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Writing problem statements in UX: Definition, example, template

Problem statements are an often neglected yet immensely important part of any UX/UI design initiative. After all, designers are not pixel pushers; they are problem solvers, and to effectively solve a problem, you first must understand which problem you are solving for.

A well-crafted UX problem statement can help eliminate ambiguity and focus your whole process on designing solutions that drive impact, not just look pretty. Let’s learn how.

What is a UX problem statement?

The role of problem statements in user-centered design, defining the user and their needs, identifying the problem and its scope, outlining desired impact and success criteria, next step: ideating solutions, ux problem statement template.

In simple terms, a UX problem statement, often called a user-need statement, is a brief and precise description of which problem you are solving and what you are trying to achieve. It serves as a guardrail in the whole design process.

When we start brainstorming solutions or dive deep into Figma and start polishing the interface, it’s often easy to get lost in the flow of things and forget which problems we are actually trying to solve, which inevitably leads to suboptimal solutions. The goal of a UX problem statement grounds us in user thinking and even helps quickly prevalidate solutions.

Problem statements are critical in each phase of a user-centered design process . At the empathize phase, it helps guide your research questions and capture the most important learnings.

It then helps you wrap up the problem definition phase, allowing you to synthesize your key learning in a digestible, shareable artifact. A well-researched problem statement then constrains and focuses your ideation toward solutions that have the greatest chance to move the needle, and later, you can reference it regularly when prototyping your solutions.

Problem statements are also an excellent tool for aligning everyone on the team, from UX researchers to UI designers to product managers. It’s a significant step toward solving the omnipresent design problem: keeping everyone focused on the same thing.

Components of an effective problem statement: A case study

There is no silver bullet for how to craft an effective problem statement. Various companies, designers, and managers approach it slightly differently. However, most of them have three things in common:

• Focus on the end user
• Strive to name the problem clearly
• Define outcomes the solution should achieve

I tend to structure my problem statements similarly. In this section, I’ll combine theory with sharing the story of how we used the UX problem statement to design a solution for marketplace sellers.

The first step is to understand who you are designing for. The most common trap here is to focus on generic users. I saw numerous problem statements saying we are designing for “company X’s user.”

The problem with that? Your product is most likely used by various groups and subsegments of users.

Whoever you are designing for, odds are the solution isn’t focused on 100 percent of your user base. Different users have different problems, needs, and expectations. Unless you touch a fundamental flow (such as the homepage), you are likely designing for no more than 20–70 percent of the user base.

Specificity is the key. The more specific your target audience, the higher the chance you’ll discover specific problems and low-hanging fruits. To better understand who you are solving for, you can employ various user discovery techniques:

• Exploratory interviews
• Ethnographic studies
• Qualitative or quantitative surveys
• Empathy mapping

Regardless of your chosen technique, I’d recommend having at least two interviews. Nothing helps build empathy better than a direct interaction with users.

We had a high-level objective of boosting sellers’ satisfaction in a pet marketplace. It already narrowed down our focus group to sellers, but that was still too broad a category to focus on.

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We started with a quantitative approach to spot whether there are any segments of sellers with the lowest satisfaction scores. To our surprise, our most frequent sellers were also often most dissatisfied with buyer quality.

We then proceeded with a survey and four interviews to dig deeper and see what they had in common. Turns out sellers had issues managing frequent in-product chats with prospective buyers. The volume was simply too overwhelming, and it took conversations with numerous prospects before closing a deal.

Based on that insight, we narrowed our user focus to sellers averaging more than 10 open chats daily:

I am also a big fan of mapping the percent share of users to better understand the size of the opportunity. It later helps prioritize the size of various opportunities.

Now that you’ve identified who you are designing for, go deep into the problem space.

Focus your research on your defined persona. If other users also experience problems with the chat feature, I’d recommend mapping it as a separate problem statement.

Nothing prohibits you from designing for two problem statements simultaneously, but you don’t want to confuse your insights across user groups. Ultimately, it’s better to fully satisfy one group of users than to provide a suboptimal solution for everyone.

Your persona identification exercises from the previous step probably gave you a sense of where the main problem lies. I’d treat it as an initial problem hypothesis. Follow up with problem identification exercises to further validate and refine that hypothesis by, for example:

• Conducting focused follow-up interviews
• Performing a root cause analysis or a 5 Whys exercise to uncover the source of the problem
• Mapping user journey maps to identify when the problem occurs and where it fits into the whole picture
• Holding usability tests to understand where users struggle with the current solution

Once again, there are various ways to capture the problem, ranging from robust one-pagers to one-sentence summaries. I found the sweet spot in quickly summarizing three main areas of the problem:

• What do users struggle with?
• When in the user flow does it happen? Is it seasonal or tied to any specific day/flow?
• Why is the problem worth solving? What pain points does it cause?

The what part gives you a high-level picture, the when part will help you focus your solutions better, and the why part gives extra context and helps with further prioritization.

We knew that the volume of chat interactions was the problem, but we wanted to dig deeper. We proceeded with an extra survey focused on chat interactions sent to our top sellers and an additional five interviews.

It turned out that although the volume itself is problematic, the biggest pain point is during weekends. Sellers reported a work-life balance issue since buyers’ interest peaked during weekends, and sellers feared that if they waited until Monday, they’d lose sales opportunities.

We mapped the problem space in the following way:

Answering all three questions helped us not only understand the basic problem, but also:

• Knowing that the problem happens mostly on weekends helped guide our thinking toward a weekend-focused solution rather than generic chat improvements
• Understanding why the problem is important for users later helped us with proper feature communication

Now that we know who we are designing for and which problem we are solving, we need to identify what we actually want to achieve. The truth is that each problem can be solved in many ways. Identifying success criteria will help you narrow the focus even further and maximize the chances the solutions will bring meaningful results for both users and businesses.

I recommend splitting it into two parts:

• User outcomes : How do we want to make the world better for the user?
• Business outcomes : How do we want to drive the business forward?

Don’t neglect the business outcome. You’ll have a higher chance of getting buy-in for the direction if you can showcase how the solution will help the business grow.

Let’s revisit our chat case study. The desired outcome is clear for the pain point of working during the weekend, driven by the fear of losing leads. Ideally, we’d like our sellers to have free time during the weekend without sacrificing the number of leads.

Let’s now look at the challenge from the business perspective. After consulting with the business owner, we learned that the ideal business outcome would be to design changes resulting in quicker transaction lead time (the time from the first interaction to finalizing the deal), as that is what the chat was initially designed for.

But since it might be extremely difficult to both reduce sellers’ work time during weekends and decrease the lead time, as a bare minimum, we won approval to go forward as long as we don’t harm the lead time, meaning we don’t delay the whole sales funnel. That gave us clear goals to strive for.

With a clear problem statement, we can jump into ideation exercises and start planning potential solutions. Although I won’t get into solution ideation in depth here, let me just share a few examples of how the UX problem statement can help you quickly filter and prevalidate ideas.

The whole ideation process was rather messy, but for the sake of example, here are two of the ideas we brainstormed:

• Letting sellers snooze the chat
• Creating an FAQ section for each seller

We could then use our UX problem statement to validate the idea quickly.

One solution was to let sellers snooze the chat. This solved the user problem of not having free time during the weekend. However, it doesn’t address their fear of not losing leads, nor does it contribute to our business outcomes. We concluded it would help neither from a business nor user perspective, so we killed the idea

Our other solution was to create an FAQ section for each seller. We assumed that the FAQ sections in the flow of starting a new chat could reduce the need to open a new chat. It also seemed the section could even lead to faster lead times (no need to wait for chat answers to get the information the buyer needs), and the FAQ section also works on weekends! We kept it on the list of ideas to pursue.

Although the problem statement itself didn’t tell us which solution was best (we had ~40 ideas in total), it helped us quickly narrow down the list of ideas and guide further direction.

On the other hand, if we had just a loosely defined problem without any deeper understanding, how would we know that the chat snooze option wouldn’t work? We could spend weeks designing and implementing it just to figure out it doesn’t solve the right problem since it wasn’t the distraction that was the problem, but the fear of losing leads.

A UX problem statement gave us both a quick and informed prioritization tool. It was faster than deeply debating each idea and way more precise than choosing on the merit of gut feeling-driven dot votes.

If you’re interested, we ended up introducing and iterating on the FAQ section, which reduced the number of chats by about 30 percent and slightly improved the lead time. It didn’t fully solve the problem, but it was a great first step.

If you’d like to use the same template I used when showcasing the buyer-seller chat story, here’s the link to a UX problem statement template .

Click on File, and then Make a copy to create your UX problem statement.

Closing thoughts

I won’t lie to you: crafting a solid problem statement is a challenging and time-consuming endeavor. However, it’s still a drop in the ocean compared to investing in a solution that doesn’t solve underlying user and business needs.

