How Design Thinking Challenge the status quo, Inspires Innovation and to Improve the Society? 99121136 Senior A Sophia Chang
Outline A. What is Design Thinking? 1. The origin of the term is derived from IDEO Company. 2. The definition of Design Thinking a. Inspiration- the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions. b. Ideation- the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas. c. Implementation- the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives. B. The three successful cases applying Design Thinking around the world. 1. The project of Design Council “Reducing violence and aggression in A&E through a better experience” in UK 2. The project “Africabike” in Gambia 3. “The Lucky iron Fish” project in Cambodia C. My insight and feedback on the three cases and design thinking method
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You definitely have heard “Design”, but you may be unfamiliar with the term “Design Thinking”. We must tie the term “Design Thinking” with the IDEO Company. Same with the traditional design company, IDEO focused on design work for business and designing products. However, more and more clients asked IDEO for tackling the problem which was above the capability of traditional design, such as, teachers wanted to create a better learning experience for students in class, a medical center hopes to restructure its organization, or a manufacturing company would like to know better about its clients. These cases triggered IDEO to break the traditional sphere of work, shifting to the whole new position. Namely, IDEO improved them from designing consumer products to designing consumer experiences. To distinguish the new type of work from before, IDEO created the term “Design Thinking”. You have learned the origin of the term, now let’s get to know what design thinking really is? In terms of design thinking, we must refresh the idea of design. What is design? And what’s the difference between design and design thinking? Generally, traditional designers emphasize the external appearance of products and they have few opportunities to interact with the users. Lack of the communication and interaction, designers are easier to create a “Wrong design” because they don’t consider the culture and the needs of the target users. Based on Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, we could define design thinking process as a system of overlapping spaces. There are three spaces: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. The problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions are “Inspiration”; and the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas are “Ideation”; and the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives is called “Implementation”. Moreover, we have to keep in mind that the three spaces could be repeated again and again or even circle without turns during the process of design thinking. That’s why there will always be a chaotic situation instead of the linear thinking tendency in design thinking. Chang
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Design thinkers will have hundreds of ideas popping up, but finally they will only conclude to adapt the solutions which are appropriate to the problem. In first space, Inspirations, “briefing” is the starting phase which is a clear way to present the project an initial framework. In second space, Ideation, design thinker will come up with a synthesis which they thought to have potential to solve the problem. Before the proposal of synthesis, they will definitely experience observing and researching in that field first. The principle of design thinking is to encourage you think beyond the limit. But if we would like to propose a divergent idea, it’s no doubt that people are the most important catalyst. It is necessary that the members of design thinking are multidisciplinary within a team. A good team which members are from different background will stir up the diverse idea all along. Tim Brown has mentioned “T-shaped person”. He pointed out that within an interdisciplinary team, individual are required to have strengths in two dimensions. That is why we called “T-shaped person”. One of the traits of T-shaped person is that they possess a professional skill that will contribute to the team work. The other trait of “T-shaped person” who is also have personality about empathy for people and a tendency of openness, curiosity, and optimism, and willing to be humble to learn through experiences and doing. On vertical axis of T, the implication means the professional skills in certain area; on horizontal axis, it means the personality of design thinker: empathy and curiosity, openness, and optimism. In third space, Implementation, the most important step is prototype-making. Design thinker will turn the idea into the practical product and then tested it, which is called prototype testing. But keep in mind that the characteristics of prototype are quick, cheap, and dirty. We don’t have to create a prototype which is too perfect that already can be manufactured and sold. Take IDEO project for instance. Once, there were three parties got together and discussed a solution for the surgery. The three Chang
