Design has come a long way from just being about the look and feel of products to a broadly applicable way of thinking. Sometimes when we hear the word design, we think that it's exclusively property of designers. We at the SDG Lab are using design thinking to solve problems that for a long time have been considered almost impossible to tackle due to their complex nature and their heavy reliance on policy-level treatments.
According to Interaction Design Foundation:
Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user. Design Thinking helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications. Design Thinking is extremely useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways.
Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted the Design Thinking approach, and Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including d.school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT.
It’s amazing how design thinking debunks the myth that only experts are entitled to play along all the chains that make development happen. Essentially, as the myth dictates, they are the ones who should be defining, designing, and deploying projects. However, in the past decade or two, renewed attention has been given by experts themselves to human-centered approaches in defining and solving big issues. Subsequently, terms like student-centered classrooms, client-centered therapy, human-oriented leadership, and human-centered design have been coined and used excessively in both professional and non-professional environments. The self-evident shift of focus from ‘how things should be’ to ‘what people actually need’ has gone viral in both developed and lesser developed parts of the world.
We have been constantly sharing that journey via various platforms. To make it easier for you to get immersed in the world of Design Thinking, we have collected all the pieces in one place.
- Five Ways People React to Design Thinking
- Doing User Research in times of COVID-19
- Bridging the Government Citizen Divide in Behavior-Changing Policies; What’s there and What’s Missing
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