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Design thinking in practice: research methodology.

January 10, 2021 2021-01-10

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Project Overview

Over the last decade, we have seen design thinking gain popularity across industries. Nielsen Norman Group conducted a long-term research project to understand design thinking in practice. The research project included 3 studies involving more than 1000 participants and took place from 2018 to 2020:

Intercepts and interviews with 87 participants
Digital survey with 1067 respondents
In-depth case study at an institution practicing design thinking

The primary goals of the project were to investigate the following:

How do practitioners learn and use design thinking?
How does design thinking provide value to individuals and organizations?
What makes design thinking successful or unsuccessful?

This description of what we did may be useful in helping you interpret our results and apply them to your own design-thinking practice.

Project Findings

The findings from this research are shared in the following articles and videos:

What Is Design Thinking, Really? (What Practitioners Say) (Article)
How UX Professionals Define Design Thinking in Practice (Video)
Design Thinking: The Learner’s Journey (Article)

What are the first words that come to mind when I say “design thinking”?
Can you tell me more about [word they supplied in response to question 1]?
How would you define design thinking? Why?
What does it mean to practice design thinking?
What are the positive or negative effects of design thinking?
Products and services
Clients/customers
Using this scale, what is your experience using design thinking?
Using this same scale, how successful has design thinking been in your experience?
What could have been better?
What is good about design thinking? What is bad about design thinking?

Our second study consisted of a qualitative digital survey that ran for two months and had 1067 professional respondents primarily from UX-related fields. The survey had 14 questions, excluding demographic-related questions. An alternative set of 4 questions was shown to those with little to no experience using design thinking.

Which of the following best describes your experience with design thinking?
Where did you learn design thinking?
UX maturity
Frequency of crossteam collaboration
User-centered approach
Research-driven decision making
How often do you, yourself, practice design thinking?
In your own words, what does it mean to practice design thinking?
When do you use design thinking?
What methods or exercises are used?
In what situations is each one used and why?
Which ones are done individually versus as a group?
How is each exercise executed?
Gives your organization a competitive advantage
Drives innovation
Fosters collaboration
Provides structure to the organization
Increases likelihood of success
Please describe a situation where design thinking positively influenced your organization and why it was successful.
Please describe a situation where design thinking may have negatively influenced your organization and why it was negative.
Design thinking negatively affects efficiency.
Design thinking requires a collaborative environment to work well.
Anyone can learn and practice design thinking.
Design thinking is rigid.
Design thinking requires all involved to be human-centered.
Design thinking takes a lot of time.
Design thinking has low return on investment.
Design thinking empowers personal growth.
Design thinking grows interpersonal relationships.
Design thinking improves organizational progress.

The 1067 survey participants had diverse backgrounds: they held varying roles across industries and were located across the globe. 94 responses were invalid, so we excluded them from our analysis.

The majority of participants (33%) were UX designers, followed by UX researchers (13%) and UX consultants (12%).

Of participants who responded “Other”, the most common response provided was an executive role (n=20). This included roles such as CEO, VP, director, founder, and “head of.” Other mentioned roles included service designer (n=17), manager (n=14), business designer or business analyst (n=11), and educator (including teacher, instructor, and curriculum designer) (n=11).

Geographically, we had respondents from 67 different countries. The majority of survey participants work in the United States (34%), followed by India (8%), United Kingdom (7%), and Canada (5%).

Our survey participants also represented diverse industries, with the majority in software (22%) and finance or insurance (14%).

Percentage of Participants by Each Industry

Of participants who responded Other , the most common response provided was agency or consulting (n=26), followed by telecommunications (n=17), marketing (n=8), and tourism (n=7).

Our third and final study consisted of an in-person case study at a large, public ecommerce company. The case study involved 9 interviews with company employees, 6 observation sessions of design-thinking (or related) workshops, and an internal resource and literature audit.

The interviews were 1-hour long and semistructured. Of the 8 participants, 3 were on the same team but had different roles: 1 UX designer, 1 product manager, and 1 engineer. The other 5 interviewees (3 design leaders and 2 UX designers) worked in different groups across the organization. Each participant completed the same digital survey from the second study prior to interviewing.

