Design Thinking

Unit - 2
Design Thinking Exercises
Design Thinking Exercises are helping designers to understand users, and also identify their
challenges and needs. Besides that, they are designed to reframe the way we approach innovation
of a product while focusing on the end-user.

We use design thinking exercises during our workshops to help identify key user challenges—
but there are so many useful exercises and ways of ferreting out this information. We reached out
to industry experts to learn their favorite design thinking workshop exercises and why they find
them useful, which we share below.

1. The Six Thinking Hats

This is a popular design thinking exercise because it helps people look at problems from
different perspectives. It allows people to tap into six different personalities, each of which are
represented by a symbolic colored hat. “It‟s a powerful decision-checking technique in group
scenarios, as everyone explores the situation from each perspective,” shares Andrew Saley,
design thinking team lead at Kromtech.
Each thinking hat prompts six different discussions, during which participants share their
thoughts from that particular point of view.

 White Hat: The white hat team member focuses on sharing data, facts, and knowledge to
make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to understanding the problem.
 Red Hat: The person wearing the red hat shares feelings, emotions, and intuition about
the problem to better understand differing opinions.
 Black Hat: The team member who wears the black hat is responsible for sharing
potentially negative outcomes to see why the idea might not work. Many successful
people get so used to thinking positively that they often cannot see problems in advance,
and may be unprepared to face difficulties.
 Yellow Hat: The yellow hat team member focuses on possible opportunities and
outcomes of solving a problem to help you push through the difficulties.
 Green Hat: The team member wearing the green hat shares creative solutions to the
problem, encouraging users to brainstorm with little criticism of ideas.
 Blue Hat: The blue hat participant focuses on process control, an action plan, and the
appropriate next steps to keep the project on track.

Saley feels this technique prevents confrontations that may occur when people with different
thinking styles discuss a problem, because each perspective is valid. And having examined their
options from numerous viewpoints, decision makers have a much more detailed picture of
potential outcomes and can make decisions accordingly.

2. Deconstruction

This design thinking exercise asks designers to revisit their understanding of the core problem
for the purpose of clarifying it. According to Shannon Lue Chee Lip, an independent consultant
who uses design thinking frameworks to help social good organizations create strategic plans for
success, this exercise helps ensure designers are solving the core issue rather than just treating
the symptoms.
“Take for example if you were tasked with designing a new phone for the elderly. It might be
tempting to jump straight into ideating features like large buttons or speech-to-text capabilities,
but if we step back and decompose the problem—if we ask ourselves, what’s the purpose of a
phone, anyway?—we open up a whole new world of design possibilities. Rather than designing
just another accessible phone concept, we might find ourselves creating entirely new ways for
older people to relay their thoughts to another person physically distant from them,” Lip
explains.
This kind of decomposition challenges designers to reframe their understanding of the challenge
at hand, acknowledging any biases they might bring to the design process and opening
themselves up to new ideas that might never have surfaced otherwise.

3. The Five Whys

Another of Lip‟s favorite design thinking activities is the Five Whys. It uses recursive
questioning to help designers better understand the root cause of a problem, rather than
immediately attempting to address the more obvious symptoms.
Lip shares, “The process begins by identifying the most obvious problem to be addressed and
gradually working backwards by repeatedly asking ‘Why?’ and empathizing with the user to
trace the root cause of an issue. The beauty of this exercise lies in its simplicity, as it can very
quickly lead us from a simple presenting problem like ‘There’s a puddle of water on the floor’ to
reveal key insights like ‘No one can figure out the user interface of the maintenance request
system, so the control valves have not been serviced in years.’ That can be invaluable in
informing the design process.”

4. Thumbnail Sketching

Peter Donahue, who works as a full-time freelance designer, prefers “good, old-fashioned
thumbnail sketching” as a design thinking exercise. Donahue usually creates twenty or more
quick, small sketches of a design to help identify and solve key visual problems. He explains,
“this is my go-to ideation method. There's a lot of talk about rapid prototyping in the maker
community, and I see thumbnail sketching as the purest, most rapid form of that method.”

5. Mind Mapping
Mind mapping was popularized by author Tony Buzan as a means to simplify or break down
problems. It works on the power of association where you have the central theme in the middle
and branches that connect it to sub-topics or ideas

A mind map is a creative, accessible and easy-to-make tool for learning and development. Some
people make mind maps for things like their new year‟s resolution, health journey or work
experience. When you have the central idea in mind, connecting that to relevant sub-heads helps
you see things as a whole.

According to a study, 80% of the students reported that mind mapping helped them retain more
information. At a time when visuals are at the top of the pyramid, you can create a mind map for
virtually anything. They‟ll help you memorize information, understand key concepts and keep
track of your ideas all in one place.
The qualities that make a mind map effective are

 A central idea
 Keywords
 Associated words or images
 Branches that connect the main idea to nodes with solutions
 Vibrant and colorful to help you identify nodes with ease

If you‟re unable to solve a problem, you can create a mind map to break it down into manageable
chunks. You can track node to node and make changes where necessary. Let‟s explore some
examples of mind mapping.

