Design Thinking – People Over Process

In Tim Brown’s article of Design Thinking, IDEO defines design thinking as a method to focus on people’s behavior and solving people’s needs and desires. Design thinking has three main processes. One research consumer insight and figure out what customers want but don’t have. Two test your ideas by building prototypes and running experiments. Finally, bring the product to life making sure there are enough resources and strategies in place on distribution. I found the reading to be thought provoking because it touches on the how design was thought of in the past as a tool used later in the product development phase. By encompassing processes that are human centered, companies will be able to create products that are efficient and solve real-life problems.

From the class videos, design thinking is a set of guidelines. Finding solutions to wicked problems, where problem and solution are unclear. Similar to the reading, design thinking is described as user centered or finding out what the user needs. Desirability, viability, and feasibility, and responsibility are described as the four characteristics in design thinking. The two main takeaways I found were to empathize with others by placing yourself in their shoes, brainstorming all kinds of solutions, even if they seem impossible, and be willing to fail multiple times. In the Design for America workshop, we went through the ideation phase to the prototyping phase. I found the workshop to be a great introduction into design thinking.

Putting the idea of design thinking in real practice, Rotterdam Eye Hospital used the guidelines to solve their issue of an unwelcoming environment that included long dreary hallways. They redesigned the children’s wing adding artworks to create a welcoming environment. Children were sent animal print T-shirts before their scheduled appointment at the hospital, and their doctors would wear a T-shirt with the same print to establish closer connection. As part of design thinking, not all of the hospital’s idea were successful, and they were able to learn and build on them.

Another example of design thinking was combating sanitation issues in Cambodia and Vietnam. Jeff Chapin and his team observed villagers then designed sanitation systems that fit into the villagers’ everyday life. By using prototypes, they optimized which sanitation system worked best and discovered that kitchen sinks were the most important to the villagers because it prevents illness caused by food contamination. See more from the TEDtalk: https://vimeo.com/67542403

 

 

 

Learning one day at a time

#DesignForAmerica #DesignProcess #MakersForLife

Human-centered design is a new up and coming scene in which designers put into the account of the target user and design around that basis. In order to successfully produce a new product, one has to be able to identify the problem and the user to identify the situation at hand and then solve it utilizing creative problem-solving techniques. Limitless. This word accurately depicts the nature of our class session this week, where we participated in a lab led by the UIUC chapter of Design for America. Through a series of exercises, we were exposed to the processes and mindset behind ideation from a designer’s perspective.

In order to give us a look at their design process and put us in a Design For America mindset, they facilitated a class activity in which we were handed 3 cards at random. One card gave the demographic which the product which we were designing for, the next gave what it will be used for, and the last card a constraint for out design. One of the group’s challenge was to design a way to make music for adventurous preschoolers and the constraint was that it should grow. They interpreted the constraint, “it grows”, as that the object expands. Their team came up with an expandable “laptop”, where it had 3 folds, one had a screen, the middle had buttons in different colors and shapes, and the last fold had a piano keyboard and a xylophone. The buttons would make noises when pressed and the screen can show cute characters dancing on the screen. The piano and xylophone allow the child to have a physical thing they can play with to make noise in case they do not like digital sounds.

As written on the website of Chicago Architecture Foundation, “The Design Process is an approach for breaking down a large project into manageable chunks.”

Although our workshop with Design for America had us create unrealistic products, the same concepts hold true. Before you can come up with a design, you need to have a specific population and a specific problem to solve in mind.  As you design the product, it needs to be realistic and be able to be manufactured, and it needs to be profitable.  Fortunately for us, our access to the Maker Lab and CU Fab Lab allows to rapidly design, create, and test prototypes.  Regardless, It is important for us keep desirability, viability, and feasibility in mind throughout the entire process.

Now, it was time to make the logos for the groups. Just seeing the logos printing made all of us so excited for what the future holds for us. What can we all create from nothing? There are still so many questions we need to ask ourselves before coming up with our final ideas and designs. I look forward to figuring out what the final products will be through design thinking.

If you want to know a more in-depth experience of each individual you go to the ‘Week 3’ tab.

