BACKGROUND

This week we are going to talk about design thinking stages and techniques to get a final output about what is our user needs. Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Involving five phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—it is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

why design thinking is important

Design thinking’s value as a world-improving, driving force in business (global heavyweights such as Google, Apple and Airbnb have wielded it to notable effect) matches its status as a popular subject at leading international universities. With design thinking, teams have the freedom to generate ground-breaking solutions. Using it, your team can get behind hard-to-access insights and apply a collection of hands-on methods to help find innovative answers.

The Five Stages of Design Thinking

The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (aka the d.school) describes design thinking as a five-stage process. Note: These stages are not always sequential, and teams often run them in parallel, out of order and repeat them in an iterative fashion.

interviewing

the most important thing to know what is the user's needs is by interviewing them . after making a 4 interview with the expected users of my new smart clock and asking them some question to know what are their need and feelings about my new product .so I was careful to listen to everything they need in the clock .what they expect to be in it, what the important thing for them to be in a smart clock, what is the missing things in the conventional clock. after collecting data from them, I collect this data and record it to see what we can develop then I start to make my empathy map

Empathy stage

One of the well-known laws of design is that anything you create should be created with the user in mind.

While it is possible to predict how the user will react, design thinking involves a specific phase for thinkers to gain an empathetic understanding of the problem at hand.

While this does involve putting yourself in the shoes of a user, it also means taking the time to speak to experts to better understand the problem as well as engaging with real users.

Participating in these activities encourages design thinkers to step outside of their own assumptions. This stage is meant to be completely exploratory, with a considerable amount of information being gathered about the user and the problem(s) they’re experiencing.

so that I make my own empathy map about my users feeling ,says ,thinks and does

Define stage

after collecting the data from the users I start to make a problem statement to make a focused view of the problems which user worried about.As Well-constructed, valid problem statements are vital for the design to navigate the entire design process. Essential to design thinking, problem statements are what will produce in the Define stage. To find the best solutions, I must know what the exact problems are—i.e., my first need to define a problem statement. The goal is to articulate the problem so everyone can see its dimensions and feel inspired to systematically hunt for suitable solutions. When i unite around a problem statement, i will have a common view of how users see what they must tackle. From there, i know exactly what to look for and what to avoid. Therefore, i should make my problem statements:

Human-centered: Frame problem statements from insights about users and their needs.
Have the right scope:
1. Broad enough to permit creative freedom, so i don’t concentrate too narrowly on specific methods for implementing solutions or describing technical needs; but
2. Narrow enough to be practicable, so i can eventually find specific solutions.
Based on an action-oriented verb
Fully developed and assumption-free.

IDEATE stage

There are hundreds of ideation techniques to help in ideation sessions. AS want an ideation technique that combines Tthe conscious and unconscious mind—fusing the rational with the creative. It must match the sorts of ideas I must generate and reflect their nature, needs and experience with ideation. Some crucial ones are:

Brainstorming – You build good ideas from each other’s wild ideas.

I have chosen this way of thinking to collect as many ideas as possible through the users and collect many of the regular and un-regular ideas from them, which can be implemented so that I can finally come up with one idea that includes all of these ideas and meets the needs of all users afterwards, taking into account the addition of my ideas as well. At that point

After collecting all the data i start to make a bright stars of the best ideas to be included in my smart wall clock which will make an over view about the user necessary and secondary needs .

Prototyping

I use solid works software to make my prototype design to show it to my users and ask them for their suggestion and requirements. put into consideration the modern shape of the design which it was the first need of my users

Test stage

I show my design to the user and ask them for their opinion to see what must be added and what must be removed.I get positive feelings about the design AND they was very excited to see it in real life ASAP

conclusion

what learned this week

Experience the design thinking process first hand and understand the basic aspects of human-centred design
Conduct empathy interviews with users
Analyze user data using empathy maps
Write a focused problem statement
Generate innovative ideas for solutions using ideation techniques
Prototype and test a Low-fidelity prototype and user experience

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