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Ideas Made to Matter

Design thinking, explained

Rebecca Linke

Sep 14, 2017

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving process rooted in a set of skills.The approach has been around for decades, but it only started gaining traction outside of the design community after the 2008 Harvard Business Review article [subscription required] titled “Design Thinking” by Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO.

Since then, the design thinking process has been applied to developing new products and services, and to a whole range of problems, from creating a business model for selling solar panels in Africa to the operation of Airbnb .

At a high level, the steps involved in the design thinking process are simple: first, fully understand the problem; second, explore a wide range of possible solutions; third, iterate extensively through prototyping and testing; and finally, implement through the customary deployment mechanisms. 

The skills associated with these steps help people apply creativity to effectively solve real-world problems better than they otherwise would. They can be readily learned, but take effort. For instance, when trying to understand a problem, setting aside your own preconceptions is vital, but it’s hard.

Creative brainstorming is necessary for developing possible solutions, but many people don’t do it particularly well. And throughout the process it is critical to engage in modeling, analysis, prototyping, and testing, and to really learn from these many iterations.

Once you master the skills central to the design thinking approach, they can be applied to solve problems in daily life and any industry.

Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Understand the problem 

The first step in design thinking is to understand the problem you are trying to solve before searching for solutions. Sometimes, the problem you need to address is not the one you originally set out to tackle.

“Most people don’t make much of an effort to explore the problem space before exploring the solution space,” said MIT Sloan professor Steve Eppinger. The mistake they make is to try and empathize, connecting the stated problem only to their own experiences. This falsely leads to the belief that you completely understand the situation. But the actual problem is always broader, more nuanced, or different than people originally assume.

Take the example of a meal delivery service in Holstebro, Denmark. When a team first began looking at the problem of poor nutrition and malnourishment among the elderly in the city, many of whom received meals from the service, it thought that simply updating the menu options would be a sufficient solution. But after closer observation, the team realized the scope of the problem was much larger , and that they would need to redesign the entire experience, not only for those receiving the meals, but for those preparing the meals as well. While the company changed almost everything about itself, including rebranding as The Good Kitchen, the most important change the company made when rethinking its business model was shifting how employees viewed themselves and their work. That, in turn, helped them create better meals (which were also drastically changed), yielding happier, better nourished customers.

Involve users

Imagine you are designing a new walker for rehabilitation patients and the elderly, but you have never used one. Could you fully understand what customers need? Certainly not, if you haven’t extensively observed and spoken with real customers. There is a reason that design thinking is often referred to as human-centered design.

“You have to immerse yourself in the problem,” Eppinger said.

How do you start to understand how to build a better walker? When a team from MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program together with the design firm Altitude took on that task, they met with walker users to interview them, observe them, and understand their experiences.  

“We center the design process on human beings by understanding their needs at the beginning, and then include them throughout the development and testing process,” Eppinger said.

Central to the design thinking process is prototyping and testing (more on that later) which allows designers to try, to fail, and to learn what works. Testing also involves customers, and that continued involvement provides essential user feedback on potential designs and use cases. If the MIT-Altitude team studying walkers had ended user involvement after its initial interviews, it would likely have ended up with a walker that didn’t work very well for customers. 

It is also important to interview and understand other stakeholders, like people selling the product, or those who are supporting the users throughout the product life cycle.

The second phase of design thinking is developing solutions to the problem (which you now fully understand). This begins with what most people know as brainstorming.

Hold nothing back during brainstorming sessions — except criticism. Infeasible ideas can generate useful solutions, but you’d never get there if you shoot down every impractical idea from the start.

“One of the key principles of brainstorming is to suspend judgment,” Eppinger said. “When we're exploring the solution space, we first broaden the search and generate lots of possibilities, including the wild and crazy ideas. Of course, the only way we're going to build on the wild and crazy ideas is if we consider them in the first place.”

That doesn’t mean you never judge the ideas, Eppinger said. That part comes later, in downselection. “But if we want 100 ideas to choose from, we can’t be very critical.”

In the case of The Good Kitchen, the kitchen employees were given new uniforms. Why? Uniforms don’t directly affect the competence of the cooks or the taste of the food.

But during interviews conducted with kitchen employees, designers realized that morale was low, in part because employees were bored preparing the same dishes over and over again, in part because they felt that others had a poor perception of them. The new, chef-style uniforms gave the cooks a greater sense of pride. It was only part of the solution, but if the idea had been rejected outright, or perhaps not even suggested, the company would have missed an important aspect of the solution.

Prototype and test. Repeat.

You’ve defined the problem. You’ve spoken to customers. You’ve brainstormed, come up with all sorts of ideas, and worked with your team to boil those ideas down to the ones you think may actually solve the problem you’ve defined.

“We don’t develop a good solution just by thinking about a list of ideas, bullet points and rough sketches,” Eppinger said. “We explore potential solutions through modeling and prototyping. We design, we build, we test, and repeat — this design iteration process is absolutely critical to effective design thinking.”

Repeating this loop of prototyping, testing, and gathering user feedback is crucial for making sure the design is right — that is, it works for customers, you can build it, and you can support it.

“After several iterations, we might get something that works, we validate it with real customers, and we often find that what we thought was a great solution is actually only just OK. But then we can make it a lot better through even just a few more iterations,” Eppinger said.

Implementation

The goal of all the steps that come before this is to have the best possible solution before you move into implementing the design. Your team will spend most of its time, its money, and its energy on this stage.

“Implementation involves detailed design, training, tooling, and ramping up. It is a huge amount of effort, so get it right before you expend that effort,” said Eppinger.

Design thinking isn’t just for “things.” If you are only applying the approach to physical products, you aren’t getting the most out of it. Design thinking can be applied to any problem that needs a creative solution. When Eppinger ran into a primary school educator who told him design thinking was big in his school, Eppinger thought he meant that they were teaching students the tenets of design thinking.

“It turns out they meant they were using design thinking in running their operations and improving the school programs. It’s being applied everywhere these days,” Eppinger said.

In another example from the education field, Peruvian entrepreneur Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor hired design consulting firm IDEO to redesign every aspect of the learning experience in a network of schools in Peru. The ultimate goal? To elevate Peru’s middle class.

As you’d expect, many large corporations have also adopted design thinking. IBM has adopted it at a company-wide level, training many of its nearly 400,000 employees in design thinking principles .

What can design thinking do for your business?

The impact of all the buzz around design thinking today is that people are realizing that “anybody who has a challenge that needs creative problem solving could benefit from this approach,” Eppinger said. That means that managers can use it, not only to design a new product or service, “but anytime they’ve got a challenge, a problem to solve.”

Applying design thinking techniques to business problems can help executives across industries rethink their product offerings, grow their markets, offer greater value to customers, or innovate and stay relevant. “I don’t know industries that can’t use design thinking,” said Eppinger.

Ready to go deeper?

Read “ The Designful Company ” by Marty Neumeier, a book that focuses on how businesses can benefit from design thinking, and “ Product Design and Development ,” co-authored by Eppinger, to better understand the detailed methods.

Register for an MIT Sloan Executive Education course:

Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services , a five-day course taught by Eppinger and other MIT professors.

• Leadership by Design: Innovation Process and Culture , a two-day course taught by MIT Integrated Design and Management director Matthew Kressy.
• Managing Complex Technical Projects , a two-day course taught by Eppinger.
• Apply for M astering Design Thinking , a 3-month online certificate course taught by Eppinger and MIT Sloan senior lecturers Renée Richardson Gosline and David Robertson.

Steve Eppinger is a professor of management science and innovation at MIT Sloan. He holds the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and has a PhD from MIT in engineering. He is the faculty co-director of MIT's System Design and Management program and Integrated Design and Management program, both master’s degrees joint between the MIT Sloan and Engineering schools. His research focuses on product development and technical project management, and has been applied to improving complex engineering processes in many industries.

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May 18, 2023 Is it time to throw out the standard playbook when it comes to problem solving? Uniquely challenging times call for unique approaches, write Michael Birshan , Ben Sheppard , and coauthors in a recent article , and design thinking offers a much-needed fresh perspective for leaders navigating volatility. Design thinking is a systemic, intuitive, customer-focused problem-solving approach that can create significant value and boost organizational resilience. The proof is in the pudding: From 2013 to 2018, companies that embraced the business value of design had TSR that were 56 percentage points higher than that of their industry peers. Check out these insights to understand how to use design thinking to unleash the power of creativity in strategy and problem solving.

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How to solve problems using the design thinking process

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you develop solutions in a human-focused way. Initially designed at Stanford’s d.school, the five stage design thinking method can help solve ambiguous questions, or more open-ended problems. Learn how these five steps can help your team create innovative solutions to complex problems.

As humans, we’re approached with problems every single day. But how often do we come up with solutions to everyday problems that put the needs of individual humans first?

This is how the design thinking process started.

What is the design thinking process?

The design thinking process is a problem-solving design methodology that helps you tackle complex problems by framing the issue in a human-centric way. The design thinking process works especially well for problems that are not clearly defined or have a more ambiguous goal.

One of the first individuals to write about design thinking was John E. Arnold, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford. Arnold wrote about four major areas of design thinking in his book, “Creative Engineering” in 1959. His work was later taught at Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (also known as d.school), a design institute that pioneered the design thinking process. 

This eventually led Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon to outline one of the first iterations of the design thinking process in his 1969 book, “The Sciences of the Artificial.” While there are many different variations of design thinking, “The Sciences of the Artificial” is often credited as the basis. 