 

 

 

 

From Design Process to Design Thinking

I had the opportunity to participate in this week’s workshop with the Design For America-UIUC. They focused on guiding us through the steps of design thinking – a new trend/concept in the product development life cycle. These steps included:

  • Identify
  • Immerse
  • Reframe
  • Ideate
  • Build
  • Test

In this workshop, we went through many different scenarios and worked in groups to create a non-functional prototype in its simplest form using the deign thinking steps. Starting off with perceiving and questioning the consumers’ world/perspective. After which we worked on an idea, sketch, a model prototype out of arts and craft material available. We came up with so many questions and scenarios for the cinsumers and equally as many possible solutions in the “ideate” step then tried to combine them into one prototype out of art supplis available.

As mentioned in an article by Tim Brown, before companies made products that performed a specific function then it would try to apply to a problem by “dressing them up” with a design. I’ve learnt that this is a flawed way of creating a product. With the new concept of “design thinking”, I would be able to enhance the need and impact of my product ideas on consumers and reduce the chances of them being useless or redundant, this would make them much more innovative. The deign thinking process first pushes me to identify a problem or need. Then immersing my self, empathetically, relating to the world of the consumer encountering that problem or need, reframing the problem to avoid assumptions, coming up with an idea from the perspective of the consumer – this is where the human centered focus is crucial, then building the idea to those constraints and finally testing as in any product development cycle.

So we have an idea of what design thinking is, What does that do now? Now we can target specific problems and consumer responses to products as well as identifying new market potentials as in the examples given in Tim Brown’s articles. Universities are starting to implement this in their classes, as I have experience with this new concept from my ME270 class at UIUC which involved creating a product – primariy mechanical focused – to tackle a specific problem and reiterating till it solved the problem more efficiently. I could then see the business potential in these especially after reading the two articles mentioned below. In the  “Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures”, they did a great job doing in-depth definition of design thinking and the different ways it could be implemented. Also in “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking”, he kind of alluded to the challenges of incorporating design thinking as putting art before science and how it was difficult for ‘scientists’ to do so.

[1] “Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures” Ulla Johansson-Sköldberg,
Jill Woodilla, Mehves Çetinkaya . Wiley Online Library. Web. 25 March 2013

[2] “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking” Richard Buchanan. The MIT Press. Web. 23 October 2015

Now, we are entering a world where almost any new open-ended idea has been implemented. Now we need innovative ideas and products that solve the other problems – the specific problems. We will need this design thinking in today’s innovators and major players to tackle more specific problems. I believe companies like Amazon, Capitol One, General Electric and so on, are using big data and data analytics in a way to find these specific problems – these specific potential consumer/market – and provide solutions to these.

Design Thinking – Strategic Making Process to Solve Problems

Throughout my entire life, I never considered myself an artistic person. As a child, I did go through a phase where I would try to draw many book covers. However, I quickly realized I wasn’t any good. To this day, I have trouble with creating any sort of artistic design. Example A, our team’s logo.

I have friends who I can call and tell them what I what, and they can come up with multiple mock-ups within a short period of time. During this past week’s class session, Design for America came to give us a workshop in design thinking and help us solve real world problems. I think my favorite part of the workshop was the exercises they had for us to get us thinking creatively. In addition, this workshop made me realize the importance of having a diverse group of members. With a diverse group of members, we can all bring different ideas to the table, which can then be combined to solve the problem, which is exactly what happen when we were brainstorming ideas for how to help people with Parkinson’s disease.

Design thinking is a strategy-making process that examines human behavior in order to avoid collecting backward looking data and making risky bets on instinct, rather than evidence. In the article Design Thinking by Tim Brown, gives a great example of thinking outside the box. Shimano, a Japanese cycling company, hired IDEO, a design and consulting firm, to help them penetrate a market they haven’t been able to reach. They realized that this market consisted of people who enjoyed riding bikes during their teenage years but have now stopped because of high cost, dangerous roads, and intimidation. With IDEO’s help, Shimano was able to produce a coasting bike, a bike that took the complexity of a road bike and allowed users to just hop on and ride.

Overall, I’m looking forward to learning Fusion tomorrow. I have not worked with Fusion 360, however, I do have experience with Inventor. From the quick research I just did, there are many things in common. I hope that my experience with Inventor helps me learn Fusion 360 faster.