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parties include surgeons, IDEO designers, and the medical equipment manufacturer. The surgeons spoke out that they wanted to have a surgical tool. And one of them presented that they would like to grab the tool like pistol so that it would be more convenient and efficient in surgery. After the surgeons left, the designers gathered around and brainstormed the solution. Suddenly, one of them picked up a whiteboard marker, a plastic Kodak film canister, and a clothespin-like clip; He taped the canister to the whiteboard marker and attached the clip to the lid of the film canister. The quick, crude, and cheap surgical model popped up. That’s prototype! Making prototype will save time and money, which help the team work on the project more efficiently. After the test of prototype, the ultimate product will be created and massproduced. The ultimate product is going to be able to conform to the three principles what design thinkers ask for─ feasibility, viability, and desirability. Feasibility lies in how feasible of the function of the product in applying; viability is whether the product can be one part of the sustainable business mode or not. Desirability is based on the consumers’ attitude to the product, are their opinion toward the product positive? The other essential prerequisite of design thinking is human-centered tendency. During the process of brainstorming a design solution, design thinkers must keep the three core values in mind─ observation, insight, and empathy. Insight is the key point in the process of design thinking, and it’s not what we always thought resulting from the statistics. Observation and insight depends on that design thinker have interaction with the people and immerse themselves in the similar environment and lifestyle. To stand in others’ shoes so that you can have insight what they really need. The mission of design thinking is turning observation into insight, then turn insight to the product or service of improvement in peoples’ lives. Eventually, we have to combine observation and insight through empathy. To be empathized with other’s world
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through their eyes; through their experiences to understand the world; and through their emotions to feel the world. That is to say, abandon what you have learned, fitting yourself in other’s life, to feel, to experience, and to see as if an un learning process. Above are the definition and key process of design thinking. “The businesses we invest in require constant creativity and problem solving, so design thinking is a real success factor for serving the base of the economic pyramid”, said Yasmina Zaidman, director of knowledge and communications at Acumen Fund. The method of design thinking is already universally applied in the world. There are more and more organization and companies take it as their principle while dealing with the problem. Below I will elaborate the cases of using design thinking. How they used design thinking challenge the status quo, inspired innovation and created better outcomes for organizations and people. Design council is a United Kingdom charity organization which aims to champion great design that improves lives. Besides IDEO, they almost can be honored the best design thinker. In 2013, design council had the project “Reducing violence and aggression in A&E (Accident & Emergency)”. NHS hospital staff in the UK experience more than 150 incidents of violence and aggression every day. According
to statistics, the problem of violence and aggression towards frontline hospital staff cost £69 million in UK annually. Violent and aggressive behavior affects staff, patients and other service users in a number of different ways. As well as decreasing job satisfaction and patient experience, it could also mask a number of additional costs. Design council was in charge of this project. They developed a multi-disciplinary design team led by PearsonLloyd studio to tackle the problem. The first space of design thinking “Inspiration” was reducing violence and
aggression in A&E. As the first space got clear, they could move to the next space “Ideation”. Even if the team members could grasp the situation of A&E through the Chang
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statistics, they didn’t just lean on the figures analysis. One of their members faked himself as one of the patient and sneaked into the A&E center. Through his real experience, he could see, understand, and feel what kind of problem the patients encountered in A&E and simultaneously observed what chaotic situation the staff had. Thanks for the team member; the whole team would be familiar with the parts which needed to be redesigned within A&E system. The team worked out on a project would be specific and precisely dealt with the problem because they followed the core value of design thinking, turning observation into insight, and keeping empathy all along. What would make sure that the ultimate outcome to be adaptive and efficient for the real problem. By observation, the team had the insight that many people were frustrated during their time in A&E because of a lack of clear effective information and guidance. Furthermore, people in the situation of anxiety and pain which led to the possibility to elevate people’s behavior are more aggressive toward the staff. Hence, the team came up with the three dimension of design solution. There were respectively: guidance, people, and toolkit projects. The guidance project informed patients and other service users by providing the information, using signage, leaflets, and digital platforms to alleviate stress of the unknown. Implemented the guidance throughout the department, it ensured that a consistent level of information is delivered to patients and service users when they arrived in A&E. A better information and communication system would be more humane and closed to patients and other service users. On the other hand, the people project aimed at restoring the staff sense of
