Which Problems Can Design Thinking Help us Solve?
What does a transport service have in common with a hospitality service? All of them are used to create Design Thinking concepts that drive innovation and success stories. AirBnB, Apple, and Uber are just three of the many companies that use Design Thinking principles to create new services/products and drive innovative business strategies.
Most often, we fail at solving a problem. How often have we found a business-changing idea through our many meetings over months or years? I’ve tried many elements of design thinking and believe it can solve any problem.
What Problems can Design Thinking help us solve?
Any business can employ design thinking to get big results. Design thinking is both creative and critical thinking. It uses information and ideas to organize, make decisions, improve situations, and derive insights. It helps in shifting our focus from the problem to the solution.
As part of our client work, the first step in design thinking is brainstorming to solve a problem or customer need. It is difficult to have enough time to consider all aspects of a solution and then evaluate its viability in solving the problem at hand.
Here are some problems that can be well-tackled using design thinking.
Examples of problems:
Design thinking is still not a sort of concept that everybody knows. While you start talking about design thinking to anyone, the very first question they may shoot at you will be – what’s its exact use?,” or if we change the tone, then – “which problems can it solve?.”
A design thinking online course may help you meet numerous challenges and is most useful to bring about innovation within the below-mentioned contexts.
- Medical breakthroughs
- Entrepreneurial initiatives
- Complex unsolved societal challenges
- Dealing with rapid market or social changes
- Redefining value [1]
- Involves multiple systems
- Quality of life [2]
- Shifting markets and behaviors
- Human-centered innovation
- Problems affecting diverse groups of people
- Issues relating to corporate culture
- Re-inventing business models
- Scenarios involving multidisciplinary teams
- Addressing rapid changes in society
- Educational advances
- Issues relating to new technology
- Inspiration is needed
- Problems that data can’t solve
How does design thinking manage to help in solving problems?
Different angles are possible to view the problem
It helps you shift your design perspective. Instead of focusing on the result, you will be focusing on your users’ needs. The information you will convey to your users will be the focus of your effort. You can see the problem from a different angle, which helps you formulate a solution that suits their needs.
Results that are guaranteed to meet your goals
The best results are possible when your products/services go through multiple rounds of testing and receive client feedback. Your final products will most likely meet your client’s requirements. Therefore, you can launch your products on the market with no hesitation, and they will achieve the purpose for which they were designed.
Promotes innovative problem-solving techniques
Design thinking is a process that helps solve problems by looking at existing issues. You can use your creativity and originality to solve your users’ problems. It involves brainstorming new ideas and creating great experiences for your target audience.
It is collaborative
It is the best thing about this process. It allows for collaboration, allowing you to engage with people from different perspectives and get feedback from the entire team. It helps tackle many business issues, promotes experimentation and growth by creating a positive environment, and encourages company-wide innovation and creation.
A great vehicle to make a change
It is a process that supports immense change and development. It provides a great opportunity to share product ideas and innovative solutions with the whole team. We all know that every business spends a lot on finding and deploying solutions. Design thinking allows the designer team to add great value by utilizing various skills and ideas.
Concentrate on the end-users
It is an important point because this approach focuses primarily on the end-user. It doesn’t matter if you are developing new technology or a project management system; It’s vital to understand the users’ needs. You must understand your employees’ perspectives and how they will impact them as users.
Effective and informative results
The design thinking approach can help create more engaging products [3] and is effective for the user. It is possible to focus on the elements and ultimately reach users’ objectives.
You will continue to evaluate the results and ensure that users have a positive experience. It gives you more information, enhances your critical thinking skills, and enables you to think outside the box. It is easy to know what you should do for the next project.
Increase self-esteem
It can be stressful and daunting to face difficult situations. A design thinking mindset increases self-esteem, and it’s a way to introduce change to your situations. A design thinking certificate program can help elevate your self-esteem, which will boost confidence for sure. It can also be beneficial for the business and help you develop your business in novel ways.
This helps to identify the root cause of your problem
Another benefit to this process is its ability to think differently. You can think differently and get to the heart of the matter more efficiently. To understand your users’ needs, you don’t need to rely on assumptions or data performance reports. To understand the problems with products and services, the problem-solving team will conduct one-on-one interviews, hold focus groups, and ask their users questions.
Increase efficiency in your business
Before you launch products or services, there are always challenges and problems. You must be ready to foster constructive dialogue to overcome these challenges. It will allow you to create the right environment for users to communicate their needs. Constant discussion during prototyping helps you to foster empathy thinking.
Conclusion
Design thinking should run throughout the organization across all functions. It is also a method of analysis that extends beyond product design/delivery, and it also includes the creation of the product and its processes. Design thinking helps to overcome stalemates, slow productivity, and inefficiency, improving the ability to achieve optimal results and increasing business productivity.