A well-defined UX problem statement leads to these outcomes:

• Better insights from more focused user research
• More creative and specific solution ideas
• The ability to prevalidate ideas quickly

Most of the designers I’ve met who never used problem statements (or any similar alternatives) always had the same answer: “We simply don’t have time.” I hope this article showed you that problem statements actually save time by having a more focused process and helping you choose better solutions.

If you have a manager or a client who pushes you to jump into Figma and start producing hi-fi solutions as soon as possible, try sharing this article with them to open the conversation. As tough as it is, educating stakeholders is also part of the designer’s job.

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A 5-step design thinking process for user-centric problem solving

Design thinking is a continuous process of innovation used to identify problems and iterate solutions by focusing on users. You can follow a design thinking framework to improve the design of anything—from SaaS products to social policies.

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There are plenty of variations on the design thinking process, but each one has the same core principles: start with your users, focus on their problems, and iterate solutions. 

In this chapter, we take you through the five most common stages of the design thinking process and give you practical steps to follow as part of your own design thinking methodology.

Design thinking starts with your users

Hotjar Heatmaps, Recordings, Feedback, and Surveys help you empathize with your users—and design products that resonate.

Step 1: empathize with your users

The first step of the design thinking process is to empathize with your users , which means learning who they are, and understanding their goals and challenges when using your product—so you can focus the rest of your time on creating an exceptional user experience. 

For example, summarizing the feedback and insights you collect into a simple user persona (a fictional representation of an ideal or existing customer segment) or empathy map will help you keep users at the center of product development, and give you a point of reference as you go through the design thinking process.

Since design thinking in general, and empathy in particular, is less of a one-and-done activity and more of a cycle of continuous learning , the sooner you start talking to and learning from your users as part of the design process, the better.

Here are some practical steps you can follow to get started right now:

Empathize with your users by watching session recordings

Session recordings are a great design thinking tool that recreate a single user’s browsing behavior across multiple pages. You’ll see first-hand where they click, scroll, and spend time, which gives you insight into how they’re using your product and where they’re getting stuck. That’s extremely valuable information to help define your problems in the second step of the process. 

Hotjar helps us empathize with our users. It reminds us that there are real human beings on the other end. It also confirms that our work as a product development team has an impact, and is making our customers’ lives easier.

Ask users what they think with on-page surveys

The simple survey question Smallpdf used to empathize with their users

On-site (or on-page) surveys are simple surveys designed to collect voice of the customer (VoC) feedback ‘in the moment’ from any page. Unlike quantitative feedback from multiple-choice or Net Promoter Score ® (NPS) ratings, qualitative feedback from open-ended questions tells you what users think, feel, and believe about your product.

Real user feedback we collected about our Recordings tool using an on-page survey 😅

If you’re using Hotjar

Use one of our free survey templates to start leveraging user feedback to design with empathy . 

The product research survey template is a great starting point to identify who your users are, what they think about your product, and what problems they’re having. These insights will be invaluable as you move through the design thinking process and start ideating and prototyping solutions to the most common issues affecting your users.

Fill in an empathy map

An empathy map is a one-page visualization of a user group’s behaviors and attitudes , summarizing what you’ve learned so far about what users say, do, see, hear, think, and feel about the user and product experience. 

Empathy mapping gives you a single source of truth that’s easy to share with your stakeholders (who may be removed from the product’s end users), helping you get buy-in for design changes along the way. 

Step 2: define problems 

You might have successfully found 99 problems in Step 1, but if they're not defined, you don’t have one you can solve . The second stage of the design thinking process is about defining problem statements based on an analysis of the insight you collected from your users. 

At this stage, you’ll have found big, small, simple, or complex problems. The goal here is not to think about solutions, but to define the most common issues you’d like to fix . 

Here are some practical ways to distill the user data you collected in Step 1 into actionable problem statements.  

Analyze survey feedback to find common issues

The most effective way to analyze qualitative questions is, ironically, to quantify responses into categories. 

But don't ignore the specific words your users choose—these are a highly valuable resource when you’re working on messaging; simply quantify the survey responses to understand which problems affect the most users , i.e. which problems, when solved, will have the largest positive impact on UX.

You can export Hotjar Survey data as an .CSV or .XLS file and use our free open-ended question analysis template to categorize and create graphs from responses, giving you a visual overview of the most common survey responses .

Filter session recordings to review common user issues

While there’s nothing stopping you from loading up on popcorn and watching every available recording, you’ll get a lot more out of replays when you filter them, and only focus on the sessions that match a specific user issue or segment with high business impact.

For example, you could filter recordings to watch users who clicked on an 'upgrade my plan' call-to-action in your product, and see if the upgrade flow works as intended. 

Filter sessions by rage clicks (where users click in frustration) to quickly learn which elements are irritating users. You’re only limited by your imagination, so apply as many filters as you like and save them as segments for quick access next time you watch recordings.

Create actionable problem statements

A problem statement template from Miro

Using the data and insight you collected so far, you should be able to write a problem statement: a concise and actionable summary of a user problem that requires solving . For your problem statement to be actionable, provide context that defines: 

What the problem is

Who it affects

Why it needs to be solved, and 

Where it’s taking place.

For example, imagine you’re a Product or UX Designer for a graphic design platform. An actionable product statement could look like this:

"Users on our premium plan import transparent images because they cannot find our background removal feature button, causing them to get frustrated and waste time and effort on tasks our product is designed to solve."

Learn more and see additional examples in the problem statements chapter of this guide.

Step 3. ideate solutions

Now that you understand your users and have defined their biggest problems, Step 3 focuses on ideating as many potential solutions as possible . 

There are no rules or wrong answers when ideating: the goal is to dream up as many outlandish, creative ideas as possible without judgment or prioritization. However, you’ll still need to focus on solutions to the key problem statement(s) defined in Step 2.

We use the idea bank to capture all ideas, wherever they come from. Even if we think they're terrible ideas, we still write them down, and that serves two purposes. One, we want the person who made the suggestion to know that it's been captured and it's up for consideration. Two, we do this because what might not be a great idea now, for whatever reason, might become a great idea in the future.

Since not everyone gets creative in the same way, here are some popular ideation techniques for your next suggest-fest:

Brainstorming : coming up with ideas as a group

Brain Writing : privately writing down ideas, then sharing and discussing them as a group

Mind Mapping : mapping ideas around a central topic and its subtopics

Worst Possible Idea : purposefully finding a terrible solution (for example, improving retention by giving users $1000 in credit if they try to leave) and then seeing if it can inspire a good one

Get ideas from other teams by sharing key user insights

If you only remember one thing about the ideation process, make it this: ideas are better when shared, broken down, and remixed with others ’, so make cross-functional collaboration a priority at this stage of the design thinking process. In practical terms, that means sharing your key user insights and user problem statements with team members and stakeholders to solicit ideas from as many diverse perspectives as possible.

Take advantage of the Highlights feature and share clips and snippets from session recordings and heatmaps to demonstrate key user problems and get ideas from across teams.

Our developers don't talk to customers. Showing them Hotjar recordings of user sessions makes them empathetic when our users stumble, and it gives them a sense of pride when they see a user complete a task they just worked on.

Step 4: prototype the solution

In Step 4, your goal is to prioritize and prototype an idea (aka a solution) that was generated in Step 3, so you have an MVP ( minimum viable product ) that can be tested later.

Let’s say you had a productive Step 3 and got 100 potential ways to solve your main problem. You can’t prototype every idea, so you need to prioritize a solution to prototype . 

Prioritize solutions

To narrow down your ideas, you can use a product prioritization tool to keep track of and assign values to each idea, following a standard prioritization framework like ICE (Impact, Certainty, Effort). This works particularly well if you're part of a distributed design team and need to collaborate with your teammates asynchronously. 

IBM’s prioritization grid

You can also manually evaluate ideas by creating post-its for each idea and mapping them onto a prioritization grid that plots high-to-low user value against feasibility. Your best ideas will give high value to users and be easy to implement (aka feasible). 

Design wireframes

An example wireframe from UX design tool Balsamiq

Simple wireframes give you a shareable overview of a proposed change. Your wireframes may also spark further ideas from the team, which is why it’s essential to treat the design thinking process as non-linear. For example, it’s fine to go back to Step 3 to iterate your prototype before moving on to the testing stage. 

Step 5: test with users

Now you’re at the final step of the design thinking approach, and it’s time to test your prototype on real users, gather insight, and measure impact . If this step seems familiar to you, that’s because it’s a slight variation to Step 1: ‘empathize’, albeit this time with a narrower focus on the specific change you’re testing.

Within the design thinking process, you might find that the hypothesis you thought was true is not what your users are looking for. Then you need to take what you learned, go back, test and iterate again.

