About design thinking

Design thinking is a method, a process, a mindset. Nowadays it takes various forms. By literal translation, design thinking means thinking like a designer. And its translation summarises the spirit well.

Thinking like a designer means exercising muscles like observation, listening, synthesis, collaboration, curiosity and active communication.

At the center, thinking like a designer means thinking about people. Their problems, their contexts, their emotions, their feelings.

Just so it doesn't slip by, here's one of the formal definitions, this one by IDEO:

Design Thinking is a way of solving problems through creativity.

Quickly reviewing the 5 stages of design thinking:

Empathy: connect and understand.

Definition: converge and synthesize.

Ideation: diverge and generate ideas.

Prototyping: design and materialize.

Testing: test and validate.

The (scattered) literature suggests the stages should be followed linearly. That is not always the case. However, it is always advised to start with empathy. Otherwise, we would be sabotaging ourselves.

Design thinking is about designing from the outside in, not from the inside out. This prevents biases from sneakily entering the project.

People.