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A non-linear design thinking approach

Design thinking is not a linear process. It’s important to understand that each stage of the process can (and should) inform the other steps. For example, when you’re going through user testing, you may learn about a new problem that didn’t come up during any of the previous stages. You may learn more about your target personas during the final testing phase, or discover that your initial problem statement can actually help solve even more problems, so you need to redefine the statement to include those as well. 

Why use the design thinking process

The design thinking process is not the most intuitive way to solve a problem, but the results that come from it are worth the effort. Here are a few other reasons why implementing the design thinking process for your team is worth it.

Focus on problem solving

As human beings, we often don’t go out of our way to find problems. Since there’s always an abundance of problems to solve, we’re used to solving problems as they occur. The design thinking process forces you to look at problems from many different points of view. 

The design thinking process requires focusing on human needs and behaviors, and how to create a solution to match those needs. This focus on problem solving can help your design team come up with creative solutions for complex problems. 

Encourages collaboration and teamwork

The design thinking process cannot happen in a silo. It requires many different viewpoints from designers, future customers, and other stakeholders . Brainstorming sessions and collaboration are the backbone of the design thinking process.

Foster innovation

The design thinking process focuses on finding creative solutions that cater to human needs. This means your team is looking to find creative solutions for hyper specific and complex problems. If they’re solving unique problems, then the solutions they’re creating must be equally unique.

The iterative process of the design thinking process means that the innovation doesn’t have to end—your team can continue to update the usability of your product to ensure that your target audience’s problems are effectively solved. 

The 5 stages of design thinking

Currently, one of the more popular models of design thinking is the model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (or d.school) at Stanford. The main reason for its popularity is because of the success this process had in successful companies like Google, Apple, Toyota, and Nike. Here are the five steps designated by the d.school model that have helped many companies succeed.

1. Empathize stage

The first stage of the design thinking process is to look at the problem you’re trying to solve in an empathetic manner. To get an accurate representation of how the problem affects people, actively look for people who encountered this problem previously. Asking them how they would have liked to have the issue resolved is a good place to start, especially because of the human-centric nature of the design thinking process. 

Empathy is an incredibly important aspect of the design thinking process.  The design thinking process requires the designers to put aside any assumptions and unconscious biases they may have about the situation and put themselves in someone else’s shoes. 

For example, if your team is looking to fix the employee onboarding process at your company, you may interview recent new hires to see how their onboarding experience went. Another option is to have a more tenured team member go through the onboarding process so they can experience exactly what a new hire experiences.

2. Define stage

Sometimes a designer will encounter a situation when there’s a general issue, but not a specific problem that needs to be solved. One way to help designers clearly define and outline a problem is to create human-centric problem statements. 

A problem statement helps frame a problem in a way that provides relevant context in an easy to comprehend way. The main goal of a problem statement is to guide designers working on possible solutions for this problem. A problem statement frames the problem in a way that easily highlights the gap between the current state of things and the end goal. 

Tip: Problem statements are best framed as a need for a specific individual. The more specific you are with your problem statement, the better designers can create a human-centric solution to the problem. 

Examples of good problem statements:

We need to decrease the number of clicks a potential customer takes to go through the sign-up process.

We need to decrease the new subscriber unsubscribe rate by 10%. 

We need to increase the Android app adoption rate by 20%.

3. Ideate stage

This is the stage where designers create potential solutions to solve the problem outlined in the problem statement. Use brainstorming techniques with your team to identify the human-centric solution to the problem defined in step two. 

Here are a few brainstorming strategies you can use with your team to come up with a solution:

Standard brainstorm session: Your team gathers together and verbally discusses different ideas out loud.

Brainwrite: Everyone writes their ideas down on a piece of paper or a sticky note and each team member puts their ideas up on the whiteboard. 

Worst possible idea: The inverse of your end goal. Your team produces the most goofy idea so nobody will look silly. This takes out the rigidity of other brainstorming techniques. This technique also helps you identify areas that you can improve upon in your actual solution by looking at the worst parts of an absurd solution. 

It’s important that you don’t discount any ideas during the ideation phase of brainstorming. You want to have as many potential solutions as possible, as new ideas can help trigger even better ideas. Sometimes the most creative solution to a problem is the combination of many different ideas put together.

4. Prototype stage

During the prototype phase, you and your team design a few different variations of inexpensive or scaled down versions of the potential solution to the problem. Having different versions of the prototype gives your team opportunities to test out the solution and make any refinements. 

Prototypes are often tested by other designers, team members outside of the initial design department, and trusted customers or members of the target audience. Having multiple versions of the product gives your team the opportunity to tweak and refine the design before testing with real users. During this process, it’s important to document the testers using the end product. This will give you valuable information as to what parts of the solution are good, and which require more changes.

After testing different prototypes out with teasers, your team should have different solutions for how your product can be improved. The testing and prototyping phase is an iterative process—so much so that it’s possible that some design projects never end.

After designers take the time to test, reiterate, and redesign new products, they may find new problems, different solutions, and gain an overall better understanding of the end-user. The design thinking framework is flexible and non-linear, so it’s totally normal for the process itself to influence the end design. 

Tips for incorporating the design thinking process into your team

If you want your team to start using the design thinking process, but you’re unsure of how to start, here are a few tips to help you out. 

Start small: Similar to how you would test a prototype on a small group of people, you want to test out the design thinking process with a smaller team to see how your team functions. Give this test team some small projects to work on so you can see how this team reacts. If it works out, you can slowly start rolling this process out to other teams.

Incorporate cross-functional team members : The design thinking process works best when your team members collaborate and brainstorm together. Identify who your designer’s key stakeholders are and ensure they’re included in the small test team. 

Organize work in a collaborative project management software : Keep important design project documents such as user research, wireframes, and brainstorms in a collaborative tool like Asana . This way, team members will have one central source of truth for anything relating to the project they’re working on.

Foster collaborative design thinking with Asana

The design thinking process works best when your team works collaboratively. You don’t want something as simple as miscommunication to hinder your projects. Instead, compile all of the information your team needs about a design project in one place with Asana. 

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Design Thinking 101

July 31, 2016 2016-07-31

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In This Article:

Definition of design thinking, why — the advantage, flexibility — adapt to fit your needs, scalability — think bigger, history of design thinking.

Design thinking is an ideology supported by an accompanying process . A complete definition requires an understanding of both.

Definition: The design thinking ideology asserts that a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem solving can lead to innovation, and innovation can lead to differentiation and a competitive advantage. This hands-on, user-centric approach is defined by the design thinking process and comprises 6 distinct phases, as defined and illustrated below.

The design-thinking framework follows an overall flow of 1) understand, 2) explore, and 3) materialize. Within these larger buckets fall the 6 phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, and implement.

Conduct research in order to develop knowledge about what your users do, say, think, and feel .

Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users.  Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience frustration?’ The goal is to gather enough observations that you can truly begin to empathize with your users and their perspectives.

Combine all your research and observe where your users’ problems exist. While pinpointing your users’ needs , begin to highlight opportunities for innovation.

Consider the onboarding example again. In the define phase, use the data gathered in the empathize phase to glean insights. Organize all your observations and draw parallels across your users’ current experiences. Is there a common pain point across many different users? Identify unmet user needs.

Brainstorm a range of crazy, creative ideas that address the unmet user needs identified in the define phase. Give yourself and your team total freedom; no idea is too farfetched and quantity supersedes quality.

At this phase, bring your team members together and sketch out many different ideas. Then, have them share ideas with one another, mixing and remixing, building on others' ideas.

Build real, tactile representations for a subset of your ideas. The goal of this phase is to understand what components of your ideas work, and which do not. In this phase you begin to weigh the impact vs. feasibility of your ideas through feedback on your prototypes.

Make your ideas tactile. If it is a new landing page, draw out a wireframe and get feedback internally.  Change it based on feedback, then prototype it again in quick and dirty code. Then, share it with another group of people.

Return to your users for feedback. Ask yourself ‘Does this solution meet users’ needs?’ and ‘Has it improved how they feel, think, or do their tasks?’

Put your prototype in front of real customers and verify that it achieves your goals. Has the users’ perspective during onboarding improved? Does the new landing page increase time or money spent on your site? As you are executing your vision, continue to test along the way.

Put the vision into effect. Ensure that your solution is materialized and touches the lives of your end users.

This is the most important part of design thinking, but it is the one most often forgotten. As Don Norman preaches, “we need more design doing.” Design thinking does not free you from the actual design doing. It’s not magic.

“There’s no such thing as a creative type. As if creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to feel like work.”  - Milton Glaser

As impactful as design thinking can be for an organization, it only leads to true innovation if the vision is executed. The success of design thinking lies in its ability to transform an aspect of the end user’s life. This sixth step — implement — is crucial.

Why should we introduce a new way to think about product development? There are numerous reasons to engage in design thinking, enough to merit a standalone article, but in summary, design thinking achieves all these advantages at the same time.

Design thinking:

• Is a user-centered process that starts with user data, creates design artifacts that address real and not imaginary user needs, and then tests those artifacts with real users
• Leverages collective expertise and establishes a shared language, as well as buy-in amongst your team
• Encourages innovation by exploring multiple avenues for the same problem

Jakob Nielsen says “ a wonderful interface solving the wrong problem will fail ." Design thinking unfetters creative energies and focuses them on the right problem. 