In addition to interviews, we conducted 6 observation sessions: 3 design-thinking workshops, 2 meetings, and 1 lunch-and-learn. After the workshops, all participants were invited to fill out a survey about the workshop. The survey had 5 questions:

We achieved our goal of [x].
The time and resources spent to conduct the workshop were worth it.
What aspects were of greatest value to you, and why?
Where there any aspects you felt were not useful, and why?
Will the workshop or its output impact any of your future work? If so, how?
What is your role?

Lastly, we conducted a resource and literature audit of the company’s internal resources related to design thinking available to employees.

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What Is Design Thinking, Really? (What Practitioners Say)

What is design thinking?

Design and conquer: in years past, the word “design” might have conjured images of expensive handbags or glossy coffee table books. Now, your mind might go straight to business. Design and design thinking are buzzing in the business community more than ever. Until now, design has focused largely on how something looks; these days, it’s a dynamic idea used to describe how organizations can adjust their problem-solving approaches to respond to rapidly changing environments—and create maximum impact and shareholder value. Design is a journey and a destination. Design thinking is a core way of starting the journey and arriving at the right destination at the right time.

Simply put, “design thinking is a methodology that we use to solve complex problems , and it’s a way of using systemic reasoning and intuition to explore ideal future states,” says McKinsey partner Jennifer Kilian. Design thinking, she continues, is “the single biggest competitive advantage that you can have, if your customers are loyal to you—because if you solve for their needs first, you’ll always win.”

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on design thinking

Tjark Freundt is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Hamburg office, Tomas Nauclér is a senior partner in the Stockholm office, Daniel Swan is a senior partner in the Stamford office, Warren Teichner is a senior partner in the New York office, Bill Wiseman is a senior partner in the Seattle office, and Kai Vollhardt is a senior partner in the Munich office.

And good design is good business. Kilian’s claim is backed up with data: McKinsey Design’s 2018 Business value of design report found that the best design performers increase their revenues and investor returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry competitors. What’s more, over a ten-year period, design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 219 percent.

As you may have guessed by now, design thinking goes way beyond just the way something looks. And incorporating design thinking into your business is more than just creating a design studio and hiring designers. Design thinking means fundamentally changing how you develop your products, services, and, indeed, your organization itself.

Read on for a deep dive into the theory and practice of design thinking.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Design Practice , and check out McKinsey’s latest Business value of design report here .

How do companies build a design-driven company culture?

There’s more to succeeding in business than developing a great product or service that generates a financial return. Empathy and purpose are core business needs. Design thinking means putting customers, employees, and the planet at the center of problem solving.

McKinsey’s Design Practice has learned that design-led organizations start with design-driven cultures. Here are four steps to building success through the power of design:

Understand your audience. Design-driven companies go beyond asking what customers and employees want, to truly understanding why they want it. Frequently, design-driven companies will turn to cultural anthropologists and ethnographers to drill down into how their customers use and experience products, including what motivates them and what turns them away.

Makeup retailer Sephora provides an example. When marketing leaders actually watched shoppers using the Sephora website, they realized customers would frequently go to YouTube to watch videos of people using products before making a purchase. Using this information, the cosmetics retailer developed its own line of demonstration videos, keeping shoppers on the site and therefore more likely to make a purchase.

Bring design to the executive table. This leader can be a chief design officer, a chief digital officer, or a chief marketing officer. Overall, this executive should be the best advocate for the company’s customers and employees, bringing the point of view of the people, the planet, and the company’s purpose into strategic business decisions. The design lead should also build bridges between multiple functions and stakeholders, bringing various groups into the design iteration process.
Design in real time. To understand how and why people—both customers and employees—use processes, products, or services, organizations should develop a three-pronged design-thinking model that combines design, business strategy, and technology. This approach allows business leaders to spot trends, cocreate using feedback and data, prototype, validate, and build governance models for ongoing investment.

Act quickly. Good design depends on agility. That means getting a product to users quickly, then iterating based on customer feedback. In a design-driven culture, companies aren’t afraid to release products that aren’t quite perfect. Designers know there is no end to the design process. The power of design, instead, lies in the ability to adopt and adapt as needs change. When designers are embedded within teams, they are uniquely positioned to gather and digest feedback, which can lead to unexpected revelations. Ultimately, this approach creates more impactful and profitable results than following a prescribed path.

