Tag Archives: Design Thinking

News

Design Thinking is marketing’s best friend: Pooja Bal in Brand Equity

Our Head of Digital Advisory, Pooja Bal wrote a feature in Brand Equity, a weekly supplement on Marketing & Advertising published by India’s leading business daily, Economic Times. In the article, Pooja outlines what Design Thinking is:

Design Thinking is a holistic problem-solving framework, which is not limited to front-end, consumer facing, graphic design or UI/UX-related issues alone.

She then goes on to argue that the marketing fraternity is best suited to lead design thinking initiatives as they are familiar with ‘thinking like a customer’ and feeling their pain points. Design Thinking can help transformation that simplifies the lives of employees or customers, or trying to make progress on a strategic initiative, she argues.

You can read the full article here.

Read More
Mobile Opinion

How Design Thinking helped me understand the customer in a digital world

As long as businesses have existed in the history of humanity, customer has been king. However, with the advent of digitization, customer is not just king but an empowered one, fortified with the armor of information.

Digital economy has brought about a profound change in the way customers make their purchase decisions. In the past decade, this change has accelerated faster than businesses have evolved.

It is no longer a world where the customers need to be ‘told’ by the businesses about their products; rather customers have a plethora of options to find out about any product or service. The circle of word-of-mouth for today’s customer has expanded from just family and friends to the entire online world, where thousands of reviews about a product are available at a click.

It is easy for businesses to find out what their customers ‘need’ given the vast amount of consumer data that is available today.

But do businesses understand what customers really want?

Until enterprises find this answer, they will continue to push products and services that they think customers need, instead of fulfilling the latent or unsaid needs of the customer.

And, data alone wouldn’t serve that answer to organizations on a platter.

Empathy is the key to innovation

As rightly said by Steve Jobs:

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

Customers cannot always articulate what they want; they can tell you their pain points but meeting the latent needs of customers from those pain points is where real innovation happens.

To understand these latent needs, it is crucial for entrepreneurs and product innovators to empathize with their customers. This will only be achieved when we step into the customers’ shoes and live with them, and that cannot happen inside an air-conditioned office, looking at a heap of data.

I call this GOOB – go out of the building, and live with your customers.

We will have to move out of our comfort zones, observe the customer, understand how they behave, their challenges & pain points, derive insights and then develop a product.

This is where Design Thinking becomes extremely important. It is critical for organizations to approach innovation from a Design Thinking perspective.

Learning Design Thinking – my journey

With this realization of how critical it is for any executive to have the knowledge of Design Thinking, I started my journey of learning the concept.

While there were institutes like Standford d.school and MIT which were offering courses on Design Thinking, they were doing it predominantly from an academic perspective. However, for an executive like me, it was essential to find out something which was flexible yet detailed enough to fit into my schedule.

During my stint with Nihilent Technologies, along with overseeing the growth, profitability and expansion of the company in 5 continents, I was responsible for the creation of new products and services in the areas of strategy, digital transformation and IT alignment. To fulfill this role successfully and deliver value to customers it was critical for me to apply the concepts of Design Thinking.

This was when I was introduced to Interaction Design Foundation (IDF).

It was without debate the best online portal available, and to my delight, IDF had over 25 online courses on design.

When I enrolled, I intended to do a course on services design. However, in just a matter of 5 months, I ended up doing six courses:

The fact that these courses were exceptionally well designed and the entire process was enjoyable helped me take up six courses in such a short duration. Moreover, I not just finished them but also was able to excel in all because of the structure of these courses. Recently, I was delighted to receive this email from IDF on my performance:

‘’One of our developers did a database extract of the top performers (1%) in our courses, and your name came out on that list!’’ – Mads Soegaard, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Interaction Design Foundation

Learning Design Thinking – my journey

 

Learning Design Thinking – my journey

That was not the end – I continue to take various courses on IDF. In fact, I am doing three more courses on the portal currently!

All the concepts that I learnt through IDF have had a direct impact on my work and the way I design solutions for my customers. For e.g. in one of my earlier roles, I was responsible for designing balanced scorecards and CEO scorecards for my customer. Some of the learnings from the course – what certain colors mean, how people perceive colors, what a specific design element can mean for the audience, etc. helped me immensely in the successful completion of the project.

In fact, applying these concepts helped me deliver these projects with minimal iterations and with utmost proficiency. This was the feedback I received from my customers while working on this assignment using the principles of Design Thinking.

‘’Ravi, you get the deliverables right in the very first time.’’

I also use these concepts in my day-to-day professional life. Any element that I use in my presentations, documents, website, etc. has a specific connotation that connects with the end-user. Further, the importance of the concept of ‘less is more’ was something which I learnt from IDF. A concept that I have used while designing dashboards, mobile applications, software solutions, and even for a presentation.