Mind Mapping Techniques

The meaning of mind mapping is a visual representation of a problem or a strategy. The

You can create a mind map by hand, any kind of diagram with a clear hierarchy, or you can use a
website to prepare one.

Here are some minds mapping techniques that help you improve your problem-solving skills:

1. Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a way for teams to share ideas and come up with creative solutions. Mind
mapping is especially effective during a brainstorming session because of the number of
ideas flying around. The moderator can start with a key theme and ask members to add their
own thoughts to it. Not only will everyone find it easy to keep track but it‟ll also help you
assess viable solutions.

2. Problem-Solving
Problem-solving can be a tricky business if you don‟t know what to do or where to start.
With a custom mind map, you can shed light on problem areas, improvement areas and
individual efforts that would be required. It‟s convenient and leads to better results because
you can clearly map the problem—from where it occurred—to a solution. In the workplace,
this can help you save time and effort as you‟ll be on top of things.

3. Compiling Information

Information overload often derails our plans because it‟s just too confusing to find a starting
point. A mind map helps you display everything you know—or have learned—in one place.
This way, even if there are changes, you can easily edit your map to account for
modifications. Your mind map can act as a repository of information that you can refer to
whenever you need it.

4. Note-Taking

Whether in a meeting or class, you can create mind maps to take minutes or notes. Instead
of writing or typing everything verbatim, you can pick out key ideas and frameworks.
Adding them to your map is much easier and quicker. You can present it in a way that
works for you. It can have multiple branches—which can be further divided into smaller
nodes.
 5. Studying or Learning

Say you‟re learning a language and you‟re not able to keep track of how much you‟ve
learned. Mind mapping makes it easier to understand your progress. You can start with a
theme like „Japanese Language‟, connect branches like „grammar‟, „vocabulary‟ and
„diction‟. Add images where necessary or keywords that help you summarize the content.
Simple techniques can enrich your learning experience.

Design thinking workshop

 Empathy: Developing a deep understanding of the problem that users face and
empathizing with them.
 Ideation: Coming up with many ideas on how the user problem can be solved.
 Prototyping: Creating a prototype of potential solutions and then testing it with real
users.

Design Thinking workshops are all about collaboration and problem-solving. As a designer, you
might hold a Design Thinking workshop with your direct team in order to tackle a tough design
challenge you‟ve been struggling with. However, Design Thinking workshops aren‟t just for
designers; they are also increasingly used to teach professionals how to innovate and problem-
solve. Throughout your design career, you might find yourself running Design Thinking
workshops for clients—going into different organizations and showing them how they can apply
Design Thinking to their own business challenges.

Indeed, Design Thinking can be applied to all areas of business, and a Design Thinking
workshop can therefore be useful for everyone—from marketing, product, and sales, right
through to the C-level. Let‟s consider the benefits of a Design Thinking workshop in more detail.
Goals of a design thinking workshop
Design thinking workshops help design teams to create feasible and user-focused solutions to
design problems. This helps the team to design better products faster, reduce costs, and increase
profits. Other goals include:

 Improving the problem-solving skills of the team. These skills are transferable to other
design problems within the team.
 Creating a sense of community in the design team because workshop participants have to
collaborate in order to get a solution.
 Giving the team a competitive edge by producing innovative and industry-leading ideas.

Reason of Design Thinking workshop

As a designer, incorporating Design Thinking into your process will help you to quickly come up
with viable, user-centric solutions—ultimately resulting in a quicker time-to-market, improved
customer retention, significant cost savings, and a great ROI.

Design Thinking workshops enable you to spread this value across your organization (or your
client‟s organization). Here are some of the benefits at a glance:

 Teach people how to problem-solve: Problem solving is a key skill that everyone
should master. A Design Thinking workshop teaches problem solving in action, giving
the workshop participants an approach they can apply to almost any challenge in any area
of their lives.
 Foster innovation and teamwork: The very essence of Design Thinking lies in
collaboration and thinking outside the box. As a designer, these things are second nature
to you; for others, it might not come so easily. A Design Thinking workshop breaks down
silos and shows participants how to challenge their assumptions—a recipe for innovation!
 Secure a competitive advantage: A Design Thinking workshop may result in
groundbreaking solutions that ultimately set the company apart—but competitive
products aren‟t the only takeaway. Design Thinking workshops teach creative thinking,
which is increasingly seen as a competitive advantage when applied at a strategic level.

“Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game-changing
innovation like Apple‟s iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make
genuine efforts to be innovative—they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire
innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.
Design Thinking workshop Process:
The design thinking process is made up of activities that are done before the workshop and
during the workshop.

