Design Thinking
aka the secret sauce
Human-centered design is all about building a deep empathy with the people you’re designing for; generating tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes; sharing what you’ve made with the people you’re designing for; and eventually putting your innovative new solution out in the world.
My Mindsets
Beginner's Mindset
Approach everything as if you've never heard about, interacted with or seen the problem before. What makes it a challenge? How can that become an opportunity? Who do you need to speak to to learn more?
Empathy & Understanding
Draw inspiration from what people really need.
Observation, interviews, and surveys can help you to better understand the groups you’re working with. When you listen actively and step into another point of view, you build empathy in a way that allows you to bring in a diverse set of ideas and perspectives, which can lead to more creative solutions.
When you are gathering inspiration, focus on staying open to different contexts and ways of thinking.
Define
Ask a really, really
good question.
find patterns, surfacing key themes, and uncovering insights that will guide your design solution. Think of it like assembling a puzzle—you’ve collected stories, emotions, and data, and now you’re looking for the connections.
A strong insight isn’t just an observation. It’s a shift in perspective—something that reveals an unmet need or sparks a new way of thinking.
Ideation
Come up with stupid ideas to get to good ones.
Quantity over quality. Share ideas that might seem wild or unfeasible. Defer jugement, and "Yes, And..." the ideas of others, Then, you narrow down and use your insights to evaluate and refine your ideas.
Prototype
Make something.
Be quick and scrappy. Make something you can hold in your hands. Prototypes allow you to get feedback from others and learn what’s working.
In the process of building a rough version of your idea, you may even discover more ideas that you hadn’t thought of before.
Test
And test it.
When you test your prototypes, you learn about how people would interact with your ideas in the real world.
Tests can give you quantitative metrics and evidence, as well as qualitative emotions and reactions from your users.
Implementation
Put it into the world.
Craft your story, and share it out.
Don't just hope for real change, do it.