Design Thinking In 2024

In this era where there is a lot of Volatile, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA), people are hungry for innovation that can solve the problem of the world and human needs. In the past, people did everything manually and the environment was still green. But how about now? We can see a lot of pollution, water scarcity, microplastic in the sea, global warming, etc. People become much more lazy and want everything to be simpler than before. That’s what is challenging for us that live in the 2000s.

In the business way, the way we can solve the problem is evolving too. Now we need to use design thinking to identify the problem and make an innovative solution.

Design thinking refers to the cognitive, strategic, and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems.

There are 5 steps to use Design Thinking:

1. Empathise
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

Empathise is like how we can search for the problem in our environment. For example that we can see there that our neighbor can’t read a book. Then we need to investigate more about it. Now we’re moving to the Define step. You talk to your neighbor and found the cause of the problem, it is because She is already old and has a bad sight. Then you ask Her, “Why don’t you use glasses?” She said, “I don’t want to read the book but I want to hear it like a story”. After hearing that, you know what your neighbor needs and wants.

Ideate is like how you solve the problem “out of the box” which no one ever thinks about that. In a simpler way, it’s like generating ideas. For example that we can make a planet like Earth next to Venus so people can move there if Earth is overpopulated.

Prototype is where you begin to make the product/services that you have been ideating. For example, you are making several spaceships that can go to Jupiter in 7 hours. After making the spaceship, you are going to Test it by using a dummy before a human to make sure that the spaceship is safe. In another case, it can be to test a market whether people will use the product/services that you deliver or not.

How about you? Have you ever used Design Thinking for your business?

If no, you can try it out now!

If you already have, tell us more about how you implement Design Thinking in your business!