The above process will feel abstruse at first. Don’t think of it as if it were a prescribed step-by-step recipe for success. Instead, use it as scaffolding to support you when and where you need it. Be a master chef, not a line cook: take the recipe as a framework, then tweak as needed.

Each phase is meant to be iterative and cyclical as opposed to a strictly linear process, as depicted below. It is common to return to the two understanding phases, empathize and define, after an initial prototype is built and tested. This is because it is not until wireframes are prototyped and your ideas come to life that you are able to get a true representation of your design. For the first time, you can accurately assess if your solution really works. At this point, looping back to your user research is immensely helpful. What else do you need to know about the user in order to make decisions or to prioritize development order? What new use cases have arisen from the prototype that you didn’t previously research?

You can also repeat phases. It’s often necessary to do an exercise within a phase multiple times in order to arrive at the outcome needed to move forward. For example, in the define phase, different team members will have different backgrounds and expertise, and thus different approaches to problem identification. It’s common to spend an extended amount of time in the define phase, aligning a team to the same focus. Repetition is necessary if there are obstacles in establishing buy-in. The outcome of each phase should be sound enough to serve as a guiding principle throughout the rest of the process and to ensure that you never stray too far from your focus.

The packaged and accessible nature of design thinking makes it scalable. Organizations previously unable to shift their way of thinking now have a guide that can be comprehended regardless of expertise, mitigating the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. This doesn’t just apply to traditional “designery” topics such as product design, but to a variety of societal, environmental, and economical issues. Design thinking is simple enough to be practiced at a range of scopes; even tough, undefined problems that might otherwise be overwhelming. While it can be applied over time to improve small functions like search, it can also be applied to design disruptive and transformative solutions, such as restructuring the career ladder for teachers in order to retain more talent. 

It is a common misconception that design thinking is new. Design has been practiced for ages : monuments, bridges, automobiles, subway systems are all end-products of design processes. Throughout history, good designers have applied a human-centric creative process to build meaningful and effective solutions.

In the early 1900's husband and wife designers Charles and Ray Eames practiced “learning by doing,” exploring a range of needs and constraints before designing their Eames chairs, which continue to be in production even now, seventy years later. 1960's dressmaker Jean Muir was well known for her “common sense” approach to clothing design, placing as much emphasis on how her clothes felt to wear as they looked to others. These designers were innovators of their time. Their approaches can be viewed as early examples of design thinking — as they each developed a deep understanding of their users’ lives and unmet needs. Milton Glaser, the designer behind the famous I ♥ NY logo, describes this notion well: “We’re always looking, but we never really see…it’s the act of attention that allows you to really grasp something, to become fully conscious of it.”

Despite these (and other) early examples of human-centric products, design has historically been an afterthought in the business world, applied only to touch up a product’s aesthetics. This topical design application has resulted in corporations creating solutions which fail to meet their customers’ real needs. Consequently, some of these companies moved their designers from the end of the product-development process, where their contribution is limited, to the beginning. Their human-centric design approach proved to be a differentiator: those companies that used it have reaped the financial benefits of creating products shaped by human needs.

In order for this approach to be adopted across large organizations, it needed to be standardized. Cue design thinking, a formalized framework of applying the creative design process to traditional business problems.

The specific term "design thinking" was coined in the 1990's by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO, with Roger Martin, and encapsulated methods and ideas that have been brewing for years into a single unified concept.

We live in an era of experiences , be they services or products, and we’ve come to have high expectations for these experiences. They are becoming more complex in nature as information and technology continues to evolve. With each evolution comes a new set of unmet needs. While design thinking is simply an approach to problem solving, it increases the probability of success and breakthrough innovation.

Learn more about design thinking in the full-day course Generating Big Ideas with Design Thinking .

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An introductory guide to design thinking.

Discover what it means to be a design thinker and how to carry out this effective problem-solving process that can help you create new products built specifically around human needs.

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Design thinking centers the user in the creative process.

Design thinking is a type of creative problem solving. “It’s a way of thinking and making that keeps the user at the center of everything,” explains experience designer Meg Dryer. “It’s a human-centered approach to developing products, services, and experiences.” Anyone can be a design thinker, not just graphic or product designers. This is a method to arrive at great designs for physical and digital products, to create new solutions across professions.

“The design thinking process in a nutshell is really deeply understanding people and their needs, synthesizing down what problems you’re going to solve, ideating around what concepts to design, and then prototyping and testing over and over again while getting real user feedback,” says Dryer.

Great design comes from empathy with other human beings.

The design thinking approach starts with a detailed exploration of who the audience is for the product and what their needs might be. There’s an entire branch of study called Human Factors, which is devoted to understanding human-to-system interaction, so websites and apps can be designed to be intuitive.

Human factors engineering student Sara Berndt explains: “We take a deep dive into user research, such as ‘What are the colors that humans can see? Where should things like error messages or alerts be located so that people can see them? How many alerts should they be shown before you take the next step? What are the important steps to focus on?’”

The five-stage design thinking process.

No matter what you want to create, the five steps of a successful design process are to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. This respected  five-stage model for design thinking  was developed by global design company IDEO and is taught by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University’s d.school.

1. Empathize: Study the values of your users.

The first step before you start to design is to get to know your audience and make a list of their needs and values. “Having a strong list of user needs is so important. That’s something you should spend a lot of time crafting,” says Berndt. “Because in the end, you can rely on this not only for future changes but also to communicate with your team. If someone suggests a new feature, you can look at your user needs and say, ‘Well, it doesn’t seem like our users are really going to find that important.’ Understanding your users is really a foundation for everything.”

You may be tempted to simply rely on data, but studying the user experience in detail is crucial. “Data can tell you what is happening,” explains Dryer, “but it can’t tell you why. Qualitative, ethnographic research is absolutely critical. Because that’s where you learn how your users actually feel and what all their crazy workarounds are. That’s one of my favorite things to discover.”

Use the following methods to study your users:

• Observe:  Watch users go about their business.
• Engage:  Interview and interact with users.
• Immerse:  Put yourself in their shoes.

2. Define: Name the problem that you’ll solve.

Next, carry your findings from the empathize stage into a series of brainstorm sessions in which your team works to identify one key problem that it can solve for the user. Also outline your team’s “point of view,” or the unique way that your product will be able to solve that problem. You should frame the problem from the user’s perspective, not from the perspective of your business.

If you were designing a website that aggregates different short-term rental listings, your problem statement would be something like, “People want to book short-term rentals online but are overwhelmed by the number of different websites where listings can be found.”

3. Ideate: Come up with creative solutions.

Think of a wide variety of innovative solutions for your problem. Keep an open mind during this stage and don’t dismiss ideas before you’ve had a chance to prototype and test them. Idea generation can take many forms, and ideation techniques can borrow from other industries.

“It’s important to get ideas from everywhere,” explains Dryer. “One project my colleagues worked on involved an ER, so they went and looked at what was working for NASCAR pit crews. Because they’re both high-pressure, major intensity situations where team coordination is super important.”

4. Prototype: Fail fast to learn fast.

In the prototyping stage, your design team should set out to create simple, cost-effective prototypes of a number of your ideas from your ideation sessions. Your prototype does not have to be fancy or expensive. It could be anything from a series of Post-it Notes to an interactive digital mock-up of an app or website using a program like Adobe XD. And when users run into problems, don’t despair. The point of a prototype is to reveal issues. The faster your prototype “fails,” the faster you can find a better solution.

5. Test: Go back to the drawing board.

The final stage of the design thinking process is testing. Release your prototypes to groups of users. See how people interact with them and where your designs fall short. This window into the customer experience will inform your next prototypes.

“Don’t stress about finding the right people,” says Dryer. “You can learn something from nearly anyone you talk to. With deep ethnographic research, I’ve found that you don’t actually have to interview that many people before you start to see patterns.” Dryer also stresses the importance of having your own coworkers review your prototype to make sure it’s technically feasible and viable from a business perspective.

You will need to iterate many versions of prototypes before you arrive at the winner. Testing might also reveal a better way to frame your problem, leaving room for more ideation. Be ready to be agile with your thinking and don’t be afraid to start from square one.

Build a successful design thinking team.

Your team is one of your most important design thinking tools. Dryer recommends setting a few ground rules to be sure your team is set up to collaborate well and do their best work.

• Focus on the user.  “The first rule is that we always focus on the consumer,” she says. “We take it outside of ourselves.”
• Assume the best of others.  “The second important thing is to assume good intent and seek to understand,” she says.
• Foster creative confidence.  Dryer’s third rule is that design thinking is a safe space for everyone’s ideas. “Everyone is a designer. If you are practicing design thinking, you have an equal seat at this table. Everyone can be creative and innovative,” she says.

Equip yourself with the best design tools.

Access the best design tools for every stage of the process with  Adobe Creative Cloud . Go from wireframes to interactive prototypes that you can share easily with test audiences. See how it’s done in this  step-by-step tutorial .

Time spent on design thinking will save you in the long run. “It’s the best risk-mitigation strategy you can have,” says Dryer. “You will, in going through the design thinking process, learn everything that is either not great about your product or likely to not work.” Dive into the process today and see what amazing solutions you can come up with.