compassion through helping them overcome work fatigue so that they were able to develop better interactions with patients and other service users under the pressure. The toolkit project offered a full spectrum of design recommendations that can be implemented to help combat the causes of violence and aggression in A&E departments. Examples included environmental design recommendations to areas Chang
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such as reception, triage, minors, majors, cubicles, etc. Then, the design teams would co-design with NHS trusts. After the step of prototype-testing, the team checked the design solution that would work on the project efficiently. And they would move to the next space “implementation”, putting design solution in real time and situation. The fact was that after the implementation, more than 88% of patients felt the guidance project clarified the A&E system, and threatening body language and aggressive behavior fell by 50%. The implementation also showed the result of saving money─ for every £1 spent on the design solutions, £3 was generated in benefits. The outcome presented that how PearsonLloyd studio successfully achieved the goal─ reducing the violence and aggression in A&E through a better experience. The project of AfricaBike in 2014 was another brilliant project of applying design thinking. The designer “Rod Bye” collaborated with Jole Rider, James Dyson foundation, and Dave Granshaw Foundation. Their goal was to lift up the availability of education of children in Gambia. After Rod moved to Gambia, he found that children in Gambia deserved a better education but most of them lived far away from school and some of them even had to walk to school. What led to their absence in the classroom, robbing their time of learning at school. Even if there were so many second hand bikes sent from Europe to Gambia, the majority of them are flawed. In Gambia, people were lack of the component of these bikes and there also had no mechanics that specialized in maintenance to fix them to be reusable. Rod used design thinking to explore the potential needs of village people in Gambia. Parents not only need bikes to give children a ride to school, but also need bike to carry heavy goods and commodities. Most families had more than one child at home so parents would give them a ride together to school. It’s prevalent to see couple of kids jam-packed on the backseat. The implication emphasized the load capacity of the backseat of bikes. Therefore; Rod redesigned a whole new model of bike which was appropriate to the Gambian. He created prototype and tested with
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locals again and again. Having revised the failed works, the third prototype ultimately perfectly worked out and appropriate to the Gambian. After the finish of testing the prototype, Rod and his collaborator could move to the implementation step. They put the third prototype into the system of mass production. Through the evaluation, the Africabike successfully developed a bike frame to suit the needs of school children and satisfied the needs of parents for carrying commodities. The project conformed to the design process and created a better design solution to tackle the social problem. Rod Bye, “The project is not about developing a new bike; it’s about understanding how to positively impact these people’s lives”. Rod was worth for to be called design thinker. In every research steps, he did show his potential of T-shaped person─ a professional bike manufacturer with empathy. The redesign of new bike in Gambia had the feature of feasibility, viability, and desirability as well. Empathy is the crucial factor that determines the efficiency of design project. You may come up with a perfect design solution but that is inappropriate for the users or the people you serve. Design thinking emphasize that you should stand in other’s shoes, to feel, to see, to understand the world through their point of view. Only by this we can have the precise insight and turn it into a practical implementation. A social entrepreneurship organization “The Lucky Iron Fish”project in 2013 developed a simple health innovation to alleviate anemia situation on people in Cambodia. Christopher Charles, a design thinker, observed that the problem of anemia which meant a lack of iron in blood. He found an alternative solution─ a piece of metal could reverse the situation! Cambodia was such a poor country that the people had little material resource on daily life so it’s impossible for them to buy the food contains with iron, such as, dark meat. Therefore; Christopher encouraged the people to put the metal in the pot while cooking. When they ate the food which contained the cooked metal, they could absorb the iron component simultaneously to leverage the deficiency of iron. He spread the metal and spread the
