Design Thinking - Part 1
Design Thinking is an iterative approach to creatively solve problems, including 5 stages: Empathize - Define - Ideate - Prototype - Test

In this part, we are discussing the first 3 steps in Design thinking. These steps will enable startup founders to have a strong foundation to implement next steps including prototyping and testing. By understanding and taking these steps considerately, startups will probably have a greater chance to avoid failures. 

  1. Empathize

“Empathize is to see the world through your user’s perspective”. You can build a suitable experimentation for users if you can see, understand the problems users meet. It helps you develop a deep understanding of the challenge to define the problem.

For example, Embrace infant warmers, which were developed through a project class at Stanford University called Design for Extreme Affordability, were designed to meet Preterm birth - the leading cause of death for children under five years old. Hypothermia is a significant factor contributing to the death of preterm babies. 

“Specifically, there has been a need to design infant incubators that address the unique challenges of the developing world. The challenge leading to Embrace was to create a cheap infant incubator” - Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property

Embrace infant warmers

Empathy for the user is at the center of Human Centered Design. The problems you solve are rarely your own. They are the challenges of a specific group of people.

Empathy is NOT “sympathy”. To design solutions for users, it means you have to learn their values and experience what they experience, instead of feeling sorry about the problem.

  1. Define

Based on your customer research and the information gathered from the Empathy stage, you can clearly define what your customer needs and what problems you need to solve.

Back to the Embrace’s story, the team started by visiting hospitals in Nepal, but many of the hospital’s donated incubators in Nepal were empty because the babies who needed them were often born in villages thirty miles away without stable sources of electricity. Donated infant incubators were available, but they were left in storage because the birth facility lacked the infrastructure to use the machines. The team soon reframed the challenges with the solution was now about parents, not the clinician. They decided to design a portable device capable of maintaining the infant at approximately body temperature without having to be continuously connected to an electricity source. It is able to do so by utilizing specialized temperature-regulating materials that keep a near-constant temperature despite gaining or losing heat energy.

  1. Ideate

The main aim of the Ideation stage is to use creativity and innovation in order to develop solutions. The goal is to look beyond obvious ideas and look for better ways to solve stakeholders’ problems.

Brainstorm, sketch and storyboard are some effective methods to create an ideation. 

In the next part, we will provide more information about the last two steps in Design Thinking.
 

References:

  1. Design Thinking & Lean Customers Development - ThinkZone Accelerator

  2. Ideation - ThinkZone Accelerator

  3. Prototyping & Testing - ThinkZone Accelerator

  4. Medium: Embrace Infant Warmers Help Save Lives of Preterm Babies in Developing Countries - Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property.