Design Thinking has altogether changed the meaning and scope of the designing industry. The concept of design thinking though may be new to the society; its roots can be traced to longer times. Design thinking is the approach or the process taken to make the innovations more customer-centric and useful. People may often get confused between the concepts of designs and design thinking. However, designs are different from design thinking as the former has a substantial component attached to it and can be easily seen or recognized.
All the products around us contain designs in some of the other way which is a basis of identifying them. However, design thinking is a process altogether which cannot be seen or touched. Design thinking denotes innovations and improvisations achieved through the process, in making the solution a more viable one.
The concept of design thinking mainly emerged in the western countries in the late 1950s. The earlier attempts of bringing the process to light were made by Harold Van Doren who published a separate chapter focusing the concepts of designing methods in his book ‘Industrial Design’ which was a start towards the development of the concept. The growth, however, was slower till the 1990s and only after the advent of Globalization, the growth of design thinking ideology was faster.
In the 1990s the whole scope of the subject was widened, and traditional thoughts which related designing only to certain areas were removed, and a view that the design thinking is essential to all fields was adopted. The concept is no more restricted to western countries but throughout the world.
The process of Design thinking can be achieved in 5 significant steps. The steps are not specified, and many authors suggest different views for the same. However, the five significant steps are specified. The first step includes Empathizing which means to learn about the target group through observations. Following the same, adding supportive materials and researches are to be done which is the defining phase of the process. Adding ideas is the next step which includes putting all vague ideas and thinking of what possible outcome may follow. Ideas are general views and opinions and can be successful only with the prototyping technique. Prototyping is building a more precise picture over the vague ideologies. The final step involves testing the prototyping and concluding launching the product before the target audience.
Design thinking is useful in almost all areas. The process of design thinking, if adopted can bring assured success as the main feature of it is the emphasis it places on customer behaviors and requirements. Design thinking in the present day is most sought by the business organization who have adopted this as a means of competition to win over other business organization. Adopting the process in any company would ensure an assured success and have helped in gaining more profits.
Design thinking from its day of inception has been available in two major approaches. One of them relates to the problem based, and the next is the solution based. The main aim of conducting the process is achieving the desired results and resolve problems. The first approach combines a more scientific approach and stresses observations and predicting various problems before reaching into a particular solution for them.
Whereas the second approach applies various possible outcome or solutions for a single problem. This approach provides more options for customers. Both methods are equally important to resolve issues, and thus, design thinking has given an entirely new meaning for designing.
Would you like to read more about this topic? This book might interest you: Design Thinking.