Contributors

Meg Dryer ,   Sara Berndt

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• Josh Singer
• Jun 24, 2021

The Rise Of Design Thinking As A Problem Solving Strategy

• 18 min read
• UX , Design , Product Strategy
• Share on Twitter ,  LinkedIn

About The Author

Josh Singer is a UX Designer and former Math Editor at Renaissance Learning , where he has worked on products and written content for educators and students … More about Josh ↬

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Having spent the last 20 years in the world of educational technology working on products for educators and students, I have learned to understand teachers and administrators as designers themselves, who use a wide set of tools and techniques to craft learning experiences for students. I have come to believe that by extending this model and framing all users as designers, we are able to mine our own experiences to gain a deeper empathy for their struggles. In doing so, we can develop strategies to set our user-designers up to successfully deal with change and uncertainty.

If you are a designer, or if you have worked with designers any time in the last decade, you are probably familiar with the term “design thinking.” Typically, design thinking is represented by a series of steps that looks something like this:

There are many variations of this diagram, reflective of the multitude of ways that the process can be implemented. It is typically a months-long undertaking that begins with empathy: we get to know a group of people by immersing ourselves in a specific context to understand their tasks, pain points, and motivations. From there, we take stock of our observations, looking for patterns, themes, and opportunities, solidifying the definition of the problem we wish to solve. Then, we iteratively ideate, prototype, and test solutions until we arrive at one we like (or until we run out of time).

Ultimately, the whole process boils down to a simple purpose: to solve a problem. This is not a new purpose, of course, and not unique to those of us with “Designer” in our job titles. In fact, while design thinking is not exactly the same as the scientific method we learned in school, it bears an uncanny resemblance:

By placing design thinking within this lineage, we equate the designer with the scientist, the one responsible for facilitating the discovery and delivery of the solution.

At its best, design thinking is highly collaborative. It brings together people from across the organization and often from outside of it, so that a diverse group, including those whose voices are not usually heard, can participate. It centers the needs and emotions of those we hope to serve. Hopefully, it pulls us out of our own experiences and biases, opening us up to new ways of thinking and shining a light on new perspectives. At its worst, when design thinking is dogmatically followed or cynically applied, it becomes a means of gatekeeping, imposing a rigid structure and set of rules that leave little room for approaches to design that do not conform to an exclusionary set of cultural standards.

Its relative merits, faults, and occasional high-profile critiques notwithstanding, design thinking has become orthodoxy in the world of software development, where not using it feels tantamount to malpractice. No UX Designer’s portfolio is complete without a well-lit photo capturing a group of eager problem solvers in the midst of the “Define” step, huddled together, gazing thoughtfully at a wall covered in colorful sticky notes . My colleagues and I use it frequently, sticky notes and all, as we work on products in EdTech.

Like “lean,” the design thinking methodology has quickly spread beyond the software industry into the wider world. Today you can find it in elementary schools , in nonprofits , and at the center of innovation labs housed in local governments .

Amidst all of the hoopla, it is easy to overlook a central assumption of design thinking, which seems almost too obvious to mention: the existence of a solution . The process rests on the premise that, once the steps have been carried out, the state of the problem changes from ‘unsolved’ to ‘solved.’ While this problem-solution framework is undeniably effective, it is also incomplete. If we zoom out , we can see the limits of our power as designers, and then we can consider what those limits mean for how we approach our work.

Chaos And The Limits Of Problem Solving

An unchecked belief in our ability to methodically solve big problems can lead to some pretty grandiose ideas. In his book, Chaos: Making a New Science , James Gleick describes a period in the 1950s and ’60s when, as computing and satellite technologies continued to advance, a large, international group of scientists embarked on a project that, in hindsight, sounds absurd. Their goal was not only to accurately predict, but also to control the weather:

“There was an idea that human society would free itself from weather’s turmoil and become its master instead of its victim. Geodesic domes would cover cornfields. Airplanes would seed the clouds. Scientists would learn how to make rain and how to stop it.” — “Chaos: Making a New Science,” James Gleick

It is easy to scoff at their hubris now, but at the time it was a natural result of an ever-heightening faith that, with science, no problem is too big to solve. What those scientists did not account for is a phenomenon commonly known as the butterfly effect, which is now a central pillar of the field of chaos theory. The butterfly effect describes the inherent volatility that arises in complex and interconnected systems. It gets its name from a famous illustration of the principle: a butterfly flapping its wings and creating tiny disturbances in the air around it on one side of the globe today can cause a hurricane tomorrow on the other. Studies have shown that the butterfly effect impacts everything in society from politics and the economy to trends in fashion .

Our Chaotic Systems

If we accept that, like the climate, the social systems in which we design and build solutions are complex and unpredictable, a tension becomes apparent. Design thinking exists in a context that is chaotic and unpredictable by nature, and yet the act of predicting is central. By prototyping and testing , we are essentially gathering evidence about what the outcome of our design will be, and whether it will effectively solve the problem we have defined. The process ends when we feel confident in our prediction and happy with the result.

I want to take pains to point out again that this approach is not wrong! We should trust the process to confirm that our designs are useful and usable in the immediate sense. At the same time, whenever we deliver a solution, we are like the butterfly flapping its wings, contributing (along with countless others) to a constant stream of change. So while the short-term result is often predictable, the longer-term outlook for the system as a whole, and for how long our solution will hold as the system changes, is unknowable.

Impermanence

As we use design thinking to solve problems, how do we deal with the fact that our solutions are built to address conditions that will change in ways we can’t plan for?

One basic thing we can do is to maintain awareness of the impermanence of our work, recognizing that it was built to meet the needs of a specific moment in time . It is more akin to a tree fort constructed in the woods than to a castle fortress made from stone. While the castle may take years to build and last for centuries, impervious to the weather while protecting its inhabitants from all of the chaos that exists outside its walls, the tree fort, even if well-designed and constructed, is directly connected to and at the mercy of its environment. While a tree fort may shelter us from the rain, we do not build it with the expectation that it will last forever, only with the hope that it will serve us well while it’s here. Hopefully, through the experience of building it, we continue to learn and improve.

The fact that our work is impermanent does not diminish its importance, nor does it give us the license to be sloppy. It means that the ability to quickly and consistently adapt and evolve without sacrificing functional or aesthetic quality is core to the job, which is one reason why design systems , which provide consistent and high-quality reusable patterns and components, are crucial.

Designing For User-Designers

A more fundamental way to deal with the impermanence of our work is to rethink our self-image as designers. If we identify only as problem solvers, then our work becomes obsolete quickly and suddenly as conditions change, while in the meantime our users must wait helplessly to be rescued with the next solution. In reality, our users are compelled to adapt and design their own solutions, using whatever tools they have at their disposal. In effect, they are their own designers, and so our task shifts from delivering full, fixed solutions to providing our user-designers with useful and usable tools specific to their needs .

In thinking from this perspective, we can gain empathy for our users by understanding our place as equals on a continuum, each of us relying on others, just as others rely on us.

Key Principles To Center The Needs Of User-Designers

Below are some things to consider when designing for user-designers. In the spirit of the user-designer continuum and of finding the universal in the specific, in the examples below I draw on my experience from both sides of the relationship. First, from my work as a designer in the EdTech space, in which educators rely on people like me to produce tools that enable them to design learning experiences for students. Second, as a user of the products, I rely on them in my daily UX work.

1. Don’t Lock In The Value

It is crucial to have a clear understanding of why someone would use your product in the first place, and then make sure not to get in the way. While there is a temptation to keep that value contained so that users must remain in your product to reap all of the benefits, we should resist that mindset.

Remember that your product is likely just one tool in a larger set, and our users rely on their tools to be compatible with each other as they design their own coherent, holistic solutions. Whereas the designer-as-problem-solver is inclined to build a self-contained solution, jealously locking value within their product, the designer-for-designers facilitates the free flow of information and continuity of task completion between tools however our user-designers choose to use them. By sharing the value, not only do we elevate its source, we give our users full use of their toolbox.

An Example As A Designer Of EdTech Products:

In student assessment applications, like in many other types of applications, the core value is the data. In other words, the fundamental reason schools administer assessments is to learn about student achievement and growth. Once that data is captured, there are all sorts of ways we can then use it to make intelligent, research-based recommendations around tasks like setting student goals, creating instructional groups, and assigning practice. To be clear, we do try very hard to support all of it in our products, often by using design thinking. Ultimately, though, it all starts with the data.

In practice, teachers often have a number of options to choose from when completing their tasks, and they have their own valid reasons for their preferences. Anything from state requirements to school policy to personal working style may dictate their approach to, say, student goal setting. If — out of a desire to keep people in our product — we make it extra difficult for teachers to use data from our assessments to set goals outside of our product (say, in a spreadsheet), then instead of increasing our value, we have added inconvenience and frustration. The lesson, in this case, is not to lock up the data! Ironically, by hoarding it, we make it less valuable. By providing educators with easy and flexible ways to get it out, we unlock its power.

An Example As A User Of Design Tools:

I tend to switch between tools as I go through the design thinking process based on the core value each tool provides. All of these tools are equally essential to the process, and I count on them to work together as I move between phases so that I don’t have to build from scratch at every step. For example, the core value I get from Sketch is mostly in the “Ideation” phase, in that it allows me to brainstorm quickly and freely so that I can try out multiple ideas in a short amount of time. By making it easy for me to bring ideas from that product into a more heavy-duty prototyping application like Axure , instead of locking them inside, Sketch saves me time and frustration and increases my attachment to it. If, for competitive reasons, those tools ceased to cooperate, I would be much more likely to drop one or both.