 

Interesting 3D Printing Articles

India’s first 3D Indigenous Jet Engine

I’m excited to see how 3D printing will revolutionize the aviation industry. The article states that by 3D printing the jet engine, it has saved them nearly 40% of the cost and about 10 months in preparing and assembly the jet engine. Not sure if those 10 months are accounted for in the savings but if they aren’t that means they are saving even more money! Click here to read more about this indigenous jet engine.

Bioprinting

 I know someone in our Facebook page shared a video of a 3D skin printer but I wanted to share this article that explains in detail how that works. I personally believe that 3D printing will take off again because of the application of a 3D printer in the medical field. In my first reflection post, I talked about a Mexican startup company that is 3D printing personalized “breathable” cast. I just believe there is much more potential in the medical field because of the impact it can have on many lives.

Image of 3D skin printer

Image of 3D printed cast

Steps to Success

A venue change was required as we traded our cozy little workshop for a classroom with ample space for creativity to flow around the room. This creative space was exactly what we needed for this Design For America workshop led by our own very chapter at UIUC. We were introduced to their organization, their purpose and what they do. They explained to us, that they begin by looking for a problem prevalent in a particular demographic of people and then start brainstorming for ideas before they begin prototyping. Additionally, they would conduct some research to determine how a population views this problem, identify the root of the problem and see if their idea would produce a solution to the root of the cause. In fact they have a whole process guide for coming up with innovative designs which can be accessed here.

Their approach to design is extremely similar to Tim Brown’s method of Design Thinking, which is strategically designing to meet people’s needs and/or desires in a technically feasible way. This way of thinking certainly changed my long run approach for not only product designs, but also my approach for facing on problems. Thinking like this allows one to think to the root of the problem and solve the root cause rather than put a band aid on what the problem appears to be externally.

Not only does the design of an object impact how we choose to create, 3D printing has also impacted how we create things and design things. According to the article written by TJ McCue, 3D printing has forced us to think in 3D. We not only look to solve problems with 3D, we also look to do things better with 3D printing. Since 3D printing has universal applications, the possibilities are endless.

In order to give us a look at their design process and put us in a Design For America mindset, they facilitated a class activity in which we were handed 3 cards at random. One card gave the demographic which the product which we were designing for, the next gave what it will be used for, and the last card a constraint for out design. Our challenge was to design a way to make music for adventurous preschoolers and our constraint was that it grows. We interpreted the constraint, “it grows”, as that the object expands. Our team came up with an expandable “laptop”, where it has 3 folds, one has a screen, the middle has buttons in different colors and shapes, and the last fold has a piano keyboard and a xylophone. The buttons make noises when pressed and the screen can show cute characters dancing on the screen. The piano and xylophone allow the child to have a physical thing they can play with to make noise in case they do not like digital sounds. Our draft is shown below.

preschool
We later did another activity to come up with a product for senior citizens. Design For America taught us to look at a specific population and address the root cause of a problem. They told us to outline the question as “How can we *verb*  *insert population* in *location* to *verb*?” So after brainstorming what the senior citizen demographic is like and what they need or innately want, we came up with the question “How can we get senior citizens in retirement homes to feel needed/autonomous/respected?” For this, we came up with Generation Connect, a website and application which connects the older generation with the younger generation through messages and advice forums. Our poster presentation is shown below.

generation connect

 

After the workshop, my team and I came up with a team name and designed a logo on TinkerCad to 3D print. The name we chose is “XNihilo”. This is derived from “ex nihilo” which in Latin translates into “out of nothing”. “Ex nihilo” is often in conjunction with the idea of creation and the Latin phrase “creatio ex nihilo” which means to creation out of nothing. Anjali, Yuanzhen, and I wanted to name our group XNihilo because we are doing just that, creation out of nothing. We are bringing an idea to life with 3D Printing. Below is our screenshots in Tinkercad  and our beautiful finished 3D logo.

Logo_Tinkercad

logoprint

xnihilo

xnihilo 2

Just seeing this logo printed made me so excited for what the future holds for us. What can my group create from nothing? There are still so many questions we need to ask ourselves before coming up with our final idea and design. I look forward to figuring out what our final product will be through design thinking. I also plan to supplement this design thinking with a similar analysis which I have learned from another class, root cause analysis. Root Cause analysis is basically done by asking “Why?” multiple times to get to the root cause of the problem. Below is a hilarious example of how asking “why?” can lead a person to identifying the root cause of the problem, an article about what Root Cause Analysis is, and an article on how Root Cause Analysis was used with 3D Printing.

