Design Thinking and Methodology Notes

1. 21DCS201P - Design Thinking
and Methodology

2. Course Learning Rationale (CLR):
CLR-1 : Designed to explores mindset, skill set and toolset
associated with design
CLR-2 : Designed to work with guided applications to framing and
solving problems from the perspectives of both business and
engineering writing
CLR-3 : Exposing students diverging to generate solutions and
converging to select among them
CLR-4 : Design methods to create concept generation methods,
concept selection methods, imagining alternative futures

3. Course Outcomes (CO): At the end of this course, learners will
be able to:
CO-1: learn and understand technology design
concepts
CO-2: learning mindset, skillset and toolset
associated with design
CO-3: identify the best solutions and converging to
select among them.
CO-4: understand concept generation methods,
concept selection methods, imagining
alternative futures

4. Unit-1 -Introduction to Design Methodology
Design Frameworks - Engineering Design
Problem Solving - Developing Design
Solutions - Making Design Solutions -
Evaluating Design Solutions - Project
Introduction and Team formation -
Stakeholder Map - Brainstorming

5. The five stages of design thinking, according to
the d.school, are:
•Empathize: research your users' needs.
•Define: state your users' needs and problems.
•Ideate: challenge assumptions and create ideas.
•Prototype: start to create solutions.
•Test: try your solutions out.

7. Empathy - user-centric research
• The main aim of the Empathize stage
is to develop the best possible
understanding of your users, their
needs and the problems that underlie
the development of the product or
service you want to create.

8. Empathy - user-centric research
• gain an empathic understanding of the
problem
• Consult experts to find out more about the
area of concern
• conduct observations to engage and
empathize with your users
• immerse yourself in your users’ physical
environment to gain a deeper, personal
understanding of the issues involved—as
well as their experiences and motivations

9. Define - Users' Needs and Problems
 organize the information gathered during the Empathize stage.
 analyze the observations to define the core problems that have
been identified up to this point
 Defining the problem and problem statement must be done in a
human-centered manner.

10. Ideate - Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
 look at the problem from different perspectives and ideate
innovative solutions to your problem statement.
 There are hundreds of ideation techniques —such as
Brainstorm, Brainwrite, Worst Possible Idea and SCAMPER.

11. Prototype - Start to Create Solutions
 scaled down versions of the product (or specific features
found within the product) to investigate the key solutions
generated in the ideation phase.
 These prototypes can be shared and tested within the team
itself, in other departments or on a small group of people

12. Test—Try Your Solutions Out
 The ultimate goal is to get as deep an understanding of the
product and its users as possible.

13. Case Study —Problem
Imagine that you live in a remote village in Nepal. It’s winter and
freezing sleet pounds the nearby roads, making them nearly
impassable. A little girl, and she’s premature and severely
underweight. The room that you’re in, while warm to you, feels like an
ice-bath to the baby. Without help soon, she will almost certainly die
from hypothermia. What do you do? Worldwide, about 15 million
premature babies are born every year and the most common
preventable cause of infant mortality is hypothermia. As designers, we
solve the problems of others, and solving the problem of infant
mortality due to hypothermia seems like an extremely worthy design
challenge. This is exactly what a team from Stanford’s d.school set out
to accomplish as a project for the class Design for Extreme
Affordability (often known just as “Extreme”).

14. Case Study —Solution (The Embrace infant
warmer)

15. Solution

16. Case Study —IDEO and Bank of America’s
Keep the Change program
Let’s try a thought experiment. Put yourself in the state of mind of
someone living paycheck to paycheck. For some of us who as designers
spent time freelancing and waiting … and waiting … to get paid by
clients, this might not be a hard thing to imagine.
What are some of your biggest fears? Getting your water or heat shut off
because you can’t pay bills on time? Maybe things
are bad enough that you worry you won’t make rent and could get
evicted. You probably don’t have time (or the means) to worry about
setting up a savings plan.
So how do you go about designing a banking product for someone stuck
in this vicious cycle? In 2004, the design firm IDEO tackled exactly this
challenge for Bank of America.