2. Use Established Patterns

It is always important to remember Jakob’s Law , which states simply that users spend more time on other sites than they spend on yours. If they are accustomed to engaging with information or accomplishing a task a certain way and you ask them to do it differently, they will not view it as an exciting opportunity to learn something new. They will be resentful. Scaling the learning curve is usually painful and frustrating. While it is possible to improve or even replace established patterns, it’s a very tall order . In a world full of unpredictability, consistent and predictable patterns among tools create harmony between experiences.

By following conventions around data visualization in a given domain, we make it easy for users to switch and compare between sources. In the context of education, it is common to display student progress in a graph of test scores over time, with the score scale represented on the vertical axis and the timeline along the horizontal axis. In other words, a scatter plot or line graph, often with one or two more dimensions represented, maybe by color or dot size. Through repeated, consistent exposure, even the most data-phobic teachers can easily and immediately interpret this data visualization and craft a narrative around it.

You could hold a sketching activity during the “Ideate” phase of design thinking in which you brainstorm dozens of other ways to present the same information. Some of those ideas would undoubtedly be interesting and cool, and might even surface new and useful insights. This would be a worthwhile activity! In all likelihood, though, the best decision would not be to replace the accepted pattern. While it can be useful to explore other approaches, ultimately the most benefit is usually derived from using patterns that people already understand and are used to across a variety of products and contexts.

In my role, I often need to quickly learn new UX software, either to facilitate collaboration with designers from outside of my organization or when my team decides to adopt something new. When that happens, I rely heavily on established patterns of visual language to quickly get from the learning phase to the productive phase. Where there is consistency, there is relief and understanding. Where there is a divergence for no clear reason, there is frustration. If a product team decided to rethink the standard alignment palette, for example, in the name of innovation, it would almost certainly make the product more difficult to adopt while failing to provide any benefit.

3. Build For Flexibility

As an expert in your given domain, you might have strong, research-based positions on how certain tasks should be done, and a healthy desire to build those best practices into your product. If you have built up trust with your users, then adding guidance and guardrails directly into the workflow can be powerful. Remember, though, that it is only guidance. The user-designer knows when those best practices apply and when they should be ignored. While we should generally avoid overwhelming our users with choices , we should strive for flexibility whenever possible.

An Example As A Designer Of EdTech Products

Many EdTech products provide mechanisms for setting student learning goals. Generally, teachers appreciate being given recommendations and smart defaults when completing this task, knowing that there is a rich body of research that can help determine a reasonable range of expectations for a given student based on their historical performance and the larger data set from their peers. Providing that guidance in a simple, understandable format is generally beneficial and appreciated. But, we as designers are removed from the individual students and circumstances, as well as the ever-changing needs and requirements driving educators’ goal-setting decisions. We can build recommendations into the happy path and make enacting them as painless as possible, but the user needs an easy way to edit our guidance or to reject it altogether.

The ability to create a library of reusable objects in most UX applications has made them orders of magnitude more efficient. Knowing that I can pull in a pre-made, properly-branded UI element as needed, rather than creating one from scratch, is a major benefit. Often, in the “Ideate” phase of design thinking, I can use these pre-made components in their fully generic form simply to communicate the main idea and hierarchy of a layout. But, when it’s time to fill in the details for high-fidelity prototyping and testing, the ability to override the default text and styling, or even detach the object from its library and make more drastic changes, may become necessary. Having the flexibility to start quickly and then progressively customize lets me adapt rapidly as conditions change, and helps make moving between the design thinking steps quick and easy.

4. Help Your User-Designers Build Empathy For Their Users

When thinking about our users as designers, one key question is: who are they designing for? In many cases, they are designing solutions for themselves, and so their designer-selves naturally empathize with and understand the problems of their user-selves. In other cases, though, they are designing for another group of people altogether. In those situations, we can look for ways to help them think like designers and develop empathy for their users.

For educators, the users are the students. One way to help them center the needs of their audience when they design experiences is to follow the standards of Universal Design for Learning , equipping educators to provide instructional material with multiple means of engagement (i.e., use a variety of strategies to drive motivation for learning), multiple means of representation (i.e., accommodate students’ different learning styles and backgrounds), and multiple means of action and expression (i.e., support different ways for students to interact with instructional material and demonstrate learning). These guidelines open up approaches to learning and nudge users to remember that all of the ways their audience engages with practice and instruction must be supported.

Anything a tool can do to encourage design decisions that center accessibility is hugely helpful, in that it reminds us to consider those who face the most barriers to using our products. While some commonly-used UX tools do include functionality for creating alt-text for images, setting a tab order for keyboard navigation, and enabling responsive layouts for devices of various sizes, there is an opportunity for these tools to do much more. I would love to see built-in accessibility checks that would help us identify potential issues as early in the process as possible.

Hopefully, by applying the core principles of unlocking value, leveraging established patterns, understanding the individual’s need for flexibility , and facilitating empathy in our product design, we can help set our users up to adapt to unforeseen changes. By treating our users as designers in their own right, not only do we recognize and account for the complexity and unpredictability of their environment, we also start to see them as equals.

While those of us with the word “Designer” in our official job title do have a specific and necessary role, we are not gods, handing down solutions from on high, but fellow strugglers trying to navigate a complex, dynamic, stormy world. Nobody can control the weather , but we can make great galoshes, raincoats, and umbrellas.

Further Reading

• If you’re interested in diving into the fascinating world of chaos theory, James Gleick’s book Chaos: Making a New Science , which I quoted in this article, is a wonderful place to start.
• Jon Kolko wrote a great piece in 2015 on the emergence of design thinking in business, in which he describes its main principles and benefits. In a subsequent article from 2017, he considers the growing backlash as organizations have stumbled and taken shortcuts when attempting to put theory into practice, and what the lasting impact may be. An important takeaway here is that, in treating everyone as a designer, we run the risk of downplaying the importance of the professional Designer’s specific skill set. We should recognize that, while it is useful to think of teachers (or any of our users) as designers, the day-to-day tools, methods, and goals are entirely different.
• In the article Making Sense in the Data Economy , Hugh Dubberly and Paul Pangaro describe the emerging challenges and complexities of the designer’s role in moving from the manufacture of physical products to the big data frontier. With this change, the focus shifts from designing finished products (solutions) to maintaining complex and dynamic platforms, and the concept of “meta-design” — designing the systems in which others operate — emerges.
• To keep exploring the ever-evolving strategies of designing for designers, search Smashing Magazine and your other favorite UX resources for ideas on interoperability, consistency, flexibility, and accessibility!

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Creativity, Problem Solving and Design Thinking

Boost your creative skills and creative confidence with a structured approach to idea generation, exploration and development.

This course equals 48 hours of CPD time

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Creative problem solving is increasingly recognised as the most sought-after skill in business. This is true across a wide range of industries, and across both private and public sectors. Entrepreneurs, employees, managers, and leaders are all required to find valuable opportunities, generate and develop new ideas and then trial and implement innovative solutions. These processes can be modelled on design activities, where key stakeholders are identified and designed for through processes of research, ideation and prototyping. This is all equally applicable to the development of strategies, products, processes and a variety of socio-technical systems.

This course will help you to learn about the role of creativity in problem solving, and the application of design thinking to different business tasks. You will discover the characteristics of difficult problems, the thinking skills that are used to address them and the various biases that need to be overcome. Through the course content and activities, you will recognise and develop your creative skills, gaining confidence in them and in your capacity to develop them further. This applies not just to individual work, but also to group work, where diverse perspectives and skills can be leveraged.

The course offers an excellent opportunity for professional development, whether you are looking to advance in your current role or change roles or sectors. Through the course, you will apply a structured process to identifying problems and generating wide-ranging solution ideas before selecting and developing one (or more) for communication and implementation. You will have the opportunity to practice these skills in various course-specific scenarios, and also to a project that is relevant to your own professional context. The course is highly interactive, and you will be encouraged, through individual and collaborative work, to apply and manage a selection of evidence-based creative approaches.

This course is certified by the United Kingdom CPD Certification Service, and may be applicable to individuals who are members of, or are associated with, UK-based professional bodies. The course has an estimated 48 hours of learning.

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By the end of the course, you will have a broad understanding of the application of creative approaches, processes and tools, including how to:

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• represent your own creative skills and experiences, and promote and elicit those of others.

Who is this course for?

• Those interested in improving how they think and act creatively, moving past learned behaviour to reach new and effective solutions.
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• Individuals facing novel problems in the workplace, who need to challenge conventions to develop original solutions and pitch these to stakeholders.

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Our certificated courses reflect the Cambridge experience and values, with low student to tutor ratios and academically rigorous standards. Our learning model is designed to help you advance your skills and specialise in emerging areas that address global challenges. We will help you build your network through an engaging and impactful learning journey that encourages collaboration. Courses are delivered in weekly modules, allowing you to plan your time effectively. The assessment criteria will be presented to you at the start of the course, so you can approach your studies with confidence and motivation, knowing what is expected of you and how to meet those expectations. 

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Each course includes a balance of:

• interactive learning and real-world application so you can directly apply what you’re learning to your own context
• diverse teaching methods to enhance learning outcomes which will be delivered via learning activities such as University of Cambridge academic led videos, quizzes and group work
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What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

• 01 Feb 2022

One of the biggest hindrances to innovation is complacency—it can be more comfortable to do what you know than venture into the unknown. Business leaders can overcome this barrier by mobilizing creative team members and providing space to innovate.