Funny 5 Whys:

Learn more about Root Cause Analysis 
3D Printing and Root Cause Analysis

Product Development for the End User: Define, Design, Refine.

This week in class our group of makers completed a design workshop hosted by Design for America at UIUC.  Working in our project groups, we were able to work through a design process starting from basic guidelines and ultimately present a final mock prototype.  Towards the end of our class, we also learned how to use Tinker Cad to design our group logo’s and print them at the end of class.

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In the Harvard Business Review article “Design Thinking”, Tim Brown discusses the mindset needing for designing.  In order to successfully design a product, you need to be able to design for a purpose that people would find useful.  This mindset can be defined as “a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design ethos.”  Brown attributes Thomas Edison’s success to being “able to envision how people would want to use what he made” and engineer toward that insight. In order create a successful design, you must have a specific problem or task at hand to which you are trying to solve.  This allows the design to be more useful and applicable to consumers.  Additionally, Dr. David Weightman, Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design says that a design must have desirability, viability, and feasibility.  This means that a design must be human centered, it must be able to follow a business model, and it needs to be physically and technically possible.  Personally, I think too many people try to come up with an idea and then find a market to sell it to.  However, we now know that the process should be reversed.  Determine the market, identify a problem, then create a solution.

In the Forbes article, “How to Use Design Thinking and Agility to Reach Product Development Breakthroughs”, Steven Widen says that often product teams fail to find a solution to their problems because “they never involved the end-consumer in the process.  That’s where design thinking comes in.”  Instead of looking at data or their own processes, designers need to “focus on the problem from the consumer’s perspective.”  Designers should ask “Why?” at every step of their brainstorming process.  In the business blog post, “Design thinking for a competitive advantage” published in the Times of India, Dr. Mayank Dhaundival says “Design thinking is a structured approach to finding innovative, out of the box solutions to multiple types of problems.”  Rather than focusing on the problem, it focuses on the solution.  Dhaundival continues to say that design thinking removes constraints until you can narrow down choices or ideas to fit the reality.  Similar to what Brown says in “Design Thinking, Dhuandival says design thinking gives a lot of importance to prototyping, and that also of the rapid variety. The initial prototypes are not the well-made workshop prototypes but much more modest; the ones made by chart paper, tape, scissors and colour pens.”  Again this is where 3D printing is advantageous.  Once you have access to the proper equipment, there is a low cost of failure and it is possible to rapidly design and refine products for testing.

IMG_1021

Although our workshop with Design for America had us create unrealistic products, the same concepts hold true.  Before you can come up with a design, you need to have a specific population and a specific problem to solve in mind.  As you design the product, it needs to be realistic and be able to be manufactured, and it needs to be profitable.  Fortunately for us, our access to the Maker Lab and CU Fab Lab allows to rapidly design, create, and test prototypes.  Regardless, It is important for us keep desirability, viability, and feasibility in mind throughout the entire process.  Going forward, the readings and the workshop will guide our group, BCC Creation, in our semester project.

 

 

Week 3: Inspiration=Innovation

Link

This week, we attended a Design Thinking Workshop hosted by Design for America-UIUC. The DFA is a network of student organizations that works to train young minds in the creative process and/or hone their skills for a future in innovation. In the workshop, we  observed and made the steps necessary to provide good output(an effective product, design, etc.) with our input(creativity, experience, etc.). While many new innovations can be said to result from “out of the blue”, it never hurts to have a plan or buildup to that innovation.

The process described contains two main principles: understanding and creating. Understanding is the passive planning stage where one can observe and research more about a problem or issue to better identify a solution.The creation portion is the more active prototyping/design phase where the innovator takes what they have learned about the issue and puts it into an actual product. This is not only limited to 3D prints or physical objects, however, and can be represented by any means that will effectively resolve the issue at hand such as a service, advice, or other non-tangible goods. While everyone does indeed have their own creative process; these steps offer a suitable guideline for the innovator to utilize their skills and resources to create something. This framework has been canonized into businesses and markets as “Design Thinking”.

By utilizing this process, my team and I created a logo for ourselves. First we identified what we wanted: a logo for the three of us that would incorporate our last initials(L, A, and X) and a team name. We decided on a triangle as the base for the design as they were three of us. Next, we subtly added our initials by taking out different sized portions from each side of the triangle. Finally, we decided upon our name: “The MakerLAX”.