Here are some practical ways to test your prototype to confirm it achieves your goals before rolling out changes: 

A/B test solutions on real users

A/B testing allows you to test a design change on users and measure its impact over the original version, known as the ‘control’. 

You can (and should!) still collect user insights during tests—view session recordings, heatmaps, and even ask users for feedback when they’re in an A/B test variation.

Although Hotjar doesn't have an A/B testing feature, it has integrations with some of the top A/B testing tools , including Google Optimize and Optimizely.

Test prototypes on users

If you’re not ready to A/B test solutions on a live website, you can test prototypes on users by inviting them to a focus group or prototype testing session.

Tools like UserTesting allow you to test anything from static images to high-fidelity prototypes and collect qualitative feedback from real users or a matched audience. The benefit of this type of testing is that it requires little time to set up and doesn’t have any impact on the live product. 

Iterate, iterate, iterate

Congratulations: you’ve made it to the end of the design thinking process! Or have you? 🤔

Just because you finished Step 5, doesn’t mean you’re done—you may need to go back to Step 3 to generate more ideas, or back to Step 4 to prototype a different solution. Design thinking is never really ‘complete’ because the process is non-linear and iterative.  

Remember that you’re designing for humans in the real world, not robots in a vacuum: your users will always have problems, and you’ll always need to find solutions. That’s why we recommend you bake in a continuous cycle of user research, problem defining, idea generation, solution prioritization, and testing into your design workflow.

Design thinking process FAQs

What is a design thinking framework.

A design thinking framework is a structure for finding and solving design problems by focusing on UX ( user experience ). It’s also known as the design thinking process and has five main steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

What are the 5 stages of design thinking?

The five stages of design thinking are Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. The design thinking process is iterative and non-linear, so while you can generally progress through each stage in order, you’ll likely go back and forth between stages to improve on solutions and continue collecting feedback from users.

Why is design thinking a non-linear process?

Design thinking is a non-linear process because you’re designing for real users whose real-life behavior is not linear. Each step in the design thinking process is iterative, and you will likely find yourself going back and forth depending on how much insight you have collected, what results you’re seeing, and how your users react to the changes you implement.

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Design Thinking 101

July 31, 2016 2016-07-31

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In This Article:

Definition of design thinking, why — the advantage, flexibility — adapt to fit your needs, scalability — think bigger, history of design thinking.

Design thinking is an ideology supported by an accompanying process . A complete definition requires an understanding of both.

Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.

The design-thinking framework follows an overall flow of 1) understand, 2) explore, and 3) materialize. Within these larger buckets fall the 6 phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement.

Conduct research in order to develop knowledge about what your users do, say, think, and feel .

Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users.  Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience frustration?’ The goal is to gather enough observations that you can truly begin to empathize with your users and their perspectives.

Combine all your research and observe where your users’ problems exist. While pinpointing your users’ needs , begin to highlight opportunities for innovation.

Consider the onboarding example again. In the define phase, use the data gathered in the empathize phase to glean insights. Organize all your observations and draw parallels across your users’ current experiences. Is there a common pain point across many different users? Identify unmet user needs.

Brainstorm a range of crazy, creative ideas that address the unmet user needs identified in the define phase. Give yourself and your team total freedom; no idea is too farfetched and quantity supersedes quality.

At this phase, bring your team members together and sketch out many different ideas. Then, have them share ideas with one another, mixing and remixing, building on others' ideas.

Build real, tactile representations for a subset of your ideas. The goal of this phase is to understand what components of your ideas work, and which do not. In this phase you begin to weigh the impact vs. feasibility of your ideas through feedback on your prototypes.

Make your ideas tactile. If it is a new landing page, draw out a wireframe and get feedback internally.  Change it based on feedback, then prototype it again in quick and dirty code. Then, share it with another group of people.

Return to your users for feedback. Ask yourself ‘Does this solution meet users’ needs?’ and ‘Has it improved how they feel, think, or do their tasks?’

Put your prototype in front of real customers and verify that it achieves your goals. Has the users’ perspective during onboarding improved? Does the new landing page increase time or money spent on your site? As you are executing your vision, continue to test along the way.

Put the vision into effect. Ensure that your solution is materialized and touches the lives of your end users.

This is the most important part of design thinking, but it is the one most often forgotten. As Don Norman preaches, “we need more design doing.” Design thinking does not free you from the actual design doing. It’s not magic.

“There’s no such thing as a creative type. As if creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to feel like work.”  - Milton Glaser

As impactful as design thinking can be for an organization, it only leads to true innovation if the vision is executed. The success of design thinking lies in its ability to transform an aspect of the end user’s life. This sixth step — implement — is crucial.

Why should we introduce a new way to think about product development? There are numerous reasons to engage in design thinking, enough to merit a standalone article, but in summary, design thinking achieves all these advantages at the same time.

Design thinking:

• Is a user-centered process that starts with user data, creates design artifacts that address real and not imaginary user needs, and then tests those artifacts with real users
• Leverages collective expertise and establishes a shared language, as well as buy-in amongst your team
• Encourages innovation by exploring multiple avenues for the same problem

Jakob Nielsen says “ a wonderful interface solving the wrong problem will fail ." Design thinking unfetters creative energies and focuses them on the right problem. 

The above process will feel abstruse at first. Don’t think of it as if it were a prescribed step-by-step recipe for success. Instead, use it as scaffolding to support you when and where you need it. Be a master chef, not a line cook: take the recipe as a framework, then tweak as needed.

Each phase is meant to be iterative and cyclical as opposed to a strictly linear process, as depicted below. It is common to return to the two understanding phases, empathize and define, after an initial prototype is built and tested. This is because it is not until wireframes are prototyped and your ideas come to life that you are able to get a true representation of your design. For the first time, you can accurately assess if your solution really works. At this point, looping back to your user research is immensely helpful. What else do you need to know about the user in order to make decisions or to prioritize development order? What new use cases have arisen from the prototype that you didn’t previously research?

You can also repeat phases. It’s often necessary to do an exercise within a phase multiple times in order to arrive at the outcome needed to move forward. For example, in the define phase, different team members will have different backgrounds and expertise, and thus different approaches to problem identification. It’s common to spend an extended amount of time in the define phase, aligning a team to the same focus. Repetition is necessary if there are obstacles in establishing buy-in. The outcome of each phase should be sound enough to serve as a guiding principle throughout the rest of the process and to ensure that you never stray too far from your focus.

The packaged and accessible nature of design thinking makes it scalable. Organizations previously unable to shift their way of thinking now have a guide that can be comprehended regardless of expertise, mitigating the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. This doesn’t just apply to traditional “designery” topics such as product design, but to a variety of societal, environmental, and economical issues. Design thinking is simple enough to be practiced at a range of scopes; even tough, undefined problems that might otherwise be overwhelming. While it can be applied over time to improve small functions like search, it can also be applied to design disruptive and transformative solutions, such as restructuring the career ladder for teachers in order to retain more talent. 

It is a common misconception that design thinking is new. Design has been practiced for ages : monuments, bridges, automobiles, subway systems are all end-products of design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a human-centric creative process to build meaningful and effective solutions.

In the early 1900's husband and wife designers Charles and Ray Eames practiced “learning by doing,” exploring a range of needs and constraints before designing their Eames chairs, which continue to be in production even now, seventy years later. 1960's dressmaker Jean Muir was well known for her “common sense” approach to clothing design, placing as much emphasis on how her clothes felt to wear as they looked to others. These designers were innovators of their time. Their approaches can be viewed as early examples of design thinking — as they each developed a deep understanding of their users’ lives and unmet needs. Milton Glaser, the designer behind the famous I ♥ NY logo, describes this notion well: “We’re always looking, but we never really see…it’s the act of attention that allows you to really grasp something, to become fully conscious of it.”

Despite these (and other) early examples of human-centric products, design has historically been an afterthought in the business world, applied only to touch up a product’s aesthetics. This topical design application has resulted in corporations creating solutions which fail to meet their customers’ real needs. Consequently, some of these companies moved their designers from the end of the product-development process, where their contribution is limited, to the beginning. Their human-centric design approach proved to be a differentiator: those companies that used it have reaped the financial benefits of creating products shaped by human needs.

In order for this approach to be adopted across large organizations, it needed to be standardized. Cue design thinking, a formalized framework of applying the creative design process to traditional business problems.

The specific term "design thinking" was coined in the 1990's by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin, and encapsulated methods and ideas that have been brewing for years into a single unified concept.

We live in an era of experiences , be they services or products, and we’ve come to have high expectations for these experiences. They are becoming more complex in nature as information and technology continues to evolve. With each evolution comes a new set of unmet needs. While design thinking is simply an approach to problem solving, it increases the probability of success and breakthrough innovation.

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User-centered design: Definition, examples, and tips

Tony ho tran,   •   jun 24, 2019.