There are several tools you can use to encourage creativity in the workplace. Creative problem-solving is one of them, which facilitates the development of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

Here’s an overview of creative problem-solving and why it’s important in business.

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Research is necessary when solving a problem. But there are situations where a problem’s specific cause is difficult to pinpoint. This can occur when there’s not enough time to narrow down the problem’s source or there are differing opinions about its root cause.

In such cases, you can use creative problem-solving , which allows you to explore potential solutions regardless of whether a problem has been defined.

Creative problem-solving is less structured than other innovation processes and encourages exploring open-ended solutions. It also focuses on developing new perspectives and fostering creativity in the workplace . Its benefits include:

• Finding creative solutions to complex problems : User research can insufficiently illustrate a situation’s complexity. While other innovation processes rely on this information, creative problem-solving can yield solutions without it.
• Adapting to change : Business is constantly changing, and business leaders need to adapt. Creative problem-solving helps overcome unforeseen challenges and find solutions to unconventional problems.
• Fueling innovation and growth : In addition to solutions, creative problem-solving can spark innovative ideas that drive company growth. These ideas can lead to new product lines, services, or a modified operations structure that improves efficiency.

Creative problem-solving is traditionally based on the following key principles :

1. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-solving uses two primary tools to find solutions: divergence and convergence. Divergence generates ideas in response to a problem, while convergence narrows them down to a shortlist. It balances these two practices and turns ideas into concrete solutions.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

By framing problems as questions, you shift from focusing on obstacles to solutions. This provides the freedom to brainstorm potential ideas.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

When brainstorming, it can be natural to reject or accept ideas right away. Yet, immediate judgments interfere with the idea generation process. Even ideas that seem implausible can turn into outstanding innovations upon further exploration and development.

4. Focus on "Yes, And" Instead of "No, But"

Using negative words like "no" discourages creative thinking. Instead, use positive language to build and maintain an environment that fosters the development of creative and innovative ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Whereas creative problem-solving facilitates developing innovative ideas through a less structured workflow, design thinking takes a far more organized approach.

Design thinking is a human-centered, solutions-based process that fosters the ideation and development of solutions. In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase framework to explain design thinking.

The four stages are:

• Clarify: The clarification stage allows you to empathize with the user and identify problems. Observations and insights are informed by thorough research. Findings are then reframed as problem statements or questions.
• Ideate: Ideation is the process of coming up with innovative ideas. The divergence of ideas involved with creative problem-solving is a major focus.
• Develop: In the development stage, ideas evolve into experiments and tests. Ideas converge and are explored through prototyping and open critique.
• Implement: Implementation involves continuing to test and experiment to refine the solution and encourage its adoption.

Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

While there are many useful tools in the creative problem-solving process, here are three you should know:

Creating a Problem Story

One way to innovate is by creating a story about a problem to understand how it affects users and what solutions best fit their needs. Here are the steps you need to take to use this tool properly.

1. Identify a UDP

Create a problem story to identify the undesired phenomena (UDP). For example, consider a company that produces printers that overheat. In this case, the UDP is "our printers overheat."

2. Move Forward in Time

To move forward in time, ask: “Why is this a problem?” For example, minor damage could be one result of the machines overheating. In more extreme cases, printers may catch fire. Don't be afraid to create multiple problem stories if you think of more than one UDP.

3. Move Backward in Time

To move backward in time, ask: “What caused this UDP?” If you can't identify the root problem, think about what typically causes the UDP to occur. For the overheating printers, overuse could be a cause.

Following the three-step framework above helps illustrate a clear problem story:

• The printer is overused.
• The printer overheats.
• The printer breaks down.

You can extend the problem story in either direction if you think of additional cause-and-effect relationships.

4. Break the Chains

By this point, you’ll have multiple UDP storylines. Take two that are similar and focus on breaking the chains connecting them. This can be accomplished through inversion or neutralization.

• Inversion: Inversion changes the relationship between two UDPs so the cause is the same but the effect is the opposite. For example, if the UDP is "the more X happens, the more likely Y is to happen," inversion changes the equation to "the more X happens, the less likely Y is to happen." Using the printer example, inversion would consider: "What if the more a printer is used, the less likely it’s going to overheat?" Innovation requires an open mind. Just because a solution initially seems unlikely doesn't mean it can't be pursued further or spark additional ideas.
• Neutralization: Neutralization completely eliminates the cause-and-effect relationship between X and Y. This changes the above equation to "the more or less X happens has no effect on Y." In the case of the printers, neutralization would rephrase the relationship to "the more or less a printer is used has no effect on whether it overheats."

Even if creating a problem story doesn't provide a solution, it can offer useful context to users’ problems and additional ideas to be explored. Given that divergence is one of the fundamental practices of creative problem-solving, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into each tool you use.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that can be highly effective when guided by the iterative qualities of the design thinking process. It involves openly discussing and debating ideas and topics in a group setting. This facilitates idea generation and exploration as different team members consider the same concept from multiple perspectives.

Hosting brainstorming sessions can result in problems, such as groupthink or social loafing. To combat this, leverage a three-step brainstorming method involving divergence and convergence :

• Have each group member come up with as many ideas as possible and write them down to ensure the brainstorming session is productive.
• Continue the divergence of ideas by collectively sharing and exploring each idea as a group. The goal is to create a setting where new ideas are inspired by open discussion.
• Begin the convergence of ideas by narrowing them down to a few explorable options. There’s no "right number of ideas." Don't be afraid to consider exploring all of them, as long as you have the resources to do so.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool is an empathetic approach to creative problem-solving. It encourages you to consider how someone in another world would approach your situation.

For example, if you’re concerned that the printers you produce overheat and catch fire, consider how a different industry would approach the problem. How would an automotive expert solve it? How would a firefighter?

Be creative as you consider and research alternate worlds. The purpose is not to nail down a solution right away but to continue the ideation process through diverging and exploring ideas.

Continue Developing Your Skills

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or business leader, learning the ropes of design thinking can be an effective way to build your skills and foster creativity and innovation in any setting.

If you're ready to develop your design thinking and creative problem-solving skills, explore Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

About the Author

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Leveraging systems models: a strategic advantage for it professionals.

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Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!

IT professionals increasingly need to navigate projects arising from greater business complexity. The integration of systems models with established methodologies, like design thinking, agile and lean, presents a unique opportunity for IT experts to enhance their capacity and expertise. This systemic integration not only enriches their problem-solving tool kits but also ensures the delivery of innovative, sustainable solutions that align with the strategic objectives of their organizations.

The landscape of IT projects has expanded beyond straightforward software development to include complex ecosystems involving artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, big data and more. This complexity necessitates a holistic view of project management and solution development, where understanding interdependencies and emergent behaviors becomes crucial. Systems models, with their focus on the interrelations within and among systems, offer a comprehensive framework for analyzing and addressing these complexities.

Enhancing Design Thinking With Systems Thinking

Within the Design Thinking phases, there are opportunities to embed systems thinking models. For example, during the Ideate phase, using causal loops would help clarify the Theory of Success.

Agile methodologies emphasize flexibility, rapid iteration and stakeholder collaboration. Integrating systems dynamics into agile practices allows IT professionals to model and simulate the behaviors of complex systems over time. This predictive capability can inform sprint planning, risk management and the prioritization of features based on their potential impact on the system. By understanding the feedback loops and causal relationships that drive system behavior, IT teams can anticipate challenges and opportunities, leading to more informed decision-making and effective agile implementation.

Earth s New Second Moon Is As Big As The Statue Of Liberty And Scientists Just Found Its Origin

Whatsapp brand new iphone feature just launched that s much easier to use, suicide squad kill the justice league announces huge emergency changes, diagnosing with the levels of perspective model.

The Levels of Perspective Systems Model categorizes viewpoints from which a system can be analyzed, ranging from concrete events to deep-rooted structures and mental models. This hierarchical framework includes the Events level, Patterns of Behavior level, Structural level and, sometimes, the Mental Models level. Each level offers a unique lens through which IT developers can understand and address complex challenges.

Enhancing Design Thinking

Design thinking emphasizes empathy, collaboration and iterative learning to solve problems creatively. By applying the Levels of Perspective Model, IT developers can deepen their empathetic understanding by recognizing not only the immediate needs (Events level) but also the underlying patterns and behaviors of users (Patterns of Behavior level). This approach allows developers to design solutions that are more closely aligned with users' evolving behaviors and preferences. Additionally, considering the Structural and Mental Models levels enable developers to identify and challenge assumptions about what users need or value, leading to more innovative and user-centric solutions.

Complementing Agile Methodologies

The Levels of Perspective Model can enhance agile practices by encouraging developers to look beyond the immediate backlog of tasks (Events level) and consider the broader patterns of team dynamics and project progress (Patterns of Behavior level). This wider perspective can help in anticipating challenges and opportunities for improvement.

Stacking Systemic Choices Using The Hierarchy Of Choices

The Hierarchy of Choices model offers a structured approach to decision-making that can greatly enhance the effectiveness of IT developers. By delineating decisions across five levels—fundamental, primary, secondary, tertiary and other choices—this model provides a comprehensive framework that aligns closely with design thinking and agile and lean methodologies, enhancing developers' capacity to deliver impactful, user-centered solutions efficiently.

Fundamental Choice: The Purpose Behind Existence

At the core of every IT project is the fundamental question: Why does this project exist? This aligns with the empathetic core of design thinking, which starts with understanding the user's needs and challenges.