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The demand for expertly skilled designers and problem-solvers has grown since the start of the digital age and addictive manufacturing. According to TNW, https://thenextweb.com/dd/2017/02/10/create-maintain-strategic-approach-design-thinking/ many companies are seeking to the ability to unlock the ability to think like designers and apply the same principles of the design process to the actual workplace. While having an experienced designer with a powerful creative mind is key, it’s even better to be able to have the critical thinking and prowess as well. Being able to posses and understand a skill allows one to appreciate it more from someone else, and even harness it themselves. They also mention “creating a team as diverse and international as the clients that you serve”. By having a team of crafters with different backgrounds and experiences, it is easier and more fruitful to innovate designs and solutions to the problems at hand. While the concept of design thinking is powerful and beneficial, some have used it in malpractice. As the huffingtonpost puts it http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rethinking-design-thinking_us_589b504ce4b061551b3e066a “the current proliferation of a one-size-fits-all-approach is not only ineffective, it could ultimately doom [design thinking’s] future”. Design thinking is a powerful tool that allows one to transform their inspiration into innovation, but some utilize haphazardly in a way that presents it as oversimplified or short-term. Creating something out just an idea takes time, effort, and most of all: passion. One who does not truly care for a problem cannot effectively solve it. It’s also a misconception that the creative process provides a quick and easy fix on the first try, which is more than usually not true. Often times solutions need to be modified due to inefficiency, unforeseen issues, or just a desire for a better design. Design thinking is incredibly useful and has been taking off in the recent years, but everyone, not just innovators, must not fall prey to misconceptions like these. The world has gone a long way in the road of innovation to the point where it is constructing it themselves, but it must not build itself into a corner.

Design Thinking – Filling The Academic Void of Creativity

This past week I was lucky enough to participate in a design thinking workshop. I had exposed to the methodologies before of empathizing, defining, exploring, and iterative prototyping but it was nonetheless still an engaging, fun activity.

Especially the fun part. Personally, that’s where I think design thinking really succeeds and shines. Aside from being a great process and tool for physical products design thinking really adds a much-needed jolt from routine processes in other fields. Take business for example, too often we’re buried underneath financial reports, cost analysis, and worn-down frameworks to even consider the end user. Design thinking, however, pushes us to step away from the sheets and just write down what we’re thinking regardless of the cost.

Reading the article by HBS about design thinking, it covers the famous design firm IDEO. I think the article it puts it well about how with design thinking IDEO is able to really get into the customer mindset and although it doesn’t mention this explicitly, design thinking also gives way to acceptable failures.

There’s a very famous example of this from IDEO where the firm had a tight deadline to reinvent the shopping cart. Within a short amount of time the firm came up with a novel but effective way to solve the issue – but if you look around shopping carts are still the same around in the US. The funny thing is, though, IDEO still comes out on top. IDEO’s employees pushed themselves to solve a problem that most of us would never think of and came up with a great idea. It just didn’t take off like sliced bread and that’s ok.

Too often, I think business majors are scared to break out of the mold and be bold. To try and risk failure. Perhaps it is because we are so cost minded, maybe it’s our economic base for classes that teach us everything has a price and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Whatever it is I do believe that design thinking brings back the creativity in problem-solving for many disciplines, not just business, and pushes us to be ok with failures because without failures no organization or person would ever grow.

In conclusion, I push those who want to learn more to start exploring what’s out there. Non University students have resources like the d.School’s online catalog of how to use their methods. For those at a school like Illinois, plenty of classes exist and even Lynda has great content for learning everything from design thinking to more specific subsets like UX/UI design. I do truly believe design thinking pushes the boundaries of other disciplines to be more creative, more bold, and more willing to learn from failures.