U ser-centered design encompasses different research and design tactics that involve the user in each stage of the design process. By keeping the users so actively involved in the process, they’ll stay at the forefront of your design decisions—helping you tailor your design specifically to their needs.

Let’s take a look at what it is exactly, how the process works, and see a few good examples of it in action.

What is user-centered design?

How does the user-centered design process work, how user-centered design can change lives.

User-centered design is an iterative design process framework that incorporates validation from the user every step of the way. This closeness and frequent interaction helps you deeply understand your user, what they want and don’t want from your design, and how they’re ultimately going to interact with each part of your product.

Now that you know what user-centered design is, let’s jump into what it looks like in action.

The user-centered design process typically takes four steps:

• Step 1. Identify the users’ needs and the context around them.
• Step 2. Specify requirements for both the business and user.

Step 3. Design solutions

Step 4. evaluate.

This is based on the process determined by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO), an organization dedicated to bringing professionals and experts together to set industrial, scientific, and business standards.

Let’s take a quick look at each step to see how it’s done.

Step 1. Identify the users’ needs and context around them

The first step is the start of your user research: when you find out everything you need to know about your user in order to craft a product that satisfies their needs.

To do this, you need to answer three questions:

• Who is my user? You need to find out the type of people who will be using your product and, more importantly, what their goals are.
• What are my users’ problems? These are the issues facing your users that your product, and design, and directly and indirectly help solve.
• What are they about? This can mean everything from how they’re going to be interacting with your design to even the emotions they feel while using it.

One great tool to use in this step is a user persona template . This can help you formulate a target user you’re designing for, grounding your product. And you can use InVision Freehand to collect and assemble this info for easy sharing.

Source: Behance

Remember though, having a user persona template is not a replacement for talking to users. Reaching out and conducting proper user research by interviewing and interacting with your users is crucial for any product design process. Don’t sleep on talking to them.

That’s why good user research is so critical to your project’s success. After all, a good product design process is about challenging your assumptions as a designer—which is the basis of user research.

For more on solid user research techniques, be sure to check out our articles on the topic below:

• What is user research?
• Your team needs to make user research a habit
• 4 types of research methods all designers should know
• How to do user research with kids

Step 2. Specify requirements for both business and user

Now that you know your users and their needs, it’s time to understand your metrics of success. This means having a clear idea of two things:

Business requirements. These are the goals and outcomes that you as the designer and business owner are hoping to achieve. This can include:

• Expected revenue
• Key stakeholders
• Scope of the design.

User requirements. This is everything the user stands to gain from the process and can include:

• The problems design is solving
• The results of successful design

These both address the big why : why is this design beneficial for both the business and the user? Why is it worth your time to do it right now?

If you need help specifying solid goals, be sure to check out our articles on the topic below:

• Why the secret to success is setting the right goals
• Setting your design system for success

Once you know the requirements and metrics for success, it’s time to move onto the next step.

Now that you’ve identified your users’ needs as well as your metrics for success, it’s time to actually set out and design solutions for them.

This is the stage of the process that any designer should be familiar with. It means building and deciding on assets like:

Once you’ve actually designed out your assets to address your target users’ issues, it’s time to move onto the final step …

Now it’s time to analyze and evaluate your designs against the user and business requirements.

This is going to be an overall look at your final product to see if it meets all of the goals you set out for yourself in step two.

Some questions you might ask:

• Where did our process go right? Why?
• Where did we struggle? Why?
• How are our users responding to the product?
• Did it solve their issues and pain points?
• Where can we improve the product?
• What lessons can we take away from this process for future products?

If you find that you didn’t meet the goals and requirements that you’ve set for your product, that’s okay! It’s to be expected and is all part of the process that will eventually lead you to success.

Step 5. Iteration

What that means now is iterating. That means going back to step one and starting the user-centered design process over—but with the knowledge you gained in the first round.

While not technically a step, it’s what comes after you’ve run through the four-step user-centered design process.

You’ll be able to tighten all the screws that need to be tightened and make the changes that need to be made—though this may not happen in the second round of changes either.

Try Freehand, the fast, flexible way to collaborate in real time.

You might have to go back for several rounds before it all gets done, and that’s okay too! What’s important is that you come up with a product that will meet your users’ needs and your goals. Eventually, it’ll come time to launch—and even then, you might spend some more time tweaking and fixing some aspect of your product.

One great example of user-centered design comes from the design firm IDEO Chicago , in partnership with Moneythink , when they developed a personal finance app for young people.

When first developing the app, they had a unique target user: low-income students who want to get a better handle on their personal finances.

Imagine if you’re a 16-year-old high schooler living in poverty and struggling to find money to pay for bus fare. Do you think it’d be realistic for you to even consider things like savings accounts or investment funds?

That was the challenge IDEO Chicago faced when designing their app to teach young people about money. They knew in order to create the app, they needed to approach the situation with the utmost empathy. That meant immersing themselves in their users’ world and putting themselves in their shoes.

To do that, they took a few approaches:

• They conducted interviews with 90 students across 7 different campuses .
• They immersed themselves into the apps that their target users liked to use: Snapchat and Instagram .
• They went into the classrooms, as well as the homes, of students to see how they lived.

The result was an app dubbed the “Instagram for money,” as one student called it : an app that took all the principles of user-centered design to create something that engaged and benefited the lives of its users.

User-centered design is the framework in which designers consider the user in every phase of the design process. And it’s one that can work in tandem with approaches to design such as Agile and Waterfall .

What the user-centered design process looks for your business will ultimately be unique to you. The most important thing is that you use the process to help your target user and your goals.

If you’re ready to begin your own UX process, sign up for a free InVision account and create your first prototype today.

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Want to read more about user research.

• The UX of user research surveys
• How user research guided our design for an AI assistant
• 7 ways to prepare for a design research interview

by Tony Ho Tran

Tony is a content marketing consultant and freelance writer. His work has been seen in Business Insider, MSNBC, Hootsuite, and GrowthLab.

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User-Centered Design: What It Is and How to Do It Right

Published: July 10, 2023

The hallmark of a successful product is that it solves a problem for the user. To create a genuinely user-friendly product, your organization needs to harness the power of user-centered design. Think of your favorite product. It could be your smartphone, a web design tool you love using, or even your toaster. How does the product solve your specific pain points, and how does it achieve this so well? Does it feel like the company that produced the item made an effort to understand your wants as a consumer?

If so, you've experienced the result of user-centered design yourself. User-centered design (UCD) is a game-changer for product teams, forcing stakeholders to dig deeper into users' needs, beliefs, feelings, and habits. Then, you can create a valuable product that rises to meet those challenges. As a result, you can demonstrate to your users that you care and understand them. In exchange, you'll earn their loyalty.

Let's dive into the core user-centered design principles, benefits, and processes. Then, you can begin designing and iterating right away.

What is user-centered design?

Why is the user-centered design process so important, what is a user-centered design example, what are the benefits of implementing user-centered design principles, what are the main user-centered design principles, what is the user-centered design process, three tips for implementing user-centered design principles.

User-centered design (UCD) focuses on product users. By implementing various research techniques, UCD incorporates the needs and feelings of users to guide each phase of product design and development. UCD also heavily emphasizes iteration — ideas are tested and redesigned to achieve usable, satisfying, and emotionally impactful products.

We get it — the concept of UCD might seem obvious. After all, users are the ones that are, well, using your product. Why wouldn't you prioritize what's meaningful to them?

The main issue is that if we don't incorporate users throughout the process, other forms of bias can creep in and steer us away from what users want. Personal opinions, standard industry practices, business goals, and general resistance to change can all impact what designers think a product should be. This causes them to forget who they're designing for. The result can be a product that isn't effective for users.

Lindsay Derby, Senior Product Designer on the Sales Enablement team at HubSpot , explains it best. "User-centered design is an iterative design approach that is fundamentally driven by making decisions based on the user needs," she says. "This process involves a research phase in which designers need to fully understand the context of the use cases and specific user requirements. The designer will work to balance business objectives with these user needs to achieve the final design. User-centered design requires empathy for the users and balances the pragmatic approach needed for designing for a company or client. Design solutions are iteratively evaluated and improved, ideally by testing with actual or prospective end users."

User-centered design brings our focus back to the user by prioritizing them and framing entire projects around their feelings, needs, and goals. UCD does this by employing various exploratory research and ideation methods to understand the user comprehensively. Once this robust comprehension of the user is created, designers can use what they know to build a product they'll love.

According to Derby, a major reason UCD is so successful is that it considers how users naturally do things — and incorporates that into the design.

"User-centered design takes into account the user's natural way of doing things based on their inherent behavior and established mental models," says Derby. "It is important not to try and impose the design and technology on the user and force people to adjust. We have all encountered UIs that try and force us to use the system in an unfamiliar way. It is confusing and often frustrating. User-centered design attempts to deliver a much more integrated and pleasing experience that will leave the user with a positive impression and also able to complete the desired business objective without having to needlessly adapt."