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word that putting the metal in the pot would improve the syndrome of anemia. However, people hesitated to follow his word because they thought the square metal was ugly and unclean. Hence, Christopher thought about another design solution to change the appearance of the metal. He kept searching for information in order to get better understanding of Cambodia culture and tried to create a better design that can be accepted by Cambodia. Finally, he changed the square metal into the shape of fish which meant a symbol of good luck in Cambodia culture. The changing appearance of metal made Cambodian more willing to put it in a pot because they regarded the metal fish as luck. After the evaluation, “The Lucky Iron Fish� project did thoroughly alleviate anemia on people in Cambodia. Through the previous failure, Christopher revised his design and put himself in Cambodians’ shoes to understand their culture so he could create a design solution perfectly fit in the Cambodian. This could be called applying empathy in design thinking. In the beginning, I explained the origin of term of design thinking and its definition. In the past, IDEO was the innovator adapting design thinking. Nowadays, there are more and more projects above the sphere of traditional design and people started to ask more than design. They desired the solution from design thinking. The cases I have mentioned are the three different organization and individual. The fact was that people began to use design thinking to develop a better solution to solve the social problem. Design thinking is a human-centered method all along. Design thinkers are required the ability and personality of T-shaped person which meant the professional skill and characteristics of openness, curiosity, and optimism. Besides, they should have the empathy during brainstorming, which will be the determining factor whether your design can apply on the real problem. The troublesome status quos of the three cases respectively are: the violent and aggressive situation in A&E, the inappropriateness of bike frame in Gambia, and the severe anemia problem in Cambodia. These status quos are filled with contemporary
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social issues. Design thinker found the flaws among the events and created better lives for people. The breakthrough of design thinking lies in that it has surpassed the state of traditional design, not particularly just focus on the products’ appearance and design for the business. As far as traditional design method, the organization resists taking a
human-centered approach which caused that they might be failed to balance the perspectives of users, technology, and organizations. What brings about the wrong design! By the spectrum of the three spaces─ inspiration, ideation, and implementation, design thinkers will be full-scale to find out the real problem and come up with the practical product or solution that will perfectly suitable for the users. Unlike traditional design, design thinking can break the limitation that design is only available for those business and government due to their giant capital. The “Africabike” project is oriented to create better bikes for Gambia and “The Lucky Iron Fish” is served to deal with the anemia in Cambodia. Design thinking is not just a term appearing in developed and advanced countries; it could be applied in the third world or developing countries. From now on, everyone must break his stereotype toward design. Design has evolved and improved to the new position─ Design thinking. According to design thinking, design doesn’t just mean design. Design is to make a change, and try to create better lives of
people. Through the cases, we can make sure that design thinking challenge the status quo, inspires innovation and to improve the society.
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Reference List Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. New York. Fletcher & Company. [Assessed 18 May. 2014] Design Council. (2011). Reducing the violence and aggression in A&E through a better experience. [PDF] 1-32. [Assessed 18 May. 2014] Design Council & Frontier Economics LTD. (2011). Impact Evaluation Findings Summary: Reducing the violence and aggression in A&E through a better experience. [PDF] 1-9. [Assessed 18 May. 2014] Bye, R. (2014). AfricaBike. 1-38. [Online] Available at: <http://issuu.com/robbye4/docs/major_project#> [Assessed 18 May. 2014] IDEO. (2011). Human-Centered Design Toolkit: An Open-Source Toolkit to Inspire New Solutions in the Developing World. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: <http://www.hcdconnect.org/toolkit/en/download> [Assessed 18 May. 2014] Brown, T. &Wyatt, J. (2010). Design Thinking for Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation review. [PDF] 1-7. [Assessed 18 May. 2014] Brown, T. (2010). Why social innovators need design thinking. [Online] Available at:<http://voices.mckinseyonsociety.com/why-social-innovators-need-design-thinking />[Assessed 18 May. 2014] The Lucky Iron Fish Project. (2014). The Lucky Iron Fish Project: The shape of Health. [Online] Available at: < https://luckyironfish.com/>[Assessed 18 May. 2014] Pastorek, W. (2013). Bringing Design Thinking to Social Problems, IDEO. Org Focuses On the People in Need. [Online] Available at: <http://www.fastcoexist.com/3020789/change-generation/bringing-design-thinking-to -social-problems-ideoorg-focuses-on-the-people->[Assessed 18 May. 2014] 褚士瑩. (2011). 在天涯的盡頭，歸零. 台北. 時報. [Assessed 18 May. 2014]
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