http://www.everyonedeservesgreatdesign.com/

Human-Centric Design-The Way to Innovation

design-for-america-logoThis week we were fortunate to have members of Design for America from the UIUC Chapter present a workshop. It was a fantastic presentation in which we not only learned more about the RSO and their projects, but also participated in a series of interactive activities in groups in which eventually each group designed a prototype to solve a specific problem. As a class, we were given the prompt to come up with a system that could make daily lives easier for senior citizens. My group narrowed the topic down to specifically help the elderly when they are by themselves, especially in situations like falling. This idea stemmed from the fact that some of our team members have personal experiences of older relatives falling but weren’t able to get immediate help because they were home alone. Eventually, we designed a Fitbit-like bracelet which could sense emergency situations such as sudden drops or irregularities in the wearer’s heart rate and alert the person’s family members. This will ensure people get the help they need during accidents. 
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This workshop allowed us to create something using a very systematic approach. It was interesting because rather than chaotic free-thinking, we were purposely forced to break down the problem and go through individual steps (“Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation” as Tim Brown mentioned in his article Design Thinking) that eventually led to a solution. However, this type of approach did not hinder our creativity. Instead, it allowed us to utilize low-fidelity prototyping in which we openly generated ideas without discarding any right away. At the same time, this process made us think through each of their feasibilities. It also made me realize that by brainstorming problems in our lives, discussing with others, and using simple, supposedly “childish” tools such as markers, Play-Doh, and pipe cleaners, we were able to develop ideas that could potentially become a powerful contribution to the society.

As said in the article Design Thinking and videos from the Coursera Online Course, in today’s society, professional designers aren’t the only ones that design. Big corporations, companies, organization, and people like you and me should be involved in the design process. Innovation is not just limited to producing aesthetically pleasing physical products, but rather it expands into the realm of IT processes and collaboration. This leads to the idea, which was also mentioned during DFA’s presentation, of human-centric design. It’s very important to factor in human needs when designing. In addition, it’s essential to not shy away from complexity or ambiguity and be willing to fail, as mentioned in the videos. The famous IDEO shopping cart design documentary is a great example of how people (and not just designers) with all sorts of backgrounds come together and create something using the human-centric design. The shopping trolleys with multiple handles for bags make it easy for shoppers who are only picking up a few items. These trolleys can also hold baskets for those who need more space. Also, an article I found to be interesting is How to use human centric knowledge to your advantage by Robert Leeming, which explains how learning about the interactions between lighting and the human circadian rhythm could help us increase efficiency in the workplace and improve patients’ health in hospitals. And think about how neat it would be if lighting itself could fix jet lags!

To sum it up, when we look at problems today like unaffordable healthcare, poor education system, and poverty, it’s clear that these issues require creative, human-centered solutions, which can be developed through inspiration, ideation, and implementation, because ultimately, people are the ones the system serves.

Design Thinking is the New Black

Human-centered design is a new up and coming scene in which designers put into the account of the target user and design around that basis. In order to successfully produce a new product, one has to be able to identify the problem and the user to identify the situation at hand and then solve it utilizing creative problem-solving techniques. This week the student organization Design for America taught the design process that was developed at Northwestern University and they were teaching us the process in a condensed version with a case study on senior citizens. Our team identified Alzheimer patients and their forgetfulness and developed the How Can We statement as “How can we help Alzheimer patients at home to remember daily tasks and belongings.” Our design was a bracelet that is connected to your phone and has sensors on other everyday objects so if the distance between the two sensors grows, then the bracelet would vibrate and notify you. One can also send push notifications as reminders such as caregivers to remind about medicine and the bracelet would vibrate and also get notifications on a phone.

Designing with the end users in mind allows one to identify all of the possible facets that ultimately allows the innovators to tweak and make the product or service into an even better prototype. Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, has said that she utilizes design thinking in nearly every aspect of the company’s decisions now. The user experience of a product is reexamined from the trends in women’s snacking to how she, as a mother, would view her own products on a shelf. PepsiCo has taken an initiative to curate a more robust portfolio and a more health-conscious focus as well while keeping the customers in mind. This type of forwarding design thinking has led to their steady growth versus their competitors.

Empathy with users allows a company to be able to refine their processes and products. The design-centric culture that the Harvard Business Review cites is a new movement that large organizations are utilizing to analyze complex problems and that is exactly how companies are developing new business strategies along with product innovations. Companies like GE and IBM have adopted such tactics and have noted how business strategies differ little from defining user experiences. The movement towards integrating design thinking into every aspect of companies means that it is a valuable skill to have and to be able to master. In order to continue to be innovative, there has to be constant change and to be adaptive to the changing culture of society nowadays. I believe that design thinking will empower companies and now will empower us, as students as well.

https://hbr.org/2015/09/how-indra-nooyi-turned-design-thinking-into-strategy

https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-thinking-comes-of-age