Consider Instagram. Having launched an initial product in 2010, Instagram’s founders paid attention to what the most popular features were: image sharing, commenting, and liking. They relaunched with a stripped-down version a few months later, resulting in 100,000 downloads in less than a week and over two million users in under two months —all without any strategic promotion.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Design Practice .

What’s the relationship between user-centered design and design thinking?

Both processes are design led. And they both emphasize listening to and deeply understanding users and continually gathering and implementing feedback to develop, refine, and improve a service.

Where they are different is scale. User-centered design focuses on improving a specific product or service . Design thinking takes a broader view as a way to creatively address complex problems—whether for a start-up, a large organization, or society as a whole.

User-centered design is great for developing a fantastic product or service. In the past, a company could coast on a superior process or product for years before competitors caught up. But now, as digitization drives more frequent and faster disruptions, users demand a dynamic mix of product and service. Emphasis has shifted firmly away from features and functions toward purpose, lifestyle, and simplicity of use.

Circular, white maze filled with white semicircles.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

McKinsey analysis has found that some industries—such as telecommunications, automotive, and consumer product companies— have already made strides toward combining product and service into a unified customer experience . Read on for concrete examples of how companies have applied design thinking to offer innovative—and lucrative—customer experiences.

Learn more about our Operations Practice .

What is the design-thinking process?

McKinsey analysis has shown that the design-thinking approach creates more value than conventional approaches. The right design at the right price point spurs sustainability and resilience in a demonstrable way—a key driver of growth.

According to McKinsey’s Design Practice, there are two key steps to the design-thinking process:

Developing an understanding of behavior and needs that goes beyond what people are doing right now to what they will need in the future and how to deliver that. The best way to develop this understanding is to spend time with people.
“Concepting,” iterating, and testing . First start with pen and paper, sketching out concepts. Then quickly put these into rough prototypes—with an emphasis on quickly. Get feedback, refine, and test again. As American chemist Linus Pauling said : “The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”

What is D4VG versus DTV?

For more than a decade, manufacturers have used a design-to-value (DTV) model to design and release products that have the features needed to be competitive at a low cost. During this time, DTV efforts were groundbreaking because they were based on data rather than experience. They also reached across functions, in contrast to the typical value-engineering approach.

The principles of DTV have evolved into design for value and growth (D4VG), a new way of creating products that provide exceptional customer experiences while driving both value and growth. Done right, D4VG efforts generate products with the features, form, and functionality that turn users into loyal fans .

D4VG products can cost more to build, but they can ultimately raise margins by delivering on a clear understanding of a product’s core brand attributes, insights into people’s motivations, and design thinking.

Learn more about our Consumer Packaged Goods Practice .

What is design for sustainability?

As consumers, companies, and regulators shift toward increased sustainability, design processes are coming under even more scrutiny. The challenge is that carbon-efficient production processes tend to be more complex and can require more carbon-intensive materials. The good news is that an increased focus on design for sustainability (DFS), especially at the research and development stage , can help mitigate some of these inefficiencies and ultimately create even more sustainable products.

For example, the transition from internal-combustion engines to electric-propulsion vehicles has highlighted emissions-intensive automobile production processes. One study found that around 20 percent of the carbon generated by a diesel vehicle comes from its production . If the vehicle ran on only renewable energy, production emissions would account for 85 percent of the total. With more sustainable design, electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturers stand to reduce the lifetime emissions of their products significantly.

To achieve design for sustainability at scale, companies can address three interrelated elements at the R&D stage:

rethinking the way their products use resources, adapting them to changing regulations, adopting principles of circularity, and making use of customer insights
understanding and tracking emissions and cost impact of design decisions in support of sustainability goals
fostering the right mindsets and capabilities to integrate sustainability into every product and design decision

What is ‘skinny design’?

Skinny design is a less theoretical aspect of design thinking. It’s a method whereby consumer goods companies reassess the overall box size of products by reducing the total cubic volume of the package. According to McKinsey analysis , this can improve overall business performance in the following ways:

Top-line growth of 4 to 5 percent through improvements in shelf and warehouse holding power. The ability to fit more stock into warehouses ultimately translates to growth.
Bottom-line growth of more than 10 percent . Packing more product into containers and trucks creates the largest savings. Other cost reductions can come from designing packaging to minimize the labor required and facilitate automation.
Sustainability improvements associated with reductions in carbon emissions through less diesel fuel burned per unit. Material choices can also confer improvements to the overall footprint.

