Dec 15 2008
This fall I spent time as an informal advisor at Stanford University’s d.school (formally known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford). Headed by George Kembel, the d.school is one of the leading design schools in the world and one of the most prominent proponents of design thinking.
The d.school emphasizes observation, design, iteration, and teamwork by applying the following tenets:
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Leverage the team: At the d.school, students from many different backgrounds (including product design, business, engineering, journalism, and education) come together in part to learn how to work together. Each person is strong in their area, but often people with different backgrounds have a different vocabulary, value different approaches, and have different ways of looking at issues and opportunities. One of the d.school’s goals is to ensure that people are overcoming and leveraging these differences, so that 1) they can be part of productive teams, and 2) there is a sense that many of the challenges society faces today can best be overcome by people from different disciplines working effectively together and looking at issues from many perspectives at once.
- Develop deep empathy and always go back to your users: During my time at the d.school, I definitely saw this in action. During “team time”, it was common for teams to venture out of the building to talk to people about their ideas, to try out their ideas, and get feedback. In their presentations, teams included photos, videos, and other information about real people’s lives and how the team’s idea could fit into those people’s lives.
- Bias towards action & iterate, iterate, iterate: Teams are encouraged to repeat the design approach to quickly iterate on ideas, rather than coming to a solution quickly.
- Always treat your prototypes like a piñata: Prototypes are a means to learn more about an idea and engage potential users. Teams are encouraged not to become attached to ideas to quickly, but instead to see how they can use the design approach build and refine their ideas.
- Think “Wild” First; “Making It Real” will come later. Important considerations such as feasibility and viability were scheduled for later in the quarter after the teams had time to create a wide range of ideas based on understanding people and their needs.
There are many things I admire and about the d.school, including its commitment to apply the design approach to itself: its physical space, classes, curriculum, etc. For example, at the end of every class, teachers and students are encouraged to participate in an open discussion about what worked well and what could be improved next time. The physical space is considered a prototype in action. Adjustments are constantly being made to improve and facilitate the experience.
Thank you to George Kembel, Scott Doorley, Dave Baggeroer, and the staff and students at the d.school for making my time there so enjoyable and worthwhile, and to Michael Dearing and Steve Bishop for their help in making the contacts.
If you’re interested in learning more about the d.school, go to the website or stop by for a tour.
– Jeff
Stanford's d.school
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Jun 30 2008
Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, provides an excellent overview of design thinking and its benefits in this month’s Harvard Business Review.
Design thinking focuses on the intersection of customer, technology, and business opportunities. More specifically, he defines design thinking as “a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity”.
An approach that leverages design thinking also includes:
- A team of people from multiple perspectives (not the “lone genius inventor”).
- Rapid prototyping to “generate useful feedback and evolve an idea….the goal of prototyping isn’t to finish. It is to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of an idea and to identify new directions that further prototype might take.”
- Planning the work as “a system of spaces rather than a predefined series of orderly steps”. IDEO defines the spaces as Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. For example, the Ideation space may include activities such as brainstorming, sketching, prototyping, and getting early reactions from potential customers.
He argues the following personal characteristics are most vital to achieve design thinking:
- Empathy: Design thinkers” imagine the world from multiple perspectives”. They “notice things that others do not and use their insights to inspire innovation”.
- Integrative Thinking: They combine “analytical processes (those that produce either/or choices)” with integrative thinking (“the ability to see all of the salient – and sometimes contradictory — aspects of a confounding problem”).
- Optimism: They assume “at least one potential solution is better than the existing alternatives”.
- Experimentalism: To innovate, design thinkers rely on revolution rather than evolution (i.e. “incremental tweaks”). They “pose questions and explore constraints in creative ways that proceed in entirely new directions”.
- Collaboration: The “myth of the lone genius” has been replaced by the “reality of the enthusiastic interdisciplinary collaborator”.
The article outlines several examples of design thinking and its impact, including a project at Shimano (a Japanese manufacturer of bicycle components). An interdisciplinary team spent time with potential customers to gain broad insights into people’s thoughts about and experiences cycling. Their work resulted in a holistic view of the cycling experience and a new concept, “coasting”, focused more on the pleasure of riding than the sport. The insights also led to changes to make the in-store experience less intimidating to potential customers. The result was a complete, innovative solution that benefited the business as well as customers.
Design thinking can be applied to a wide variety products, services, and entertainment experiences. You can read more of Tim Brown’s ideas on design thinking on his blog.
Stanford University’s Institute of Design (also known as the d.school ) is a graduate-level program that focuses on teaching design thinking. I’ll be spending time there this fall as an informal advisor. I’ll write more about my experiences there at the end of the year.
– Jeff
Tim Brown’s photo by Robert Scoble. Some rights reserved.
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