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0:00
Hello, my name is
Marg Konkel and I'm
an Associate Professor of
Design Thinking at
Radford University.
Today I want to
talk with you about
the practice of design thinking.
The methods and frameworks
that have developed in order to
enact the potential of
this creative approach
to solving problems.
0:21
First, let's remind ourselves
of what design thinking is.
In the core principles of
design thinking lecture
in this series,
you will know that
design thinking is at
the same time a toolkit or
a set of methods
that designers use.
It's a process by
which those methods
are combined in order
to flex between
divergent and convergent
thinking, and it's a mindset that
designers cultivate
over time when
practicing these
methods and processes.
In addition to the
methods and processes,
design thinking has a
set of core principles
that guide the work of
creative problem solving.
Design thinking uses empathy or
human centeredness as a core
foundation for everything.
It values experimentation
and learning from
the small failures that come
from testing ideas
quickly and early.
Design thinking celebrates
collaboration and bringing
together diverse perspectives
and it invests as much,
if not more, energy in
ensuring the problem is
correctly identified or framed
as it does in
generating solutions.
1:28
Now that we have a better sense
of what design thinking is,
let's look more
closely at the methods
and frameworks used
in design thinking.
Methods make up our
toolkit and they
help us enact the core
principles of design.
For example, in order to
build empathy for a user or
a customer to live up to
the human centered thinking
that describes design thinking,
we reach for certain
methods that reliably allow
us to understand with empathy
that user experience.
Interviews and empathy maps
allow us to engage directly with
the user in a way that we can
appreciate the forces
that shape them,
what they see and hear in
the world around them,
and what their fears or
motivations might be.
Alternatively, we might conduct
an exercise in which we immerse
ourselves in the
world our customer
inhabits through a
walk-a-mile immersion.
In this method, we can begin to
appreciate the customer
experience through
firsthand knowledge
though it's important to
point out that there are
always limits to this.
It's always best to
engage the customer in
a problem solving effort
from start to finish.
Do not replace their
daily lived experience
with our one hour
immersion experience.
To engage the user in an
even more participatory way,
we might ask them to
prioritize their ideas or
needs on an issue
with a method like
what's on your radar.
In doing so, we can
understand and empathize
with what's most
or least important to them and
use that to guide our
problem solving work.
