Think Like a Designer: A Guide to Design Thinking

If your company is evolving too slowly to keep up with new demands and challenges, and the usual incremental changes aren’t making the cut, then it might be time to try thinking like a designer. Although designers don’t necessarily enjoy structured methods, Design Thinking is an approach and mindset that non-designers can practice to reach innovative solutions and find breakthroughs in problems that may be causing a road-block to progress.

Design Thinking itself can be used for many things, ranging from products, services, processes and strategy. This article will talk about the use of Design Thinking for human-centered problem-solving. Design Thinking’s step-by-step structure to approach problems and solutions lets non-designers have a sense of familiarity with their line of work. The methodology also challenges and encourages its participants to pick up and deepen their ability to empathize, collaborate and experiment.

Depending on where you look, there can be anywhere between three to eight steps in the process. The distinction depends entirely on how broad or narrowed the goals of each step are. From a broad lens, there’s arguably three overarching phases/stages:

Define. In this stage, the goals are usually to identify the problem, often by trying to understand the issues or complaints that arise from the subject(s)—a subject being those affected by the issue, this can be customers, users or even coworkers and underlings. This is where empathy is most utilized as the steps taken here will require you to understand the needs of the subject(s). Here, we must learn to set aside biases and be open to accepting things we may not realize is the reality behind the cause of the issues.
Ideate. In this stage, usually you would already know what the root issues are and the circumstances for why they exist. Here is where you come together to narrow down on solutions. However, Design Thinking often requires the need to explore a large set of ideas before narrowing down to a solution. This is where innovation has the biggest chance to flourish. However, this phase often needs strict overseeing as the exploration of ideas can create a bottleneck in progress.
Prototyping. In this stage, the goals are usually to bait as much feedback and scrutiny for what can be achieved. The prototype phase doesn’t require anything concrete; it merely needs something high concept that can be followed through for testing. This way, glaring issues can be spotted and sweeping changes can be implemented before even committing to anything more concrete. You could argue for a fourth phase, Implementation, but the only real difference is how concrete concepts and ideas have become. Once things have begun to be implemented, then you will at times find a need to return to any of the other previous stages. Another challenge during Implementation is getting people to buy-in, but that’s why it’s best to include as many during the development process.

Now that you know the stages, it’s time for you to—oh wait, you don’t really know about the tools used in these processes yet, huh? There’s plenty of resources out there you could look for, but let’s introduce you to a few of them right here. You can look for more or even get a better understanding of the ones listed in this article elsewhere, but who knows? Maybe we’ll release our own deep-dive into these tools, but for now we’ll talk a bit about Empathy Maps, Crazy 8 and Design Sprint.

Empathy Map

The empathy map is one of the tools available for the first phase of Design Thinking. It lets you gain insight on the subjects of the problem. You can use anything from a whiteboard to a scrap of paper—well, maybe one that would be big enough to cram as many items as possible in it. The Empathy map is divided into four quadrants: Say, Do, Think and Feel—with the subject in the middle.

I won’t say how you structure the map itself, but it might be prudent to keep them organized in a way where Say and Do, and Think and Feel share the same ‘side’. Let’s say, Say and Do occupies the top half or the left wing, while Think and Feel occupies the opposite sides. Work from Do first then move on to Say before working to fill Think and, later Feel. You can also provide color coding—post-it notes or color markers, to indicate positive, neutral or negative feedback. Keep track of things that stand out, you don’t have to record everything, lest you overcrowd your map with what may be unnecessary. Though do try to fill in all the spaces.

The ‘Do’ quadrant should be filled with subject actions, perhaps they find themselves confused or frustrated with something and attempt to ‘solve’ their issue in their own way, like repeating an action or hovering around in confusion.
The ‘Say’ quadrant contains what they say out loud, whether in an interview or during a study.
‘Think’ may require some ability in reading humans, sometimes what they say may be the same as what they think. But other times? They may have thoughts that are left unsaid, and it’s your job to figure that out. Try to probe from different angles rather than being direct. They may not answer with what you’re looking for, but it’s possible to string things together.
‘Feel’ covers the subject’s emotional state. Write down adjective descriptors followed by context. Perhaps they’re Frustrated, due to long wait times or an unresponsive or broken system.

Do note that for subject groups, it is best to only lump in those with similar contexts (behavior, understanding, knowledge, etc.).

Once you’ve finished filling up the map, you can look at it as a whole. Draw some conclusions, jot down any insights, and if you’re working with a team, come together for a discussion with everyone else’s notes. Contradictions in the map also serve purpose, don’t dismiss them just yet, there may be merit in further inspecting it. The goal is to come away with real insight, always interrogate anything that comes up as odd or conflicting, you may uncover something invaluable for your next steps.

Crazy 8

Crazy 8 is a core Design Sprint method—we’ll talk about Design Sprint in a bit. This tool is more-so used for blueprints, frameworks and mapping, though technically one could probably list a sequence of actions as well. The Crazy 8 requires you to think of 8 items in 8 minutes. You spend 1 minute each. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can be a rough idea or concept, but the point of it is to make sure to fill all the panels. If possible, make each as distinct as possible, rather than making iterative designs. A slightly differently structured concept also works—perhaps as an alternative, but alternate designs can also be brought up during discussion, so try to keep that to a minimum. There should also be someone in charge of keeping the time, feeling pressured is part of the experience as it challenges you to think of ideas that are not as intuitive.

Once done, each participant may present their top three. The challenge here is to not be too drawn by the bias of what looks closest to working. Take a moment of your time to really look through your list if any ideas stand out upon giving it a second look—especially if you already see possibilities once you’ve thought of alterations to streamline the idea. It’s also best to keep time spent here at a minimum as we want to get input from others.

After presenting the ideas, the team will vote on the ones they like most, give them a limited number of votes, usually 3 each. Once you have your winners, bring them to the discussion table, be constructive, don’t say “no” or “but” just yet, contribute by adding. You can do another session if the time allows, but it’s best to keep the number of chosen ideas to a minimum so it can be focused on.

Design Sprint

Design sprint is a methodology—a five-day process to solve critical issues through prototyping and brainstorming with customers. In five days, your team and you must define the challenge, find solutions, decide on a prototype, realize the concept and D-Day.

Use the previous tools, to help define the challenge and find solutions. Once you’ve singled out an idea on day three, you can begin days four and five. On day four, you and your team work on turning the concept into something concrete, just enough to be used on test subjects. On day five, be open to subject criticism, an interview will let you know what to do next. You’ll either have to go back to the drawing board, or it’s time for you to begin implementing the real thing.

Let’s have a mini experiment! Let’s say you’re working with a team but your quarterly strategy meetings keep stalling. The same talking points resurface, bold ideas are brushed aside, and decisions are often postponed. You sense that something in the structure—or unspoken group dynamics—is stifling progress. What if you applied a rapid Design Thinking tool to reimagine just the first 15 minutes of that meeting? Grab a sheet of paper and run a quick Crazy 8s: sketch 8 different ways to kickstart those meetings—whether through new rituals, role shifts, silent brainstorming, or unexpected formats. Don’t overthink; the point is to break patterns. What fresh angles surface by idea 6 or 7?

Author: Rizky Ramadhan