I have been coding software applications for over a decade now. Reading the specifications is the best way to understand the user’s needs. Since learning about design thinking, I have come to realize how wrong I was about design.
Design thinking helps us understand the true user needs. And develop a prototype using early feedback from the end-users.
I work for a technology consulting company now. We install software solutions to state government agencies. Our core product serves state government employment agencies to manage unemployment claims paid.
Managing requirements and specifications for each state are hard. Identifying the requirements that change between states is a nightmare.
Our developers and analysts waste a lot of time in identifying what to do next. We needed a tool to identify fit-gaps between states. Such a tool will improve our staff productivity 10X.
We started looking into ready to buy product management tools available. But none of them solves our true need to identify the fit-gap between product and a state’s requirements. So we set out to design our own tool. While researching product design, I stumbled upon a concept called Design Thinking.
Design thinking
Design thinking is an iterative process to understand the user’s real problem. And bring solutions to life based on how end users will think, feel and behave. Design thinking is a customer-centered process. It is thinking about your products and services from your customer’s perspective.
It is a design process that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is tackling complex problems by understanding the user’s needs. By defining the problem in human-centric ways. By creating many solutions. And by adopting an iterative approach to prototyping and testing.
5 stages of Design Thinking
1. Empathize user needs
We need to observe and empathize to find the real concern of the end-users. We need to understand their experiences and motivations. We need to be in their physical environment to do this phase effectively. Empathetic observation allows the designers to set aside their assumptions and understand the user needs.
As an end-user myself, it was easy to empathize. I know some of the pain points of the current tools we have. But design thinking is not about one person or one problem. We have to understand all the end user’s needs.
I spoke to many of my colleagues. I conducted sessions to understand the problem faced by every team involved. I gathered all the information I could about the users and their needs.
2. Define the problem statement in a human-centered manner
In the define phase, we analyze our observations and define core problems. We should define the problem statement in a human-centered way. Here is one of the problem statements we wrote initially.
“We need to find the changes in client-specific specifications without manually comparing the specification from product ”
This same problem statement was later rewritten in a human-centric way.
“Staff needs to identify gaps between product and end-client specifications using a simple report”
3. Ideate – Identify solutions to the problem statements.
This is the stage where designers are ready to start generating ideas. They need to come up with solutions with a solid understanding of the core problems. This can also be accomplished as a group activity by conducting brainstorming sessions. Look for alternative ways of viewing the problem. It is important to come up with as many ideas or solutions as possible before deciding on the final solution.
We came up with quite a few solutions to manage the specification. And to identify the fit-gaps between our core product and each state’s requirements. We had five solutions for how the analysts will alter the specifications. We had three solutions on how to view the fit-gaps.
4. Prototype – Design the best solution for each problem statement in an inexpensive way.
The design team will come up with scaled-down versions of the product or specific features. This is an experimental phase to try as many solutions as possible. The aim is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages.
At this stage, the team will have a clear view of how users will interact with the end product.
5. Test – Test the prototype with end user and gather user feedback.
In the final stage, designers should share the complete product to receive early feedback. Early feedback from end-users helps the designers improve the user experience or to try out other solutions. These early prototypes can be shared with the team and determined if the solution solves the problem identified.
Questions to understand user needs
Understanding users
- Who they are (profile)?
- What they do, when and where (context)?
- Why do they do it (needs, goals, tasks) ?
- How do they do it (experience)?
Understanding their needs
- What do they like or dislike?
- What is the best part of their day, and why?
- What is one thing that is working very well now, and why?
- What is one thing if improved can yield 10x improvements?
- What motivates them to do an action a certain way?
Design thinking methodology will get you started faster. The goals become clear and based on the user’s needs. Feature prioritization becomes a lot easier. A lot of pet features can be avoided. Overall, design thinking methodology has helped me design applications which the end-users actually want to use.