10 Myths of Design Thinking, An Innovative Approach To Solving People’s Problems.
- Written by Jayant
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein.
Recently I surveyed Design Thinking and was surprised to find that few Senior professionals, Educators, and Entrepreneurs have a misconception on Design Thinking.
After a depth understanding of the subject, I found the following myth of design thinking, which should be brought into the professional and Kickstarter for a win-win situation in today’s scenario.
1. Myth-Design Thinking Is Just For Designer & Innovators.
It is assumed that the word âDesignâ applies to designers & innovators only. It simply means, thinks like a designer to serve the people to whom they interact & offer products, services, systems, and provide an experience different from what they have today. Itâs breaking the status quo, expanding the comfort zone by adding a lot of value to your user. Itâs for everyone!
Anyone who understands their user and asks with empathy, like would it meet expectations? Would this cause pain? What is the user feel? What-if this issue happens again & focus on user outcome by thinking, feeling & doing is a design thinker & practitioner.
Helping and caring for customers in ways that exceed their core expectations take them to the loyalty stage, and that’s what you want them to be because if you can make your customers feel that way consistently, you’ll create advocacy.
Then customers feel so positive about your relationship that they help you by bringing new people or communities to your brand.
2- Myth- Design Thinking is a Customer-Centric Approach.
It is not just customer-centric and customer experience; it is a complete user experience with a human being at the center, who can be anyone in the supply chain. It can be your employees, partners, stakeholders, sponsor, or your end customers. How they interact with your brand (you), product, and services, and how they experience it.
Design Thinking is a human center delivery approach with a multilateral possibility to solve a complex and wicked problem. Itâs understanding the present and envisions the future in a continuous cycle of observing, reflecting, and creating.
Your customer doesnât need a tool to hang their photograph on their wall; they donât need any drill machine or drill bit; rather, they need a nail on the wall. They donât bother mechanisms on how to design a drill machine or drill bit. Instead, they need a simple hole to fix the nail. Your customer wants the result, not your product or service. They buy your product because your product & service is producing their result.
Your customer wanted to experience brewed coffee instead of coffee machines and the mechanisms behind making it. They need an arena to sit comfortably, not a chair to sip coffee. They want news in the morning and not the newspaper.
Your customers do not naturally care about the internal functioning of the equipment; they want a faster, easier, and better way of doing things with a new and unique experience.
Pay attention to real people and real problems. Come up with different ideas, imagine and test unfinished ideas quickly and cheaply, brainstorm with your team. Ask your customer to co-create, provide end-to-end views to the user until it meets their expectation.
3- Myth- Itâs Long Product, Service & Brand Development Process.
It is assumed that design thinking is an iterative process of product/service development, which takes a long time and requires high investment. Still, the facts suggest that it can deliver new products or services to the market twice as fast, improve the bottom line and build a stronger bond among the team that delivers efficient and effective results.
Rapid project design and development, reducing risk, and increasing portfolio profitability, using design thinking theory benefit from streamlined organizational process efficiency.
As per the Survey, Design Thinking Improves customer satisfaction, Identify and prioritized strategic business opportunities, reduces time-to-market. These are the top 03 business results.
Refer to The Total Economic Impact⢠of Design Thinking Practice
4-Myth- Design Thinking Principle Can Not Be Applied To Me & My Work
This is the initial fear of failure. Even after undergoing training, users usually delay or do not make decisions in the name of completeness. Both are a sign of fear to be applied in reality.
The first outcome of design thinking is to find the moment of truth. For some time, it’s difficult to understand the hard truth of the client and, therefore, he returns to the same state of life., but those who decided no matter what application the principle of Design Thinking are really the winners.
5- Myth -The Toughest Work In Design Thinking Phase Is Idea Screening.
The main reason is the following the conventional approach as per the below process…
Hunt (Generate Idea of product & service) > Aim ( Create & Validate Idea to get the optimum result) > Fire (offer product & service to the customer)>Repeat
Where Design Thinking redefines identifying user pain & pleasure points and generating the values until it fits their requirement.
Hunt ( Find Customer Pain) > Aim( Generate Value )> Fire (Verify Value till it fits customer requirement)>Repeat.
Identify the real problem which is technically feasible & business viable to narrow down the idea using a real-win-worth approach.
6- Myth- Intellectual Properties Right Is The Biggest Hurdle In Implementing Design Thinking
It is observed, screening ideas & registering for IPR(TM, Design, Patent, Copyright) become the bottleneck of the Design Thinking approach. In a competitive world & to have a competitive advantage, itâs worth filing IPR to protect confidential Ideas.
To protect IPR, it is always recommended to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with your employee, vendor, contractor, or third party. This will also help build more trust in your brand and get more sponsors or investors to generate funds for your project. But, IPR should not be the bottleneck of your project.
7- Myth-The Biggest Hurdle In Design Thinking Approach Is Building Quick Prototype.
Sketch your ideas! It’s easy, and you should already be familiar with using this tool, so no learning curve!
Fiber, Figma, Canva, 99designs is a relatively new tool, with almost the same interface as a sketch. Itâs an innovative tool mainly because it allows designers to collaborate and give comments on a design in real-time.
Rapid prototyping can mean the difference between quickly finding your path to a successful product.
8- Myth- Apps Prototype & Websites Is Not The Best Way To Validate The Idea.
A social media strategy is your road map to success. But if youâre getting stuck, Iâd be willing to bet money that youâre having one of two common problems:
You donât know your audience, or Your audience doesnât know you.
For problem #1, focus on finding out the answers to questions like What do they want? What problem are you solving for them? What worries them? What gets them excited?
For problem #2, focus on consistently connecting with new people. Small, consistent efforts repeated over time will garner your social connections in an authentic, human way.
You can get instant feedback by providing them value and get feedback on your offer.
9-Myth-It Is Difficult To Evaluate Team & Individual Performance.
The cross-disciplinary team will provide you with the best results. Teams may consist of people unfamiliar with each other, with external members either brought on board as experts or facilitators depending on the availability of skills.
Involving emerging entrepreneurs and startups in your project will provide new insights and new dimensions as they are already working in unfamiliar markets and unfamiliar products.
Navigating people’s dynamics will be one of the most difficult parts of a design thinking process. However, it is also the most rewarding as it involves the coming together of many different minds and personalities while adding richness to the experience.
10- Myth-Design Thinking is a Stupid Approach Without Measurable Results.
There is multiple Design thinking methodology viz. Stanford D School Design Thinking, Curb design thinking model, The Double Diamond, IBM Design Thinking model, The Google Design Sprint Process, IDEO Human-Centered Design Model. Still, the ultimate objective of Design Thinking is to meet & exceed user expectations by providing a newer & better experience to your user.
Feedback from the user/customer in the form of Testimonial, Customer Brand rating, Customer Satisfaction Index, Net Promotor Score, Employee Satisfaction Score, Qualitative Interview & their outcome is the result of your effort.
Your success is the success of your customer. Therefore, ensure your customer gets the desired results using their product, service, or business model.
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