We need to...'.
Once you have articulated the problem in words, you can begin generating solutions and ideas, which leads us to the third stage.
03.
Ideate
Solid understanding
Now it's time to begin developing potential solutions. The third phase of the Design Thinking process is where creativity takes center stage, and it's important to emphasize that the ideation stage is a space free from judgment! Designers will conduct ideation sessions to explore as many fresh perspectives and ideas as they can.
There are various ideation techniques that designers can employ, ranging from brainstorming and mind mapping to bodystorming (role-playing scenarios) and provocation—an extreme lateral-thinking technique that encourages designers to question established beliefs and explore fresh possibilities and alternatives.
Towards the conclusion of the ideation phase, you will refine your ideas to select a few to proceed with. You can explore all the key ideation techniques here.
04.
Prototype
Experimentation
A prototype is essentially a scaled-down representation of the product that integrates the potential solutions identified in the earlier stages. This phase is crucial for subjecting each solution to testing and revealing any limitations and imperfections.
Throughout the prototype stage, the proposed solutions may be accepted, refined, redesigned, or rejected based on their performance in prototype form. You can find comprehensive information about the prototyping stage of Design Thinking in this detailed guide.
05.
Test
Build, test, repeat
After the prototyping phase, user testing follows, but it's important to recognize that this rarely marks the conclusion of the Design Thinking process. In practice, the outcomes of the testing phase frequently guide you back to a prior step, offering the insights necessary to redefine the initial problem statement or generate new ideas you may not have considered previously. Explore user testing comprehensively in this guide.
Repeat
Indeed, the outcomes of the testing phase frequently guide you back to a previous step, offering the insights necessary to redefine the original problem statement or to generate new ideas you hadn't considered previously.