Prudent entrepreneurs and product innovators understand the business implications of applying Design Thinking to solve real business problems. They take measures to implement Design Thinking at an organizational level. At Nihilent Technologies; I had the opportunity to work with LC Singh (Executive Vice Chairman, Nihilent Technologies) who understood the value of Design Thinking for business solutions and had set up a ‘Design Lab’ in the very initial phases of starting the company.

At Robosoft, our founder, Rohith Bhat realized early-on that Design Thinking is a practical and creative method for problem-solving that has evolved from fields as varied as engineering, architecture and business. And, to apply the principles of Design Thinking while creating products for customers a Design Lab was set up in 2013.

Today, at Design Lab, we have a robust and talented team of designers spread across Udupi and Mumbai. These designers are crafting delightful digital experiences for our customers by bringing the concept of ‘emotional engineering’ to life, day in and day out.

Democratization of design education

I believe that any professional should be a student for life. Digitization has transformed the landscape of education and training. In this digital era, we have to learn and unlearn continuously, and for that to happen portals like IDF are extremely helpful.

At Robosoft also, we do not call ourselves a bunch of engineers – we are a bunch of designers and above all ’empathizers’. And, this is where Design Thinking becomes extremely critical at an organizational level. Portals like IDF are helping in inculcating designing thinking process at a global level by democratizing it and making it easily available for professionals across the globe.

Three tips for learning online

With the digitization of education, the online world has opened up a plethora of resources for professionals to learn and keep updating their knowledge base. However, given our busy lifestyle, it requires dedication and commitment to benefit from these

3 Tips for Learning Online

Here are few tips to make the most out of portals like IDF:

  • Find 1-1.5 hours every day as soon as you wake up or before you go to bed to go through the courses, and stick to that routine.
  • Pick up courses that offer certifications – it will motivate you to keep going and also build your professional profile.
  • Gamification – have a healthy competition with yourself and peers who are taking up the course… it will keep the excitement going.

Design Thinking has become an extremely critical skill for any professional irrespective of the field they are into. And, portals like IDF are helping in building a talent pool of design thinkers across domains.

IDF has been an enabler for me in my professional journey, and it continues to help me upgrade my knowledge and skills. As Henry Ford said:

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.

I hope this account will help and inspire professionals across the industry in starting their journey of Design Thinking.

Read More
Mobile Opinion

How Design Thinking can accelerate Digital Transformation

Technology is part of a consumer’s everyday life, as it keeps our world connected. Thanks to technology we have come to expect all value providers – from businesses to government, to deliver personalized solutions on any device, anywhere in real time. It has also changed the way customers and businesses consume goods and services. It implies that the ways in which companies design and build their services must evolve to keep pace with the digital world.

In that context, Digital Transformation is imperative for all businesses. This message comes through loud and clear from every keynote, presentation, panel discussion, article, or study related to how businesses can remain competitive and relevant as the world becomes increasingly digital. What has thrown business leaders in a tizzy is a common understanding of what exactly ‘Digital Transformation’ means.

It is impossible to derive a single definition of ‘Digital Transformation’ that applies to all businesses. Digital Transformation will look different for different companies. We at Robosoft define Digital Transformation as:

The incorporation and unification of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in positive changes in how businesses operate and deliver value.

Also, it’s a fundamental change in culture that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo and experiment often.

But, why should Companies have Digital Transformation as a priority in their strategy? Pragmatic syllogism dictates- “because they have to”. It has become a survival issue for businesses in a digital savvy world. Howard King, in a contributed article for The Guardian, puts it this way:

“Businesses don’t transform by choice. Why would they want that? It is expensive and risky! They transform because they have no other alternative.”

The term ‘Digital Transformation’ is also often misunderstood as the application of ‘hyped’ or trending technology as the first step to solving any problem. At Robosoft we understand both the necessities as well as the risks surrounding Digital Transformation. That’s why when we work with our clients to implement Digital Transformation in their organizations, we do it based on the principles of a holistic problem-solving framework: Design Thinking.

The principles of ‘Design Thinking’ can be of great help to anyone trying to solve a problem or looking for better ways of getting work done. Design Thinking is a practical and creative method for problem-solving that has evolved from fields as varied as engineering, architecture and business.

Why Design Thinking?

The Design Thinking approach is especially useful for solving problems that require innovative solutions since it’s a powerful tool to tackle tasks that are unfamiliar or have never been done before. Problems and therefore innovative solutions seem to be apparent when you look at them from a distance.

“Design transcends innovation. It speaks to the politics of optimism.”
– Paul Bennett

How Design Thinking helps

Design thinking is a tool that helps to better conceptualize the tasks involved. It is a tool that helps us understand all the hidden loopholes and lets us have some measurable assessment while approaching a big project. It is a framework that lets us challenge the scope and narrowness of our thought process, and to push its boundaries. That is the key to transformation itself, and the basis upon which we construct our Digital Transformation strategies.

There has been considerable research around the process of adopting a Design Thinking approach to solve each specific kind of problem.