Read more about skinny design and how it can help maximize the volume of consumer products that make it onto shelves.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Operations Practice .

How can a company become a top design performer?

The average person’s standard for design is higher than ever. Good design is no longer just a nice-to-have for a company. Customers now have extremely high expectations for design, whether it’s customer service, instant access to information, or clever products that are also aesthetically relevant in the current culture.

McKinsey tracked the design practices of 300 publicly listed companies over a five-year period in multiple countries. Advanced regression analysis of more than two million pieces of financial data and more than 100,000 design actions revealed 12 actions most correlated to improved financial performance. These were then clustered into the following four themes:

Analytical leadership . For the best financial performers, design is a top management issue , and design performance is assessed with the same rigor these companies use to approach revenue and cost. The companies with the top financial returns have combined design and business leadership through bold, design-centric visions. These include a commitment to maintain a baseline level of customer understanding among all executives. The CEO of one of the world’s largest banks, for example, spends one day a month with the bank’s clients and encourages all members of the company’s C-suite to do the same.
Cross-functional talent . Top-performing companies make user-centric design everyone’s responsibility, not a siloed function. Companies whose designers are embedded within cross-functional teams have better overall business performance . Further, the alignment of design metrics with functional business metrics (such as financial performance, user adoption rates, and satisfaction results) is also correlated to better business performance.
Design with people, not for people . Design flourishes best, according to our research, in environments that encourage learning, testing, and iterating with users . These practices increase the odds of creating breakthrough products and services, while at the same time reducing the risk of costly missteps.
User experience (UX) . Top-quartile companies embrace the full user experience by taking a broad-based view of where design can make a difference. Design approaches like mapping customer journeys can lead to more inclusive and sustainable solutions.

What are some real-world examples of how design thinking can improve efficiency and user experience?

Understanding the theory of design thinking is one thing. Seeing it work in practice is something else. Here are some examples of how elegant design created value for customers, a company, and shareholders:

Stockholm’s international airport, Arlanda, used design thinking to address its air-traffic-control problem. The goal was to create a system that would make air traffic safer and more effective. By understanding the tasks and challenges of the air-traffic controllers, then collaboratively working on prototypes and iterating based on feedback, a working group was able to design a new departure-sequencing tool that helped air-traffic controllers do their jobs better. The new system greatly reduced the amount of time planes spent between leaving the terminal and being in the air, which in turn helped reduce fuel consumption.
When Tesla creates its electric vehicles , the company closely considers not only aesthetics but also the overall driving experience .
The consumer electronics industry has a long history of dramatic evolutions lead by design thinking. Since Apple debuted the iPhone in 2007, for example, each new generation has seen additional features, new customers, and lower costs—all driven by design-led value creation .

Learn more about our Consumer Packaged Goods and Sustainability Practices.

For a more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s Agile Organizations collection. Learn more about our Design Practice —and check out design-thinking-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced:

“ Skinny design: Smaller is better ,” April 26, 2022, Dave Fedewa , Daniel Swan , Warren Teichner , and Bill Wiseman
“ Product sustainability: Back to the drawing board ,” February 7, 2022, Stephan Fuchs, Stephan Mohr , Malin Orebäck, and Jan Rys
“ Emerging from COVID-19: Australians embrace their values ,” May 11, 2020, Lloyd Colling, Rod Farmer , Jenny Child, Dan Feldman, and Jean-Baptiste Coumau
“ The business value of design ,” McKinsey Quarterly , October 25, 2018, Benedict Sheppard , Hugo Sarrazin, Garen Kouyoumjian, and Fabricio Dore
“ More than a feeling: Ten design practices to deliver business value ,” December 8, 2017, Benedict Sheppard , John Edson, and Garen Kouyoumjian
“ Creating value through sustainable design ,” July 25, 2017, Sara Andersson, David Crafoord, and Tomas Nauclér
“ The expanding role of design in creating an end-to-end customer experience ,” June 6, 2017, Raffaele Breschi, Tjark Freundt , Malin Orebäck, and Kai Vollhardt
“ Design for value and growth in a new world ,” April 13, 2017, Ankur Agrawal , Mark Dziersk, Dave Subburaj, and Kieran West
“ The power of design thinking ,” March 1, 2016, Jennifer Kilian , Hugo Sarrazin, and Barr Seitz
“ Building a design-driven culture ,” September 1, 2015, Jennifer Kilian , Hugo Sarrazin, and Hyo Yeon

Want to know more about design thinking?

