Design Thinking Blog

Overview of this Interview: This is PART 3 of an interview with Tom Kelley on many aspects of leading at IDEO and the things they are still learning as a company.

Thoughts on this Interview: Vern Burkhardt does a great job of asking insightful questions into the things that Tom has learned as a leader in a company that is rewriting the rules of design and business. I appreciate that Tom brings the importance that Face to Face communications as a primary issues for effectiveness.

Original Interview HERE at ideaconnection.com

Design Thinking for Innovation

Interview with Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO, and Author of The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation

Begin Part 3…

VB: Would you talk about the concept of mapping your customers’ or potential customers’ journeys?

Tom Kelley: We discovered while designing products and services that you can follow a customers’ journey every step along the way in their dealings with you. Some of the steps include discovering about your service, exploring your offering, trying it for the first time, becoming more familiar with it, and then using it on a regular basis. In each step you can distinguish yourself, you can provide something special as opposed to being the same as every one else.

One slightly extreme example is the backpack company, JanSport, which made its warranty services different than anybody else’s. If you send your backpack in to be re-sewn or repaired JanSport sends you a little postcard with a message from your backpack while it’s at camp. No one would say this warranty service is ordinary. Read the rest of this entry »

Now IDEO is being retained by Barack Obama’s White House to help to reinvigorate the American civil service; by the government of Iceland to help the country to innovate its way out of financial crisis; and by the Kellogg Foundation to reinvent education. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of this Post: The d.school at Stanford has a bootcamp for students of Design Thinking. This article is an update on the projects and experiences of the participants.

Thoughts on this Post: It is interesting to see the process play out with those who are just learning the concepts.  This update also crosses into social uses of Design Thinking.

Original Post and Comments HERE at the d.school projects site

Redesigning Retirement

Our Bootcamp students wrapped up their second design projects this week, and the results were spectacular.

Twelve teams spent three weeks using the design process to re-invent “the Golden Years” for rebellious Baby Boomers. Students were asked to give particular focus to the empathy phase of the process, and develop a strong user Point of View (POV). Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Article: This is Part 2 of an interview with David Butler that is a follows up on the Fast Company Article and Business Week article that have drawn so much attention.

Thoughts on this Article: I like the questions that are raised and David Butler’s honesty in his answers.  This is a great “rest of the story” to go with the original interviews.

Part 2 of Designing on Purpose: An Interview with David Butler, VP of Design at Coca-Cola

by Henning Fischer

Welcome to part 2 of our interview with David Butler, VP of Design for the Coca-Cola Company. Part 1 is available here. When we left off we were talking about the different roles that design fills within Coca-Cola. This part of the interview shifts gears a bit and talks about one of the major themes we’ll be exploring at MX: designing in a down economy.

[Henning Fischer] How do you design with purpose in a down economy?

[David Butler] That’s a good question. It’s all in how you look at it. That sounds kind of trite, but there’s a similar discussion about the value of design. Is part of the value of design driven towards productivity? Doing more with less? Or is designing to do more with less thought about in terms of sustainability? They’re both sort of the same thing. In a down economy, doing more with less is exactly the focus of the company. In reality it’s what we do every day. As designers it’s always about how we can provide more value or more enduring experiences. It’s not that different from what we do in an up economy.

[Brandon Schauer] Design is easily seen as a cost center in a tough economy. What advice would you give to people who are feeling that? Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Article: This is an interview with David Butler that is a follows up on the Fast Company Article and Business Week article that have drawn so much attention.

Thoughts on this Article: I like the questions that are raised and David Butler’s honesty in his answers.  This is a great “rest of the story” to go with the original interviews.

Original Post and Comments HERE at Adaptive Path

by Henning Fischer

Photograph by Jake Chessum

Brandon Schauer and I (Henning Fischer) recently sat down with David Butler, VP of Design for the Coca-Cola Company and MX 2009 speaker. Here’s part 1 of “Designing on Purpose.”

[Henning Fischer] Could you tell us a little about yourself, your team, what you do for Coca-Cola and where you sit within the organization? Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: Robert Fabricant is leading a group of Social Innovators through steps of the Design Thinking process during a conference.