Importantly, user-centered design isn't about understanding just any user — it's about your users, the ones you envision using your specific product. UCD considers the characteristics of a target audience and what makes them unique, as this informs what they'll want to do with your product and how they'll use it.

Wondering what user-centered design looks like in practice? Here's an example. "If we are trying to sell clothing online and the end goal is for the user to complete a purchase, then we want to design the check-out experience in a way that is most closely aligned with how we know our users will shop," says Derby. "If we have research to support that most shopping at our website is done from mobile devices, it would make the most sense for us to design mobile-optimized check-out experiences like integrating with mobile pay, numeric keypad defaults, and large touch points. Here we are aligning the business goal to sell clothing with the user need for a smooth mobile checkout experience. Using a user-centered design approach adds a layer of confidence and strategy to design decisions while also showing empathy for the humans who will be interacting with your designs."

As we mentioned earlier, your UCD efforts should be tailored specifically to suit your users. For instance, a mobile navigation app targeted at city dwellers will probably look different from a mobile navigation app for mountain bikers. These users will value different things, even if the general aims of both apps are the same.

As we'll see, UCD is an intensive process. At first, it may seem like the resources needed to complete a cycle won't be worth it. But, time after time, implementing the user-centered design process will save you money for two reasons.

First, UCD enables businesses to create better products that generate more revenue. Well-executed UCD produces products that align with users' needs and wants. Users are more likely to buy these kinds of products, which means more sales for you. Additionally, customers will be more satisfied with the product, build trust with your brand, recommend the product to others, and make more purchases down the road .

Second, UCD saves on development costs by catching issues early and often. By involving users, you usually find out what works and what doesn't quickly, meaning you'll need to make fewer revisions later. Imagine if you overlooked a critical issue post-launch — correcting that would be exponentially more costly than catching it early in the design phase.

The entire point of UCD is to see things from the perspective of your users in order to build delightful products and experiences. By putting aside your opinions and solving for the user, you can more effectively build a product that will check all their boxes.

The entire point of UCD is to see things from the perspective of your users in order to build delightful products and experiences. The user-centered approach requires you to put your opinions aside and solve for the user at each step.

User Involvement

Next up is user involvement. When you implement a user-centered design process, you will involve your users from the beginning of the project to the end. Having users involved at the start is helpful as you can better set requirements, and they can provide feedback or evaluate designs.

By incorporating user input from the get-go, you'll save valuable time, energy, and money down the road because you won't have to overhaul your whole design later in the project.

Alignment of Requirements

Next, designers that follow the UCD approach strive to meet the requirements of the business and the people who actually use the product. It's not always a given that these two will align.

Regular Feedback

Designers should be continually collecting feedback from users throughout the process to ensure that each decision matches up with user needs. This feedback can be both qualitative and quantitative.

Even with consistent user input, you're probably not going to nail the design on your first try. That's why user-centered design must be iterative: The design team ensures that the user experience continues to improve.

For example, you might discover something in your prototyping phase that reveals a misunderstanding of your users, requiring you to re-do your preliminary research. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's expected.

Again, not every business follows the same exact process of UCD. But, there are typically five general steps that designers adhere to: Research, aligning requirements with the business, building solutions, testing solutions, and iterating on designs.

1. Research users to understand why and how they would use your product.

To design for your users, you first need to figure out who your users are. All UCD projects begin with in-depth research to determine:

Who the users are

What obstacles they face

How and in what context they will interact with your product

Coming out of this phase, you should comprehensively understand why your target users would want what your company is offering.

When first identifying a target audience, you can employ methods like surveys , interviews, focus groups , and ethnographic research (i.e., observing users in their natural environments). From this information, start to create one or more user personas. There are also a wealth of UX software tools to make this easier. For instance, user personas.

A user persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal user. It acts as a stand-in that lets you generalize to a larger user group of users with similar characteristics (such as goals, needs, behavior, attitude, role at their company, etc.). It guides product development to meet your users' needs and eventually align with business goals. User personas are powerful because they frame your audience as something tangible that stakeholders can reference moving forward.

The most important trait of your persona for the sake of the UCD process is considering what challenges they face. Try to uncover common difficulties among your research participants, as these will be the issues your product attempts to solve and where the value of your product comes from.

Lastly, find out your product's likely context of use — where, when, and how your persona will use your product. These details can all be included in your persona since they make your user base unique from others with similar challenges.

Let's continue with our navigation app example from earlier. Suppose we want to build a navigation/maps mobile app for mountain bikers. In that case, we can first talk to mountain bikers about problems they have by bringing in some participants to the office and talking to them, or going out to the trails ourselves and talking to some (while they're taking a break, of course).

From this work, we develop our persona, Mountain Bike Mike. Mike loves exploring new trails in the area and typically bikes every weekend. However, one issue he's had with other apps is that he can't track which routes he's explored before. This could be one of the main problems our app tries to address.

In Mike's persona, we'd also note that this application is used outdoors and on the move, almost always on a smartphone (though wearables aren't out of the question — either way, small screens), sometimes alone but often with a friend, and he's probably in a more energized state while using the app as well.

If this seems like a lot of effort up top, that's because it is. However, this step is critical. You're building a user-focused foundation to base your product development. It's better to do the heavy lifting now than discover deep into the process that your designs are misguided and don't actually provide users value.

2. Set requirements that align users’ goals with business goals.

With a good understanding of your users, you begin to define the scope of your project. You may find that your target demographic experiences many challenges, and it would be impossible to address all of them in the first interaction of your product.

That's why, when determining scope, you should look at where the goals of your users and the goals of your business intersect. Your designs should benefit users and your company alike. Weigh your potential set of features and determine which provides both user value and a high return on investment.

This phase will also involve stakeholders outside of your design and research teams to decide which problems are most feasible to address now. And, if you discover that there's still some ambiguity about what your users want from a product, it's okay to go back to step one. Better to be sure than move forward and risk a misguided product. Don't leave any questions unanswered.

In our mountain biking app example, some researchers might have floated the idea of a social networking aspect that allows users to connect with other riders and meet up at trails.

Even though this received some support from research participants, the product team ultimately decides that implementation would be too costly at this point, and it makes more sense to pursue the app's original proposed purpose, a mapping and navigation tool. This isn't to say the social networking idea should be thrown out, just placed on the back burner for now.

3. Build solutions.

Now for the exciting part. I mean, research is exciting too, but this is the step when you can begin making all the materials you need to develop the product: user journey maps, user flows, wireframes, mockups, and eventually, high-fidelity prototypes for conducting user testing.

Within this step, you'll iterate through many sub-steps as your designs evolve from low- to high-fidelity and your ideas become more concrete. It's an exciting time.

If you're building software, this is also the phase to establish a clear information architecture , how the features and content of your product are grouped and structured in a way that's easy to understand. Card sorting is a widely used method to determine information architecture. In this research method, participants arrange cards representing pages, content, and other information in the most logical way.

Throughout this step, you can run miniature tests on your designs to confirm you're moving in the right direction, even before testing with fleshed-out prototypes. It's easy to get carried away with ideas along the way, so continue asking whether your building aligns with your preliminary user research and requirements. Are you still creating for your persona?

Perhaps in our mountain bike app design example, we assemble user flows to plan out how bikers use the app to discover new trails, conduct card sorting to learn which items should go in the primary user interface and which can be relegated to a settings menu, and then build the interface up from a wireframe to a prototype that isn't quite a finished product but is close enough to simulate it.

4. Test your and get feedback.

With prototypes at the ready, you can now conduct usability tests with your intended user group and watch how they experience your product. For example, you can ask users to accomplish some task in your product and see their choices while taking notes on their actions and feedback.

Alternatively, you can give users your prototype in the environment they typically use it (i.e., mountain biking trails) and observe. This practice, called contextual inquiry , produces valuable qualitative insights into what users like and could do without. Adding this to your user-centered design process gives you real-life information regarding what users love — and what they can do without.

You can also utilize the research methods from step one, like interviews and surveys, to gather as much information as you can about the current state of your design and how it solves users' problems. Take what you find, and check it against your initial goals for the project. How well is your product addressing the challenges of your persona?

While this process phase seems straightforward, it can also be the most challenging phase to stay user-centric. You've spent lots of time and energy learning about users and building their ideal product. Finding issues with it can feel discouraging.

The thing is, your participants will find issues. It's rare to nail your product on the first try. You might even learn something you didn't consider in prior stages. Stay patient and focused, and trust the process, even if it feels like the process is constantly putting obstacles in your way.

5. Iterate on designs.

You've finished your prototype testing. Did you get your product perfectly right on your first try? No? Then on to step five: Repeating the past four steps until your product is ready for the market.