Skinny design: Smaller is better

The business value of design

More than a feeling: Ten design practices to deliver business value

Smart. Open. Grounded. Inventive. Read our Ideas Made to Matter.

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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.

Infographic of the design thinking process

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.

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.

Why Design Thinking Works

Jeanne Liedtka

While we know a lot about practices that stimulate new ideas, innovation teams often struggle to apply them. Why? Because people’s biases and entrenched behaviors get in the way. In this article a Darden professor explains how design thinking helps people overcome this problem and unleash their creativity.

Though ostensibly geared to understanding and molding the experiences of customers, design thinking also profoundly reshapes the experiences of the innovators themselves. For example, immersive customer research helps them set aside their own views and recognize needs customers haven’t expressed. Carefully planned dialogues help teams build on their diverse ideas, not just negotiate compromises when differences arise. And experiments with new solutions reduce all stakeholders’ fear of change.

At every phase—customer discovery, idea generation, and testing—a clear structure makes people more comfortable trying new things, and processes increase collaboration. Because it combines practical tools and human insight, design thinking is a social technology —one that the author predicts will have an impact as large as an earlier social technology: total quality management.

It addresses the biases and behaviors that hamper innovation.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

While we know a lot about what practices stimulate new ideas and creative solutions, most innovation teams struggle to realize their benefits.

People’s intrinsic biases and behavioral habits inhibit the exercise of the imagination and protect unspoken assumptions about what will or will not work.

The Solution

Design thinking provides a structured process that helps innovators break free of counterproductive tendencies that thwart innovation. Like TQM, it is a social technology that blends practical tools with insights into human nature.

Occasionally, a new way of organizing work leads to extraordinary improvements. Total quality management did that in manufacturing in the 1980s by combining a set of tools—kanban cards, quality circles, and so on—with the insight that people on the shop floor could do much higher level work than they usually were asked to. That blend of tools and insight, applied to a work process, can be thought of as a social technology.

JL Jeanne Liedtka is a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

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Unlocking Innovation: A Comprehensive Guide to Design Thinking Research

January 21, 2023 February 2, 2023

Research is deeply embedded in every aspect of the design thinking process. From the initial spark of an idea to the final iteration, research informs and shapes your solution – the deeper the research, the more creative and original the solution.

At the heart of design thinking lies empathy, the ability to fully understand the problem and the user. Thus, thorough research must delve into the problem and user needs.

“Without research (in any form it takes) I don’t see a high likelihood of success in the Design Thinking process because so much of the principles and practises of Design thinking are based in knowing, understanding and empathizing (and this is accomplished through research)” Annisha Govind , Design Thinking Practitioner

In this article, we will explore how to conduct effective research in design thinking to generate innovative ideas.

Putting on a research mindset cap

You are embarking on a journey to unlock a novel solution and, in some cases, to gain a deeper understanding of a concept or idea that you may not have in-depth knowledge or experience with. So, before you start your research, it is crucial to adopt the right mindset.

Open-mindedness: During design thinking research, you will learn about concepts or ideas that may be new to you or that you may not personally believe in. It is crucial to keep an open mind and be aware of your biases and knowledge gaps.
Empathy: At the core of design thinking is empathy. To truly understand a problem from the stakeholders’ perspective, you must not just see things from their perspective, but also try to understand their environment, beliefs, and everything else that shapes their experience.
Agility: Research is like climbing an uncharted mountain. You will encounter roadblocks and may need to change your approach mid-way. Be prepared to adjust your course when necessary and have the flexibility to explore new insights that may lead you down a different path.

“Research is to DT what a base is to a pizza, no matter what toppings you add you can’t have a pizza without a base” Disha Kaushal , Design Thinking Practitioner

Frame your design thinking challenge

Now that you have put on your research mindset cap and framed the challenge statement, let’s dive into how to do the research.

Before diving into the sea of information for your research, it is crucial to frame your challenge statement. This will provide direction and focus for you and your team, and will ensure that you have clarity and alignment throughout the research process.