Thoughts on Post: Robert touches on one of the biggest challenges that Design Thinking faces when applied to the social/human application:  How do you create an effective rapid prototyping experience?  I look forward to reading his thoughts on this.

Original Post HERE at FastCompay

Live From PopTech: Bringing Design to Social Innovators

BY Robert FabricantWed Oct 21, 2009 at 11:58 AM

Every year (at least for the last two) I have had the honor of serving as part of the core faculty of the PopTech Fellows Program. This means I’m involved in the planning stages for this five-day retreat. No matter how much time I spend preparing for the program, I’m always astounded when I finally meet the fellows. It’s difficult to comprehend the variety of innovations that this incredible group is driving, from virtual mobile phones and paper diagnostics to batteries made of common soil and building materials made of mushrooms. What’s even more astounding is the fact that the people driving these ideas are both incredibly special and shockingly ordinary.

My role is to introduce them to the design process–to provide some tools to help them think through and challenge the assumptions they’re making about their interventions. As always, I’m struck by how open-minded and creative these social innovators are (otherwise they would not have achieved anything close to the outcomes they’ve already seen). Creativity is not something they chose as an identity or practice–it’s a means, not an end. They many not spend a great deal of time talking about design, but research, prototyping, and abductive reasoning are at the heart of their work. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: This is another resource in the rapid prototyping part of Design Thinking.

Thoughts on this Post: This a a good guide for practitioners who are learning how to put the concepts into action.

Original Post HERE at Usability.net

Summary

Parallel design is a method where alternative designs, often interface designs, are created by two to four design groups at the same time. The aim is to assess the different ideas before settling on a single concept for continued development. The design groups work independently of each other, since the goal is to generate as much diversity as possible. Design groups should not discuss their designs with each other until after they have produced their draft design concepts and presented them in a design workshop. The final design may be one of the designs or a combination of designs, taking the best features from each. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Post: The d.school at Stanford has a website for their k12 group that is focused on teaching design thinking to school aged kids.  This is a graphic from that site.

Thoughts on this Post: This graphic and yesterdays video are from the same source (d.School) and are both really good resources.

Original Post and other content HERE

UNDERSTAND

Understanding is the first phase of the design thinking process. During this phase, students immerse themselves in learning. They talk to experts and conduct research. The goal is to develop background knowledge through these experiences. They use their developing understandings as a springboard as they begin to address design challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Video: This is a video of an online learning experience that was offered at the McKay School of Education on the basics of the Design Thinking Process.  The leader for the project is facilitator from the d.school at Stanford.

Thoughts on this Video:  This may be the best “short” look at what Design Thinking is and how to do it that I have come across.  If you can, find a way to participate in the activities that the facilitator leads.

Overview of Article: The process of Rapid Prototyping is central to the effectiveness of Design Thinking, but can also be the one part of the process that people overlook.  This article gives a god look at the why and how of the process.

Thoughts on this Article:  If you can learn how to do this very well, you will have much better results with your design thinking efforts.

Original Post HERE at Usability.net

Summary of Rapid Prototyping

In rapid prototyping interactive prototypes are developed which can be quickly replaced or changed in line with design feedback. This feedback may be derived from colleagues or users as they work with the prototype to accomplish set tasks.

This method is concerned with developing different proposed concepts through software or hardware prototypes, and evaluating them. In general the process is termed ‘rapid’ prototyping. The development of a simulation or prototype of the future system can be very helpful, allowing users to visualise the system and provide feedback on it. Thus it can be used to clarify user requirements options. Later on in the lifecycle, it can also be used to specify details of the user interface to be included in the future system.

Within software engineering circles the method is closely associated with user interface management systems and various design support tools. The latter tools offer the designer libraries of process and graphical interface elements for defining the software’s logical structure and ‘look-and-feel’. Here the title refers to an approach adopted by software developers in which the prototypes exhibit a higher fidelity with the end product than those created as part of other methods such as paper prototyping. Read the rest of this entry »