Iteration is one of the core principles of user-centered design. These steps are designed to be retraced however necessary. You may need to go back one or several steps or repeat the entire process multiple times before your product is in a good place.

For instance, say we test a prototype of our mountain biking app and find that users generally like it, but there are some features they think could be improved. You can return to step three, redesign them, and test them again. Or, you might find your fundamental understanding of mountain bikers inaccurate. In that case, it's back to step one for more research.

Each time you iterate, ask yourself if there are any ways to improve your product and whether you've taken your user persona fully into account and met your product and business requirements for this product version.

When you reach this point, pat yourself on the back — you're doing great implementing user-centered design principles!

Want even more information about best practices for implementing user-centered design principles? Here are Derby's top three tips.

First, she recommends that you use the resources you already have as you implement UCD principles. "Lean on existing mental models," suggests Derby. "As designers, it can be tempting to create new and innovative solutions for every design problem. However, a key goal of user-centered design is to reduce unnecessary mental effort for the users. If there is an existing flow that works and is widely familiar, there should be a very compelling reason, backed by research, to change it. Think long and hard before you decide to move the close button to the bottom corner of the screen."

Next, Derby reiterates the importance of seeking feedback promptly. She says, "Seek feedback early and often. It is much easier to change a design while it is still in the planning and prototyping phase than when it is being developed." If you act early enough, you'll be able to fix anything you need to without wasting plenty of time or money.

Last but not least, Derby reminds us that you're not building a product for yourself; you're building for the user. "Accept that you are not the user," she advises. "It is ok to make assumptions based on your professional experience and skills, but do not assume that you know how the user will feel about the design or how they will use it. We can only understand with testing and continuous iteration."

User-centric products require user-centric designers.

When first learning about it, UCD can feel like a lot to absorb. There are several core principles and multiple steps (and steps within steps) that you'll need to repeat numerous times. It's not uncommon to entirely scrap the old design process when a company transitions to UCD.

However, the core concept of user-centered design couldn't be more straightforward: To design for users, you need to design with users. Doing this eliminates bias and guesswork in favor of high-quality product experiences that users will enjoy and, most importantly, buy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google and Samsung, rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and leading universities around the world teach the related methodology—including Stanford, Harvard, Imperial College London and the Srishti Institute in India. Before you incorporate design thinking into your own workflows, you need to know what it is and why it’s so popular. Here, we’ll cut to the chase and tell you what design thinking is all about and why it’s so in demand.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize , 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design thinking is an iterative process in which you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions , redefine problems and create innovative solutions which you can prototype and test. The overall goal is to identify alternative strategies and solutions that are not instantly apparent with your initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is more than just a process; it opens up an entirely new way to think, and it offers a collection of hands-on methods to help you apply this new mindset.

In essence, design thinking:

Revolves around a deep interest to understand the people for whom we design products and services.

Helps us observe and develop empathy with the target users.

Enhances our ability to question: in design thinking you question the problem, the assumptions and the implications.

Proves extremely useful when you tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.

Involves ongoing experimentation through sketches , prototypes, testing and trials of new concepts and ideas.

• Transcript loading…

In this video, Don Norman , the Grandfather of Human-Centered Design , explains how the approach and flexibility of design thinking can help us tackle major global challenges.

What Are the 5 Phases of Design Thinking?

Hasso-Platner Institute Panorama

Ludwig Wilhelm Wall, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry these stages out in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process.

The core purpose of the process is to allow you to work in a dynamic way to develop and launch innovative ideas.

Design thinking is an iterative and non-linear process that contains five phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test.

Design Thinking Makes You Think Outside the Box

Design thinking can help people do out-of-the-box or outside-the-box thinking. People who use this methodology:

Attempt to develop new ways of thinking —ways that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods.

Have the intention to improve products, services and processes. They seek to analyze and understand how users interact with products to investigate the conditions in which they operate.

Ask significant questions and challenge assumptions. One element of outside-the-box / out-of-the-box thinking is to to make previous assumptions falsifiable—i.e., make it possible to prove whether they’re valid or not.

As you can see, design thinking offers us a means to think outside the box and also dig that bit deeper into problem-solving. It helps us carry out the right kind of research, create prototypes and test our products and services to uncover new ways to meet our users’ needs.

The Grand Old Man of User Experience , Don Norman, who also coined the very term User Experience , explains what Design Thinking is and what’s so special about it:

“…the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the " Five Whys " approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don't try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called "Design Thinking." — Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

Design Thinking is for Everybody

How many people are involved in the design process when your organization decides to create a new product or service? Teams that build products are often composed of people from a variety of different departments. For this reason, it can be difficult to develop, categorize and organize ideas and solutions for the problems you try to solve. One way you can keep a project on track, and organize the core ideas, is to use a design thinking approach—and everybody can get involved in that!

Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, emphasizes this in his successful book Change by Design when he says design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business.

Design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers and leaders who seek to infuse it into every level of an organization. This widespread adoption of design thinking will drive the creation of alternative products and services for both business and society.

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.” — Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design thinking techniques and strategies belong at every level of a business. You should involve colleagues from a wide range of departments to create a cross-functional team that can utilize knowledge and experience from different specialisms.

Tim Brown also shows how design thinking is not just for everybody—it’s about everybody, too. The process is firmly based on how you can generate a holistic and empathic understanding of the problems people face. Design thinking involves ambiguous, and inherently subjective, concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations and drivers of behavior .

In a solely scientific approach (for example, analyzing data), people are reduced to representative numbers, devoid of emotions. Design thinking, on the other hand, considers both quantitative as well as qualitative dimensions to gain a more complete understanding of user needs . For example, you might observe people performing a task such as shopping for groceries, and you might talk to a few shoppers who feel frustrated with the checkout process at the store (qualitative data). You can also ask them how many times a week they go shopping or feel a certain way at the checkout counter (quantitative data). You can then combine these data points to paint a holistic picture of user pain points, needs and problems.

Tim Brown sums up that design thinking provides a third way to look at problems. It’s essentially a problem-solving approach that has crystallized in the field of design to combine a holistic user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research—all with the goal to create innovative solutions.

“Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’” — Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design Thinking Has a Scientific Side

Design thinking is both an art and a science. It combines investigations into ambiguous elements of the problem with rational and analytical research —the scientific side in other words. This magical concoction reveals previously unknown parameters and helps to uncover alternative strategies which lead to truly innovative solutions.

The scientific activities analyze how users interact with products, and investigate the conditions in which they operate. They include tasks which:

Research users’ needs.

Pool experience from previous projects.

Consider present and future conditions specific to the product.

Test the parameters of the problem.

Test the practical application of alternative problem solutions.

Once you arrive at a number of potential solutions, the selection process is then underpinned by rationality. As a designer, you are encouraged to analyze and falsify these solutions to arrive at the best available option for each problem or obstacle identified during phases of the design process.

With this in mind, it may be more correct to say design thinking is not about thinking outside the box, but on its edge, its corner, its flap, and under its bar code—as Clint Runge put it.

Clint Runge is Founder and Managing Director of Archrival, a distinguished youth marketing agency, and adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Resetting Our Mental Boxes and Developing a Fresh Mindset

Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.

Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out.

The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.

Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution that fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.

A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, “Why not just let the air out of the tires?” to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.

When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge. The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.

It’s often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and everyday knowledge because we rely on building patterns of thinking in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time. We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously—for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read—but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives. In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to start questioning their knowledge.

Stories Have the Power to Inspire

Why did we tell you this story about the truck and the bridge? Well, it’s because stories can help us inspire opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real people and their lives and are important because they’re accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us with concrete details which help us imagine solutions to particular problems.

Stories also help you develop the eye of a designer. As you walk around the world, you should try to look for the design stories that are all around you. Say to yourself “that’s an example of great design” or “that's an example of really bad design ” and try to figure out the reasons why.

When you come across something particularly significant, make sure you document it either through photos or video. This will prove beneficial not only to you and your design practice but also to others—your future clients, maybe.

The Take Away

Design Thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. This simply means that the design team continuously uses their results to review, question and improve their initial assumptions, understandings and results. Results from the final stage of the initial work process inform our understanding of the problem, help us determine the parameters of the problem, enable us to redefine the problem, and, perhaps most importantly, provide us with new insights so we can see any alternative solutions that might not have been available with our previous level of understanding.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that consists of 5 phases: 1. Empathize, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype and 5. Test. You can carry out the stages in parallel, repeat them and circle back to a previous stage at any point in the process—you don’t have to follow them in order.

It’s a process that digs a bit deeper into problem-solving as you seek to understand your users, challenge assumptions and redefine problems. The design thinking process has both a scientific and artistic side to it, as it asks us to understand and challenge our natural, restrictive patterns of thinking and generate innovative solutions to the problems our users face.