One effective format to follow is the “How Might We” statement, which takes the form of “How might we do X or Y?” For example:

“How might we design a driverless car that is environmentally friendly and affordable?”
“How might we reinforce a culture of generosity by creating charitable giving solutions that are more accessible, inclusive, and effective?”

Your challenge statement should be neither too narrow nor too broad in scope. It should clearly articulate the overarching goal you are trying to achieve, while also outlining any essential limitations or constraints.

Now that you have put on your research mindset cap and framed the challenge statement, let’s dive into how to do the research.

Research can be divided into three stages: the pre-solution stage, solution stage, and the post-solution stage.

Let’s start by discussing the pre-solution stage ,

1. User Interviews Discussions

Most of us agree that user interviews are the most critical part of the first stage of the design thinking process , empathy. The question is, how do we conduct these interviews effectively

Visit the user in their own environment, whether it be their home or office. Avoid bringing them into your office or communicating virtually through platforms such as Zoom. Take note of their surroundings – are they cluttered or well-organized? Get a sense of their lifestyle.

“My general research process involves speaking to those involved (be in stakeholders, users, or those facing the challenge) and then supplementing the knowledge gained through these conversations with online research” Annisha Govind , Design Thinking Practitioner

Prepare for the discussion in depth. The aim is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the user. Outline how you would like the conversation to flow and have all necessary questions at the ready.

Often, researchers begin with light, ice-breaker questions and progress to inquiries about the user’s lifestyle and habits. Gradually delve into the problem space and end with thought-provoking questions that will help you understand the user’s underlying beliefs and perspectives on the subject matter.

Surveys are an efficient way to begin your user research. They’re easy to implement, cost-effective, and provide immediate feedback. They also allow you to reach a larger audience and gather overall patterns and insights. These patterns can then be used to create a discussion guide for user interviews. The results of the survey can highlight specific areas to investigate, sparking curiosity and prompts questions that will serve as the foundation for the user interviews.

When creating a survey questionnaire, include a variety of question types. Avoid including too many questions. Use questions with scaling as the response instead of simple yes or no. For questions with multiple options, allow users to select more than one option.

Sample questions:

How comfortable are you with giving driving controls to a machine? (Scale 1-10)
How much control over driving are you willing to give to a machine? (Scale 1-10)
What budget cars are affordable to you? (< 20,000$, 20,000-30,000$, 30,000-40,000$, and more)

3. Observation

To truly understand user behaviour, it’s important to observe them in the real world in addition to conducting interviews or surveys. Watch how they interact with current solutions for the problem you’re trying to solve.

For example, if your challenge is to increase sales of a new organic premium soap, go to a modern store and observe how customers choose a soap bar.

Observation can take various forms such as physically visiting a store, tracking website journeys through software, or watching recordings of customer behaviour in real-world scenarios.

Details like the first product picked up, time spent reading product details, or the first website click can only be learned through observation and will aid in generating better ideas.

If you’re designing a lifestyle solution, send your team members to spend time with the target group. Consider setting up a homestay for a few days. If you notice something interesting or have a question about a particular behaviour, kindly ask the user for a few minutes of their time to understand.

Check out this IDEO video on how the top design thinking practitioners observe user behaviour while designing a new cart for retail stores.

4. Expert Interviews

As design thinkers, your expertise lies in the process of innovation and creation, not necessarily in any specific field. To quickly and deeply understand a challenge, reach out to the experts in the field, including all stakeholders involved in the problem at hand. Identify the experts and interview them, asking about the challenge and any issues they see with it.

In the IDEO shopping cart video, the team interviewed those who make and repair shopping carts. They learned important information such as safety concerns and the need for carts to withstand strong winds in parking lots. These insights would not have been uncovered without speaking to the experts.

Once you have a thorough understanding of the users and the problem scope, it’s time to organize the research in a format that can be used to generate solutions among the entire team.

Based on the research, you can kick start the solution stage (consolidating the research for solution),

1. Persona Building

To truly understand and empathize with your users, create personas and profiles that represent your primary user. Think of it as an imagination snapshot that covers their needs, desires, and motivations. One or two personas should represent the larger group of users.

Begin by compiling all information learned about the user from the research. Create two or three personas to represent the core user group. Make each persona slightly different in terms of perspective and story.