Step 1: Planning and preparation

Before you can run a design thinking workshop, there are some things that need to be in place
first, they include:

 Workshop objectives: This is a clear definition of the goals that the workshop should
achieve. Is it to generate new ideas or to improve on an existing design product? This is
also a good time to define the challenge or question that the workshop will answer. It
might be “how can we improve the user experience of our website users?”
 Workshop location: Choose a suitable location for your design thinking workshop. If the
workshop is happening physically, choose a location that has enough space for your
design team. If the workshop is happening online, decide on the meeting and presentation
tools that you are going to use.
  Workshop agenda: This is a plan of how and when the different activities are going to
happen. Do not overschedule the workshop and be sure to include a lot of activities in
your design thinking workshop agenda.
 Workshop materials: Ensure that all the necessary design thinking workshop materials
such as paper, marker pens, sticky notes, whiteboards, and props are in place.
After making all the necessary preparations as outlined above, the next steps will be the
execution of your workshop agenda.

Step 2: Introduction

Welcome all the participants to the workshop and brief them on what they should expect during
the workshop. Share the following information:

 The main objective of the workshop and the problem that it is going to solve.
 A schedule of the workshop activities.
Step 3: Kick off the meeting using an icebreaker

Use fun icebreaker activities to help your team loosen up before the workshop begins. This will
make it easy for them to collaborate and share their ideas.

Step 4: Introduce design thinking

Make a brief presentation on what design thinking is, the phases of design thinking, and its
benefits. This presentation is useful even for designers who are already familiar with the design
thinking philosophy because it brings everyone up to speed and ensures that you are all on the
same page.

Step 5: Empathizing with the user

This is the first step in the design thinking process where you encourage the workshop
participants to put themselves in the shoes of the user. This will help them to start generating
ideas on what the user needs from the product.

You can use activities such as role-playing and creating an empathy map to help the participants
really understand the needs, wants, feelings, and language of the user. After these activities, give
the participants a chance to share their findings and ask questions, if any.

Step 6: Get more specific on the problem

After the empathy exercise, participants are better placed to really narrow down on the problem
that the user faces. Ask your team to create a problem statement that will guide the rest of the
design thinking workshop.
Step 7: Come up with ideas and possible solutions

The next design thinking step is ideation where your team suggests possible solutions to the
problem that they identified in step 6. Use techniques such as brainstorming to come up with a
list of potential solutions.

Give the participants a chance to discuss their solutions and then come up with one refined
solution.

Step 8: Create a user journey map

After settling on one solution, get your team to map out the steps that users will take so that they
can solve the problem. These steps can be downloading an application, setting up an account,
adding their bank details, and then sending money. Give them enough space and sticky notes to
create a step by step representation of the user journey.

Step 9: Prototyping and testing

This is the final step in the design thinking process where participants will create low
fidelity prototypes of their solution. Ask the users to create screens for each step of the user
journey and then ask them to add functionality to their screens in the form of buttons.

Once again, give your team some time to compare their prototypes and then ask them to vote for
the best prototype.

Step 10: Describe the next steps and close the workshop

Close the workshop by explaining to your team the next steps such as turning their prototypes
into wireframes, high fidelity prototypes, and actual user testing.

This is also a good time to ask your design team what they learned from the design thinking
workshop. Don‟t forget to ask for feedback so that you can improve your design thinking
workshop facilitation skills.

Benefits of a design thinking workshop

There are several ways in which a design thinking workshop benefits the process of designing. It
is a great way to create an interdisciplinary collaboration. It creates a space for the productive
sharing of ideas and the building of innovative solutions.

1. Desirable solutions

A design thinking workshop embraces specific attitudes that characterize the design profession
and helps people from non-creative backgrounds to use the designer's tool kit. It is a process that
translates the users' pain points into a single clear problem statement that everyone can
understand to solve complex problems and reach desirable solutions.
2. Collaboration and co-creation

Participants share ideas and build on them collaboratively. It helps teams develop much-
improved respect and understanding of each other's range of skills and how each of them brings
great value by more collaboration and co-creation.

3. Reduced risks

Design thinking workshop creates a natural flow of ideas. It emphasizes overcoming

4. Saved costs

Design thinking workshops help to deliver outputs in a reduced amount of time, including —
Initial design alignment with the stakeholders and other practices. It helps to create a deeper
understanding of the users and effectively reduces the feedback loop, development, and testing
time which in the long run saves efforts and costs.

5. Foster teamwork

Design thinking workshops are engaging and fun sessions that bring the teams together from
different practices and provide an unbiased opportunity for everyone to understand the problem
and work together towards common goals.

6. Actionable output

The questions and ideas documented during the workshop are documented in a detailed
shareable report which helps to understand the users and drive the entire product's design and
development journey.

7. Serves the true business needs

Design thinking workshop helps to create outcomes based on creative thinking and analytical
decision-making. This helps to create user experiences that truly resonate with the users and
deliver high business impact.

The workshop created on the principles of design thinking help to approach the problem with a
designer's mindset helping everyone unlock everyone's creative potential.