Design thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach that has the intention to improve products. It helps you assess and analyze known aspects of a problem and identify the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution.

The iterative and ideation -oriented nature of design thinking means we constantly question and acquire knowledge throughout the process. This helps us redefine a problem so we can identify alternative strategies and solutions that aren’t instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding.

Design thinking is often referred to as outside-the-box thinking, as designers attempt to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods—just like artists do.

The design thinking process has become increasingly popular over the last few decades because it was key to the success of many high-profile, global organizations. This outside-the-box thinking is now taught at leading universities across the world and is encouraged at every level of business.

“The ‘Design Thinking’ label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results.” — Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Enroll in our engaging course, “Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide”

Here are some examples of good and bad designs to inspire you to look for examples in your daily life.

Read this informative article “What Is Design Thinking, and How Can SMBs Accomplish It?” by Jackie Dove.

Read this insightful article “Rethinking Design Thinking” by Don Norman.

Check out Tim Brown’s book “Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction,” 2009.

Learn more about Design Thinking in the article “Design Thinking: Dear Don” by Bill Moggridge.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

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Design Thinking

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‍ Design Thinking is a creative approach to problem-solving that puts the user at the center. The process involves several phases such as Empathy, Definition, Ideation, Prototyping, and Testing. Through iterative procedures and collaboration in interdisciplinary teams, innovative solutions are developed that are tailored to the needs of the users.

Introduction

Design Thinking is a creative and user-centered approach to problem-solving that aims to develop innovative solutions for complex issues. Here, the focus is on the user and their needs throughout the entire process. Design Thinking originated in the design industry but is now applied in many different areas, such as product development, marketing, or management.

The Design Thinking process is divided into several phases that are completed in a specific sequence. The individual phases are:

• Empathy: This phase is about developing a deep understanding of the users' needs and expectations. This is achieved through interviews, observations, or workshops.
• Definition: The insights from the Empathy phase are analyzed and translated into clearly defined problems that are addressed in the further process.
• Ideation: In this phase, ideas for possible solutions are developed. The focus is on the creativity and diversity of the ideas to receive a wide range of solution approaches.
• Prototyping: Prototypes are then created from the developed ideas, serving as tangible models of the solutions. These can consist of various materials and have different functionalities.
• Testing: The prototypes are tested with users to receive feedback and further improve the solutions. This iterative process is repeated until a satisfactory solution is found.

It is important to note that the Design Thinking process is not linear, but iterative and cyclical. This means that one can return to a previous phase at any time to further refine insights and ideas.

Interdisciplinary Teams

A central element of Design Thinking is the collaboration in interdisciplinary teams. The different backgrounds and experiences of the team members allow for a diverse perspective on the problem and promote the development of creative and innovative solutions. Communication and collaboration within the team are supported by various methods such as brainstorming, sketching, or storytelling.

Design Thinking and Innovation

Design Thinking is an approach that fosters innovation. Through the user-centered focus and the creative idea generation processes, solutions are created that are tailored to the needs and expectations of the users. Often, new and unconventional paths are taken, which can lead to real innovations. In addition, the iterative approach creates space for continuous improvements, allowing the developed solutions to be constantly optimized and adapted to changing needs.

Design Thinking is a creative and user-centered approach to problem-solving that can be applied in many different areas. By focusing on the user and collaborating in interdisciplinary teams, innovative solutions are developed that are tailored to the needs of the target group. The iterative process allows for continuous improvement of the solutions and promotes the development of real innovations.

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User-centered design

User-centered design can be defined as a creative approach to problem-solving that centers on users throughout planning, design, and development—customized to fit their needs. Whether you’re developing a digital or physical product, with the user in mind, you guarantee creating a product that’s both desired and user-friendly.

What are the benefits of user-centered design? 

• Higher ROI 
• Increased likelihood of sales 
• A more competitive edge 
• A boost in customer loyalty and brand perception  
• Reduced risk of lost time and budget 

Questions to ask to achieve user-centered design 

Consider asking your colleagues, and of course, your users: 

• What problem are we solving for our users?
• What are your pain points? 
• If you had a magic wand, what would you change?

What are the user-centered design principles? 

While there’s no one set approach to user-centered design, design firm IDEO follows a six-step process. 

1. Serve your users first and the rest will follow

2. Design for speed and simplicity

3. Design for mobile

4. Create a consistent experience across channels 

5. Get user feedback, early and often

Human understanding. Human experiences.

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What Is Design Thinking & Why Is It Important?

• 18 Jan 2022

In an age when innovation is key to business success and growth, you’ve likely come across the term “design thinking.” Perhaps you’ve heard it mentioned by a senior leader as something that needs to be utilized more, or maybe you’ve seen it on a prospective employee's resume.

While design thinking is an ideology based on designers’ workflows for mapping out stages of design, its purpose is to provide all professionals with a standardized innovation process to develop creative solutions to problems—design-related or not.

Why is design thinking needed? Innovation is defined as a product, process, service, or business model featuring two critical characteristics: novel and useful. Yet, there’s no use in creating something new and novel if people won’t use it. Design thinking offers innovation the upgrade it needs to inspire meaningful and impactful solutions.

But what is design thinking, and how does it benefit working professionals?

What Is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a mindset and approach to problem-solving and innovation anchored around human-centered design . While it can be traced back centuries—and perhaps even longer—it gained traction in the modern business world after Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO, published an article about it in the Harvard Business Review .

Design thinking is different from other innovation and ideation processes in that it’s solution-based and user-centric rather than problem-based. This means it focuses on the solution to a problem instead of the problem itself.

For example, if a team is struggling with transitioning to remote work, the design thinking methodology encourages them to consider how to increase employee engagement rather than focus on the problem (decreasing productivity).

The essence of design thinking is human-centric and user-specific. It’s about the person behind the problem and solution, and requires asking questions such as “Who will be using this product?” and “How will this solution impact the user?”

The first, and arguably most important, step of design thinking is building empathy with users. By understanding the person affected by a problem, you can find a more impactful solution. On top of empathy, design thinking is centered on observing product interaction, drawing conclusions based on research, and ensuring the user remains the focus of the final implementation.

The Four Phases of Innovation

So, what does design thinking entail? There are many models of design thinking that range from three to seven steps.

In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase innovation framework. The phases venture from concrete to abstract thinking and back again as the process loops, reverses, and repeats. This is an important balance because abstract thinking increases the likelihood that an idea will be novel. It’s essential, however, to anchor abstract ideas in concrete thinking to ensure the solution is valid and useful.

Here are the four phases for effective innovation and, by extension, design thinking.

The first phase is about narrowing down the focus of the design thinking process. It involves identifying the problem statement to come up with the best outcome. This is done through observation and taking the time to determine the problem and the roadblocks that prevented a solution in the past.

Various tools and frameworks are available—and often needed—to make concrete observations about users and facts gathered through research. Regardless of which tools are implemented, the key is to observe without assumptions or biased expectations.

Once findings from your observations are collected, the next step is to shape insights by framing those observations. This is where you can venture into the abstract by reframing the problem in the form of a statement or question.

Once the problem statement or question has been solidified—not finalized—the next step is ideation. You can use a tool such as systematic inventive thinking (SIT) in this stage, which is useful for creating an innovative process that can be replicated in the future.

The goal is to ultimately overcome cognitive fixedness and devise new and innovative ideas that solve the problems you identified. Continue to actively avoid assumptions and keep the user at the forefront of your mind during ideation sessions.

The third phase involves developing concepts by critiquing a range of possible solutions. This includes multiple rounds of prototyping, testing, and experimenting to answer critical questions about a concept’s viability.

Remember: This step isn’t about perfection, but rather, experimenting with different ideas and seeing which parts work and which don’t.

4. Implement

The fourth and final phase, implementation, is when the entire process comes together. As an extension of the develop phase, implementation starts with testing, reflecting on results, reiterating, and testing again. This may require going back to a prior phase to iterate and refine until you find a successful solution. Such an approach is recommended because design thinking is often a nonlinear, iterative process.

In this phase, don’t forget to share results with stakeholders and reflect on the innovation management strategies implemented during the design thinking process. Learning from experience is an innovation process and design thinking project all its own.

Check out the video about the design thinking process below, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

Why Design Thinking Skills Matter

The main value of design thinking is that it offers a defined process for innovation. While trial and error is a good way to test and experiment what works and what doesn’t, it’s often time-consuming, expensive, and ultimately ineffective. On the other hand, following the concrete steps of design thinking is an efficient way to develop new, innovative solutions.

On top of a clear, defined process that enables strategic innovation, design thinking can have immensely positive outcomes for your career—in terms of both advancement and salary.