Primary Choice: Defining Desired Outcomes

What results does the project aim to achieve? Identifying primary choices involves setting clear, measurable goals, a principle that resonates with the outcome-focused nature of agile methodologies. For developers, defining these outcomes provides a clear direction for the project, facilitating prioritization and helping to maintain focus on delivering value to the end-users.

Secondary Choice: Crafting The Strategy

Deciding on the strategy—how the project will achieve its goals—ties into lean thinking, which emphasizes value streams and waste elimination. For IT developers, understanding the chosen strategy informs the selection of technologies, architectural patterns and development practices that align with project goals. This strategic alignment ensures that resources are optimized and efforts are directed toward activities that directly contribute to the project's objectives.

Tertiary Choice: Selecting Tactics

Tactical choices concern the specific actions taken to implement the strategy. This is where agile practices shine, offering a flexible framework for iterative development, continuous integration and regular feedback loops. Developers, by making informed tactical decisions, can adapt to changes quickly, experiment with solutions and refine their approach based on real-time feedback, all while ensuring alignment with the overarching strategy.

Finally, the model includes a broad category for other choices, encompassing the operational decisions related to the what, where, how and when of project execution.

The Road Ahead

As IT professionals strive to navigate the complexities of modern projects, the integration of systems models with traditional methodologies like design thinking, agile and lean offers a powerful synergy. This systemic integration enables a holistic understanding of complex environments, fosters innovative problem-solving and supports the agile adaptation to change. By embracing these integrated approaches, IT professionals can elevate their expertise, deliver impactful solutions and achieve strategic alignment in their projects, ensuring their role as key drivers of digital transformation.

In conclusion, the relevance of systems models in the IT domain cannot be overstated. As we advance into a future where projects become increasingly complex and interconnected, the ability to integrate and apply these models alongside established IT methodologies will be a defining skill for IT professionals. This systemic integration not only enhances their capacity to address current challenges but also positions them to lead the way in shaping the digital landscapes of tomorrow.

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David Teubner 2024 Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award Recipient

Associate Professor David Teubner is the 2024 recipient of the CSULB Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award. Dave has been an influential leader in the Design Department and a dedicated leader in the Industrial Design program. He is passionate about design and has worked in the field since 1980 in animation, film production, advertising, and industrial design. Dave instills design thinking and problem-solving in all his courses, the use of technology, and is now incorporating AI into his curriculum.  

The University Achievement Awards were held on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, at The Pointe on CSULB campus with Dr. Karyn Scissum Gunn, Provost & Senior Vice President; Simon Kim, AVP, Research and Development; and Pei-Fang Hung, Chair, Academic Senate presiding. Our sincere congratulations go to Associate Professor David Teubner on receiving the prestigious award. For the full story: https://www.csulb.edu/office-of-the-provost/university-achievement-awards  

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Design Thinking: New Innovative Thinking for New Problems

Einstein was certainly right — we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. In addition, with the rapid changes in society, the methods we have previously used to solve many of the problems we face are no longer effective. We need to develop new ways of thinking in order to design better solutions, services and experiences that solve our current problems. Design Thinking steps in with a bold newly systematised and non-linear human-centred approach. This will help us radically change how we go about exploring problems and creating solutions to those problems.

The problems designers, business owners, and engineers face today are in a whole new level of scale compared to the challenges we’ve faced in the past few decades. In a largely globalised world, where the changes in economic and natural resources can be felt halfway around the globe, our challenges are becoming more intertwined with the systems that connect us all. To solve the new wave of problems we face today and in the future, we need a new kind of thinking, a new approach towards innovation . Design Thinking is a large part of that new approach towards innovation, as it allows people, teams, and organisations to have a human-centred perspective, and yet a scientific approach, towards solving a problem. Tim Brown, CEO of the international design consultancy firm IDEO, makes this point in the introduction of his book, Change by Design :

“A purely technocentric view of innovation is less sustainable now than ever, and a management philosophy based only on selecting from existing strategies is likely to be overwhelmed by new developments at home or abroad. What we need are new choices—new products that balance the needs of individuals and of society as a whole; new ideas that tackle the global challenges of health, poverty, and education; new strategies that result in differences that matter and a sense of purpose that engages everyone affected by them. It is hard to imagine a time when the challenges we faced so vastly exceeded the creative resources we have brought to bear on them.” – Tim Brown

Which Problems Can Design Thinking Help us Solve?

One of the first questions people ask when hearing about Design Thinking is, "What is Design Thinking best used for?" Design Thinking is suited to addressing a wide range of challenges and is best used for bringing about innovation within the following contexts.

Redefining value

Human-centred innovation

Quality of life

Problems affecting diverse groups of people

Involves multiple systems

Shifting markets and behaviours

Coping with rapid social or market changes

Issues relating to corporate culture

Issues relating to new technology

Re-inventing business models

Addressing rapid changes in society

Complex unsolved societal challenges

Scenarios involving multidisciplinary teams

Entrepreneurial initiatives

Educational advances

Medical breakthroughs

Inspiration is needed

Problems that data can't solve

A Holistic approach to Challenges

Design Thinking is best suited to addressing problems where multiple spheres collide, at the intersection of business and society, logic and emotion , rational and creative, human needs and economic demands and between systems and individuals. We would most likely not require Design Thinking to tackle tame problems — that is, problems that are simple and that have fixed and known solutions — unless we were seeking a novel or innovative means to solving the problem with a different desired goal than the typical available solutions.

It's NOT Just a Process or Set of Steps

However, Design thinking is not necessarily only to be understood as a process or method for solving a set-in-stone collection of problems. It is also a mindset that can be applied in almost any scenario where innovation or thinking differently is required. It can also be combined with other methodologies, business strategies, social innovation models, and management practices. It's something that changes depending on its context and can use tools and techniques from other disciplines.

It's About Human-Centred Innovation

Design Thinking works best where we need to make human sense of things, approaching challenges in ways that best suit human needs regardless of the scale or authority of the challenge. A conformist, controlled, technical or linear approach is no longer able to grapple with the newly complex and sensitive needs of modern society.

It starts with an intention, a desire, a need or yearning towards a better situation or state. We have no way of knowing whether this is a mere dream or a practical and viable path to take. Design Thinking gives us the tools to explore What Could Be .

As Bruce Mau, founder of the Massive Change Network, put it:

"It's not about the world of design, but the design of the world". – Bruce Mau

Cope with Disruptions in Society

Since the disruptions in human development caused by the Industrial Revolution, analysts have been strategizing ways of streamlining just about every business, production and economic process imaginable with the aim of extracting the maximum benefit from the least amount of time and resources. While this may have had some degree of success on the level of productivity and efficiency, the recipe to that much-needed innovation within all sectors has been somewhat of a conundrum. This is where Design Thinking steps in with a bold new human-centred approach at radically changing how we go about exploring problems and finding solutions to those problems, helping us break out of the old moulds we've become stuck in, so as to take a fresh look at the world around us.

Besides the ongoing struggles between the analytical and creative worlds, other factors have dramatically disrupted the way we see, understand, experience, and interpret the world around us. Technology is developing at such a rapid pace that job descriptions can barely keep up, let alone entire industries. Consumers demand much more now that they are constantly switched on, always informed, and obsessively sharing everything with their networks.

Focus on Humans, Not Users

In order to remain relevant, companies and organisations are also fighting a battle for attention on an unprecedented level. Besides the constant scrutiny and accountability, information overload is also reaching its peak. People are increasingly seeking out those products, services, and organisations that they personally connect with on a meaningful level. Many people are selecting the few options that speak directly to their human needs and experiences . This has driven Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking approaches of all types to mushroom in the last few years. Approaches to business and social innovation are increasingly looking for alternatives to the old models of adding value, by focusing on human needs and experience as primary motivating factors.

Innovative solutions need to be found that can keep up with massive disruptions affecting Human Resources, Energy, Sustainability, Education, Economic Constraints, Political Instability—these large, systemic and complex problems with capital letters—and a whole plethora of other challenges which existing strategic and management practices and processes are unable to pick apart.

Innovate or be Swept Away with the Tide

Idris Mootee, CEO of Idea Couture and a leading expert on applied Design Thinking in large-scale strategy innovation, wrote his book Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation about the implementation of Design Thinking methodology within business. The book outlines a number of disruptions in the business environment , including new consumer behaviour and expectations, forcing companies to rethink their every move.

“This disruption has not been so kind to businesses operating by the rules of the old model. We don't have to watch their ads anymore. We don't believe their marketing hype anymore. We don't want to eat their junk ingredients anymore. We don't have to buy from their stores anymore. And we don't want the best of them to just be profit machines anymore. We want more, when we want it, how we want it, and at the price we want it.” – Idris Mootee

Idris Mootee uses the analogy of the study of weather systems, where it was determined that even the slightest changes in atmospheric conditions may have dramatically varying results in the way weather patterns developed. The current climate of rapid change and upheaval is even more difficult to forecast for the future. We are unable to see what lies around the next corner, let alone months or years down the line. This means we need a completely new and dynamic approach to innovation and strategic planning: something less rigid that can quickly and easily adapt to the varying conditions we find ourselves in and those dramatic changes which lie around the next corner.

The abilities to understand and act on changes rapidly in our environments and changes in human behaviour are becoming crucial skills we are still developing and refining. Design Thinking offers a means for grappling with all this change in a more human-centric manner. In order to embrace Design Thinking and innovation, we need to ensure that we have the right mindsets, collaborative teams, and conducive environments.