Define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn. These are the seven steps involved in one of the renditions of the Design Thinking process.

The steps aren’t linear – they can occur simultaneously and be repeated. A simpler expression of the process is Robert McKim’s phrase “Express–Test–Cycle”.

Another, five-phase description of the process is described by Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer: (re)defining the problem, need-finding and benchmarking, ideating, building, testing.

Yet another way to look at it is Shewhart’s “Plan-Do-Study-Act” PDSA cycle.

PDSA Cycle

Image source: NHS

All the above approaches have their own merits and are applicable within various contexts. But the Design Thinking method shares a common, universal set of traits, mainly: Empathy, Iterativeness and Collaborative Approach.

3 Traits of Design Thinking

Empathy:

Organizations approach users with empathy, understanding about user’s troubles and grievances. The key here is for organizations to be able to put themselves in the user’s shoes; think what they think, feel what they feel, understanding the various pain-points for the users and be able to map these pain points in accordance to magnitude and scope of each.

It is not only about making things more efficient but about understanding people. Conventional research methods, like focus groups and surveys, can be useful in pointing towards incremental improvements, but those don’t usually lead to breakthroughs because these techniques simply ask people what they want.

It is important to understand that users may not always be able to fully comprehend their own needs or demands, because of their limited understanding of viabilities and feasibilities of possible solutions.

Therefore, the key is to put oneself in the user’s shoes and think from their perspective while also holding on to the knowledge and insights about the technologies that could make the solutions possible.

Henry Ford understood this when he said:

“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said ‘a faster horse.”

No one would have asked for a car.

Iterativeness:

Once the organization is done with understanding the pain points of the users, it formulates problem statements and works through them to think about solution ideas. When the best ideas generated during ideation are crystalized, the implementation process begins.

At the heart of the implementation process is incremental and iterative prototyping: converting concepts to realities, turning ideas into actual products and services; which are then tested, iterated, and refined.

With the Iterative approach, a manifestation of the Agile Development process, first the organizations do ‘just enough’ planning to get started with building the minimal feature set, formally called the ‘minimal viable product feature set’, which they go on to build.

Next, they test and review that small set and get it ready to ship. When that cycle is complete, we end up with a potentially shippable product.

Through the planning process, organizations are doing just enough planning to complete the next incremental release. Thus, one ends up with several incremental releases, and one just keeps repeating these incremental releases until the product is feature-complete.

Collaborative approach:

As discussed earlier, Digital Transformation looks different for every industry and every organization since each of these companies has unique operating procedures and standards and unique needs. Therefore, providing each company with customized Digital Transformation solutions involves a fair bit of innovation from digital advisors, as they must figure out how to tailor and personalize technological tools to satisfy unique customer problems.

Hence, the “collaborative approach”, advocated by the Design Thinking principle becomes essential. Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction-based, process-oriented problem-solving which emphasizes a collective work process for problem-solving, as opposed to cooperation, which emphasizes just interaction-based goal-oriented problem-solving. It should be understood that, in principle, cooperation is a subset activity of collaboration.

Understanding the innovations required in the Digital Transformation process of any company, the collaboration between technology providers, the client organization and the client’s end customer becomes very important. This is primarily because the notion of ‘lone innovator’ is a myth.

Innovation happens when people marshal their collective knowledge and insights to the process, working together as a creative group.

Secondly, most of the great solutions to vexing problems come from the edges of a domain. That is when knowledge domains conventionally thought of as ‘independent’ speak to each other, contributing their offerings to collectively solve some problem, the probability of innovation to occur increases significantly.

A classic example in respect to the principle that states, “Innovation happens at the intersection of disciplines” is that of Charles Darwin. Darwin was a geologist and collected a number of bird species from the Galápagos Islands. He kept poor notes of his collection and returned the birds and notes over to John Gould upon his return. Gould was an expert ornithologist and initially dismissed the birds as being normal. Gould later discovered that each species was in fact distinct. The example shows how Darwin, without the knowledge of ornithology, could contribute to the field without having the training or knowledge. Drawing analogies from this classic example, in order to get innovative solutions for Digital Transformation of companies, Design Thinking advocates that people from multiple disciplines should put their heads together and collaborate.

Based on work with over 300 clients, Robosoft specializes in deriving value from Design Thinking by being focused on analyzing the changing Digital Transformation needs of our clients and providing solutions for complex problems for small to large organizations. By using Design Thinking and Agile, companies can define and solve their Digital Transformation problems, by incorporating new functionalities using an iterative approach, which is transparent and minimizes risk. Whether the transformation is for business development, administration, operations, finance or marketing, whether you are trying to improve a process that simplifies the lives of employees or customers, or whether you are trying to make progress on a strategic initiative, Design Thinking is your answer to accelerate this business transfiguration. As the contexts change, organizations need to evolve faster than ever and keep redesigning themselves… everyday.

Read More