As of December 2021, the most common occupations requiring design thinking skills were:

• Marketing managers
• Industrial engineers
• Graphic designers
• Software developers
• General and operations managers
• Management analysts
• Personal service managers
• Architectural and engineering managers
• Computer and information systems managers

In addition, jobs that require design thinking statistically have higher salaries. Take a marketing manager position, for example. The median annual salary is $107,900. Marketing manager job postings that require design thinking skills, however, have a median annual salary of $133,900—a 24 percent increase.

Overall, businesses are looking for talent with design thinking skills. As of November 2021, there were 29,648 job postings in the United States advertising design thinking as a necessary skill—a 153 percent increase from November 2020, and a 637 percent increase from November 2017.

As businesses continue to recognize the need for design thinking and innovation, they’ll likely create more demand for employees with those skills.

Learning Design Thinking

Design thinking is an extension of innovation that allows you to design solutions for end users with a single problem statement in mind. It not only imparts valuable skills but can help advance your career.

It’s also a collaborative endeavor that can only be mastered through practice with peers. As Datar says in the introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation : “Just as with learning how to swim, the best way to practice is to jump in and try.”

If you want to learn design thinking, take an active role in your education. Start polls, problem-solving exercises, and debates with peers to get a taste of the process. It’s also important to seek out diverse viewpoints to prepare yourself for the business world.

In addition, if you’re considering adding design thinking to your skill set, think about your goals and why you want to learn about it. What else might you need to be successful?

You might consider developing your communication, innovation, leadership, research, and management skills, as those are often listed alongside design thinking in job postings and professional profiles.

You may also notice skills like agile methodology, user experience, and prototyping in job postings, along with non-design skills, such as product management, strategic planning, and new product development.

Is Design Thinking Right for You?

There are many ways to approach problem-solving and innovation. Design thinking is just one of them. While it’s beneficial to learn how others have approached problems and evaluate if you have the same tools at your disposal, it can be more important to chart your own course to deliver what users and customers truly need.

You can also pursue an online course or workshop that dives deeper into design thinking methodology. This can be a practical path if you want to improve your design thinking skills or require a more collaborative environment.

Are you ready to develop your design thinking skills? Explore our online course Design Thinking and Innovation to discover how to leverage fundamental design thinking principles and innovative problem-solving tools to address business challenges.

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Design Thinking vs. User-Centered Design: What's the difference?

Rapid growth in technology is forcing a variety of organizations to reassess their current offerings and operations in order to exchange them for more up-to-date, user-friendly options. The terms user-centered design (UCD) and design thinking (DT) are more and more frequently used by businesses, governments, design agencies, and social organizations when discussing finding solutions for both individual, consumer, and societal problems. But, what exactly do these terms mean? Are they interchangeable or are they their own unique process?

Some may argue that these design methods are one and the same, while others swear by their differences. In this article, we’ll break down what each design method is, what their similarities are, where they diverge, and when to use each.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is user-centered design?
• What is design thinking?
• What are the differences between user-centered design and design thinking?
• What do user-centered design and design thinking have in common?
• Final thought

These two disciplines can be quite similar in nature, yet there are crucial distinctions to make between them.  Let’s get into it!

1. What is user-centered design?

The term user-centered design was first coined in 1977 by computer scientist Rob Kling. It gained further attention and popularity as it was featured in Don Norman’s books User-Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (1986) and The Design of Everyday Things (1988) .

In short, user-centered design is an approach to design that puts users’ needs front and center, and follows an iterative design process that focuses on the user’s needs every step of the way. While there is some focus on the requirements of the company, a majority of design decisions are made with the user’s expectations and needs at the forefront. The main goal of UCD is to create a product that is highly desirable and functional to the user.

There are five key principles that guide user-centered design and four main steps that make up the UCD process.

The main principles of UCD are:

• Early involvement of end-users
• A clear understanding of the context of use and user needs
• Regular collection, analysis, and incorporation of user feedback
• Employing a user-centric approach to product development and delivery procedures
• Utilizing an iterative design process with a continual goal to improve user experience

The four steps of the UCD process are as follows:

• Understand the user and context of use: This first step is all about researching your users’ behaviors, problems, and goals as well as how they might interact with your product.
• Specify user and business requirements: Here, you establish why the product is beneficial for both the users and the business, and find metrics to measure what success looks like to the company and the users.
• Create design solutions: Step three is all about storyboarding, journey mapping, wireframing, designing mockups and user flows, testing out different UI elements, as well as determining effective information architecture to design a product that solves users’ problems.
• Evaluate designs: Finally, you conduct usability testing (preferably with actual users) to test the effectiveness of preliminary designs, and determine what is working well and what needs improvement

Once the UCD process has been completed, there’s usually a need for multiple rounds of iteration until the design is complete and ready for release.

If you’d like to learn more about UCD, check out our user-centered design how-to guide .

2. What is design thinking?

Design was first thought of as a science or way of thinking by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert A. Simon in 1969. This concept has been accepted and expanded upon widely by a variety of designers, scholars, and practitioners over the years, but IDEO has been credited with bringing design thinking into the mainstream—they even coined their own terminology and step-by-step process.

Design thinking is a creative approach to innovation and problem-solving that takes design perspectives and processes and applies them to problems that designers don’t typically encounter.

According to IDEO, design thinking looks for solutions to “wicked” (or complex) problems that are feasible (technologically possible), desirable (to the end user), and viable (cost-effective to the business).

Design thinking is an iterative process consisting of five steps:

• Empathize : Develop an understanding of the challenges the system/users are facing through observation (ie. interviews, surveys, etc.).
• Define : Analyze data and clearly articulate the problem you want to solve.
• Ideate : Brainstorm a large quantity of diverse ideas that could serve as potential solutions to the problem.
• Prototype: Build a simulation of your ideas as prototypes to test as possible solutions.
• Test : Share and test the prototype with end-users for assessment then implement feedback into rapid iteration.

Design thinking is a non-traditional approach to problem solving and can be applied to a variety of industries to help strengthen their services, products, policies, or design processes. It can be used to develop solutions for end-users but can also help organizations reinforce innovation, boost creativity, and implement new strategies and concepts for better overall function.

If you’d like to learn more about design thinking, there are lots of books about design thinking out there, as well as design thinking exercises you can try out. You can also check out how I describe it in this video:

3. What are the differences between user-centered design and design thinking?

Since user-centered design and design thinking both help find solutions to people’s problems, you may be wondering what the big differences between these two design methods are. While the steps and general mindset of each are quite similar, the most notable difference is their primary focus.

User-centered design focuses on fostering deep empathy with the population you are designing for. The goal is to create solutions with users’ needs and feedback at the forefront of all design decisions.

User-centered design is a great approach when you want to design a highly desirable product for a specific audience.In the UCD process, the user is the focus from first ideation to development and release. Check out these great examples of user-centered design .

While design thinking also requires great knowledge of the user, it also takes technological feasibility and business goals into consideration. This is a method that can be applied to more than just product development.

Design thinking utilizes abductive reasoning to identify and solve complex problems that may affect product design or organizational policies, processes, and function. Check out these game-changing examples of design thinking .

4. What do user-centered design and design thinking have in common?

While the primary focus of these two approaches are indeed different, user-centered design and design thinking share many similar principles and concepts. Let’s take a look at what these design methods have in common.

Empathy is key for UX designers . The ability to feel for your users and understand their behaviors as well as the challenges they face is a crucial part of any design process. So, whether you are using UCD to create a stellar mobile app or design thinking to revamp employee training, you’ll need to have great awareness of the population you are designing for and what their needs are.

Problem-solving

Both UCD and DT view problems as opportunities for improvement. Each method takes an optimistic approach to problem-solving and uses structure, action, and design to take the issue at hand and turn it into a positive experience for both the company and their users.

The process for both UCD and DT is a cyclical one that relies on learning from mistakes and incorporating user feedback into future designs. At the end of each cycle, designers assess what went well, what needs work, and how to use past failure to generate new and improved solutions.

Collaboration

Each design method works best when a team of people across organizational silos work together. Both approaches are optimized when designers, high level executives, developers, accountants, customer-facing employees, researchers, etc., all work together towards a common goal.

5. Final thought

Both user-centered design and design thinking are invaluable resources to keep in your designers toolbox. When choosing which design method will work best for your current project, it’s important to understand the subtle variance between user-centered design and design thinking.

While they each have analogous steps and similar overarching concepts, the small differences in their main focus may make one method more preferable than the other.

However, what is clear about both UCD and DT is their empathic, collaborative, and iterative nature when solving problems for individuals, organizations, and societies at large.

If you’d like to read more about both of design thinking and user-centred design, as well as the field of UX design in general, check out these articles:

• How to Get a Design Thinking Certification: The Best Programs and Courses
• What Is Information Architecture in UX Design?
• Why Should Designers Learn to Code?

(Cover image credit: Andrea Piacquadio @ PICNOI )

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