Form the Right Mindsets, Teams, and Environments for Innovation

Creating the right mindsets , selecting the appropriate team, and setting up environments which encourage innovation to take place are three of the essential aspects of fostering successful innovation within companies, organisations, and society at large.

1. Form The Right Mindsets for Innovation

One of the amazing things about Albert Einstein was the connection between his creative and analytical thinking . He was an extremely creative individual, deeply reflective of the human condition, weaknesses and failings while at the same time years ahead of most in terms of his analytical thinking capacity. His ability to join and synthesise worlds of influence, merging creative thinking with intense analytical abilities brought about the breakthroughs he achieved as a thinker and a scientist. Like Design Thinking, Albert Einstein relied on and celebrated both logic and imagination.

“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

The notion that creativity or "artistic" talent is only the domain of those gifted with these abilities is one of the most inhibiting factors in our lives today. However, it is becoming a more widely held belief that creativity and lateral thinking can be learnt, and with the implementation of the appropriate steps, process and mindset, can be unleashed to solve some of the "wickedest" problems (i.e., most complex and tricky problems) we find ourselves faced with. The challenge is that most modern corporations, organisations and institutional settings tend to kill creativity with an overly conformist notion of things.

The struggle between creative and logical thinking is an old one, which is yet to be understood fully, even with scientific breakthroughs in neuro- and cognitive science . It has been a common belief that those who tend to be more analytical, logical and rational in nature have always relied more heavily on the left side of their brains, while those who are more creative, expressive and emotional have relied more on the right side. This myth seems to have recently been busted, with studies indicating both sides of the brain are involved in both creative and logical processes of all kinds and work.

We need to develop more open, collaborative, and explorative cultures and mindsets, which combine both logic and imagination, in order to create new innovative solutions. And Design Thinking will help us do just that.

2. Create Cross-disciplinary and Innovative Teams

It is the norm in many organisations to encourage the development of skills and abilities relevant to a specific role. For instance, creativity is encouraged in graphic designers, while analytical skills are encouraged for marketing, business, and operations-related jobs. However, such a “boxed” organisation of talent, where different skills are developed and used in silos throughout different departments, will not be able to produce much of the innovation we need for the new wave of wicked problems .

We now know that a healthy collaboration between the creative and logical ways of thinking is crucial in creating the kind of holistic thinking that is required to understand and solve new kinds of multi-dimensional problems. This is also true for people working in multidisciplinary teams, where teams possessing a range of thinking styles, expertise, and experiences come together to develop solutions more effectively than narrow-focused, specialist individuals are able to working alone. In Design Thinking, cross-disciplinary collaboration plays an important role — it is when designers, ethnographers, business analysts, and marketers work together that we create truly revolutionary ideas. To facilitate Design Thinking and innovation, thus, organisations need to start thinking about truly cross-departmental, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and abandon the silo model of skills.

3. Create Environments Conducive to Innovation

The environments we inhabit and the activities we most engage in influence our thinking patterns, our understanding of things, and our ability (or lack thereof) to innovate.

This is why innovative companies like Google spend money to create workspaces that are filled with toys and unconventional equipment, and areas for creative thinking throughout their offices. It’s also the reason that many companies clear space in their busy annual schedules to send their entire staff on team-building getaways where they build rafts together, jump around in circles and, in the best way possible, behave like kids. However, it’s not only to make the company a fun and interesting place to work. It's about allowing for and tapping into the type of thinking which results in breakthrough innovation as opposed to churning out more of the same cookie-cutter patches to problems. Playing is risky business. You put yourself out there. Likewise, it takes courage to question status quo and come up with innovative solutions.

That’s why we need to create dynamic spaces, both physically and metaphorically, where people are able to embrace change, explore the unknown, experiment with radically new ways of thinking, and work together collaboratively.

Author/Copyright holder: Mathew Ingram. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY 2.0

Google is one of the major companies which prioritise to spend time and money creating playful workspaces filled with toys and unconventional equipment. The goal is to help employees feel safe and that it’s okay to come up with new and unconventional solutions in a playful manner.

IDEO Formed the Right Mindsets, Teams, and Environments for Innovation

How can you start forming the right mindsets, set up cross-disciplinary teams, and create playful environments to foster innovation? Let’s take an example. After the 2000 dot-com bubble burst, IDEO CEO Tim Brown decided that it was time to do a redesign of the organisation. In the redesign, IDEO transformed the way collaboration within the organisation, as well as with external partners, worked fundamentally. IDEO created the concept of “One IDEO”, which underscores the need to act not as independent design studios, but rather a single interconnected network of talents. The company also changed the way it organised its offices by abandoning the classic design studio model. Instead, they started adopting a “global practices” model, which helped teams organise according to global systems in areas like “Health Practice” and “Zero20” (which focuses on the needs of children up to the age of 20).

New organisational structures like that in IDEO — which are themselves subject to change as and when needed to better serve the needs of clients and the world — are needed to spur innovative collaboration between teams and create impactful solutions that make the world a better place. However, the changes do not have to be large-scale. While it’s nice to have adult-sized playgrounds like those in Google and Facebook campuses, it is more than enough to ensure that the organisational layout and philosophy is one that encourages and prioritises collaboration and innovation.

The Take Away

The challenges organisations and countries face today are much more complex and tricky than the ones we faced a few decades ago. Part of the reason is globalisation, which brought together different agents across the globe into an interconnected web of systems that affect one another. To solve these new, complex problems, Design Thinking steps in with a bold and newly systematised, non-linear human-centred approach. Design Thinking allows us to adopt a human-centred perspective in creating innovative solutions while also integrating logic and research. In order to embrace Design Thinking and innovation, we need to ensure that we have the right mindsets, collaborative teams, and conducive environments. When we align our mindsets, skills and environments, we are able to create innovations that allow us to survive the disruptions we might face in the near future. Keep in mind a deep desire to create a better situation for the world around us, and start creating a better world for yourself and the world.

References & Where to Learn More

Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation , 2009

Idris Mootee, Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation , 2013

See Bruce Mau here .

Don Norman . “Rethinking Design Thinking” , 2013.

Bill Moggridge, “Design Thinking: Dear Don” , 2010.

Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

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Optimize your experience by allowing us to monitor site usage. You’ll enjoy a smoother, more personalized journey without compromising your privacy.

Analytics Storage

Collects anonymous data on how you navigate and interact, helping us make informed improvements.

Differentiates real visitors from automated bots, ensuring accurate usage data and improving your website experience.

Lets us tailor your digital ads to match your interests, making them more relevant and useful to you.

Advertising Storage

Stores information for better-targeted advertising, enhancing your online ad experience.

Personalization Storage

Permits storing data to personalize content and ads across Google services based on user behavior, enhancing overall user experience.

Advertising Personalization

Allows for content and ad personalization across Google services based on user behavior. This consent enhances user experiences.

Enables personalizing ads based on user data and interactions, allowing for more relevant advertising experiences across Google services.

Receive more relevant advertisements by sharing your interests and behavior with our trusted advertising partners.

Enables better ad targeting and measurement on Meta platforms, making ads you see more relevant.

Allows for improved ad effectiveness and measurement through Meta’s Conversions API, ensuring privacy-compliant data sharing.

LinkedIn Insights

Tracks conversions, retargeting, and web analytics for LinkedIn ad campaigns, enhancing ad relevance and performance.

LinkedIn CAPI

Enhances LinkedIn advertising through server-side event tracking, offering more accurate measurement and personalization.

Google Ads Tag

Tracks ad performance and user engagement, helping deliver ads that are most useful to you.

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Download our free ebook The Basics of User Experience Design to learn about core concepts of UX design.

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Center for Undergraduate Research

CUGR Announces Summer 2024 EPIC Fellowship Awardees

The University of Maine’s Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR) is pleased to announce Summer 2024 EPIC fellowship winners. 

Experiential Programs Innovation Central (EPIC) aspires to provide integrated experiential learning and high-impact, student-centered education opportunities through hands-on exposure to research practices, emerging technologies, design thinking, interdisciplinary experiences, and innovative problem-solving.  

Students interested in pursuing any CUGR fellowship are encouraged to enroll in the EPIC course, INT 125, to support their preparation for undergraduate research beyond the classroom in any discipline.  To learn more, visit umaine.edu/epic. 

Recipients of the EPIC fellowship will receive $4,000 to put towards their research and experiential learning project. 

This year’s recipients are: 

• Robert Atwater , Engineering Physics, “Characterizing the Effects of Defect Doping on BaTiO3,” advised by Nicholas Bingham
• Jenna Cox , Psychology, “The Friendship Machine: Fast Friends And Its Effects Across Time In a University Setting,” advised by Jordan LaBouff
• Katie Davison , Communication Sciences and Disorders and Sociology, “Exploring Social-Communication, Health, and Educational Experiences of Children with Brain Injury,” advised by Jessica Riccardi
• Myles Harrison , Finance and Financial Economics, “A Maine Equity Index: How Have Maine Stocks Fared Over Time? Performance and Characteristics,” advised by Sebastian Lobe
• Matthew Patterson , New Media and Computer Science, “Our ClassXRoom,” advised by Justin Dimmel
• Arrow Smith , Anthropology and English, “Anonymity in Public Space Graffiti: Gender Differences in Public Restrooms across The University of Maine,” advised by Heather Falconer