A persona is a fictional character you create by writing down detailed information about them. This includes basic elements like name, gender, marital status, occupation, and hobbies, as well as personal attributes such as characteristics, pain points, goals, and more.

Make the persona come to life by adding a picture and a quote that expresses the user’s personality.

Having a clear persona in mind will greatly aid your team members in imagining the user and their situation while brainstorming ideas. It will give them a visual and personality to design solutions for.

2. Empathy Mapping

To truly understand the user, it’s also important to know their emotions, thought processes, and feelings. While personas provide an overview of who the user is, empathy mapping allows you to delve deeper into their character and soul.

An empathy map is a collaborative visualization tool used to articulate what we know about a particular type of user. It helps to create a shared understanding of user needs and aid in decision-making.

To create an empathy map , consider the following four key quadrants:

Says: map the points that the user said in the interview
Thinks: map the points that the user would be thinking throughout the experience
Does: list down the actions the user takes
Feels: add the emotions the user is experiencing

Build empathy maps for the personas you created. Use the same persona names for your brainstorming meetings, as if it’s a real person. This will help to keep the user’s perspective at the forefront of your design decisions.

3. Journey Mapping

A consumer journey map is typically used by designers to understand how a user interacts with a brand or product across different touchpoints. However, from the perspective of a design thinking practitioner, a user journey map is the stages and experiences the user goes through to achieve a goal – a part of the problem statement – from the initial seed of need in their mind to finally achieving the goal.

For example, if the problem statement is how to create a safer shopping cart, create a journey map of a user’s experience using a cart – from the need for a cart to finally leaving it in the parking area. Note down the emotions at various stages of using the cart – picking it up, moving it around, adding items to it, billing, and more.

With all the above information, you will be able to explore multiple ideas. Once you have shortlisted a few, you can refer to the following post-solution research mechanisms to test them.

1. User Feedback

Design thinking is an iterative process and the output from research needs to go through multiple feedback loops before it is finalized. This feedback loop can be done through customers and experts.

The feedback process is simple, show the product to a customer and ask for their opinions or have them use the product and take a survey afterwards.

If the product is online, leverage survey tools and if it’s physical, be present and provide a sheet of paper for feedback.

For example, if you are building a shopping cart, give it to a store for a few days and take surveys from people using it. Make sure your questions cover the points you need to validate.

Use patterns and insights from feedback to further improve the product.

2. Usability Testing

Feedback surveys provide valuable quantitative insights, but it’s also important to gain qualitative insights. One way to do this is through usability testing, where you observe a customer using the product, capture their feelings and thought processes. You can pause and ask them why they made certain moves.

A sample size of 5 customers is a good starting point. This method can also be used to validate points from survey feedback.

Based on the results from customer feedback and usability testing, iterate your product and repeat the process until the results are satisfactory. This means that users are able to use the product for its intended purpose and it is effectively solving their issues.

By following this comprehensive research process, including understanding the problem, ideating solutions, and testing the solutions, you will be able to unlock innovative and effective ideas to build or grow your business.

8 thoughts on “Unlocking Innovation: A Comprehensive Guide to Design Thinking Research”

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

Design Thinking in Research

I remember it like it was just yesterday. The steps to the scientific method: Question. Research. Hypothesis. Experiment. Analysis. Conclusion. I can actually still hear the monotonous voices of my classmates reciting the six steps to the content of the middle school science fair judges.

Princeton student researchers working at the Lewis Thomas lab

For our middle school science fair, I had created a web-based calculator that could output the carbon footprint of an individual based on a variety of overlooked environmental factors like food consumption and public transportation usage. Having worked on the project for several months, I was quite content when I walked into our gym and stood proudly next to my display board. Moments later the first judge approached my table. Without even introducing himself, he glanced at my board and asked me, W here’s your hypothesis? Given the fact that my project involved creating a new tool rather than exploring a scientific cause-effect relationship, I told him that I didn’t think a hypothesis would make sense for my project. To my dismay, he told me that a lack of hypothesis was a clear violation of the scientific method, and consequently my project would not be considered.

This was quite disheartening to me, especially because I was a sixth grader taking on my very first attempt at scientific research. But at the same time, I was confident that the scientific method wasn’t this unadaptable set of principles that all of scientific research aligned to. A few years later, my suspicions were justified when my dad recommended I read a book called Design Thinking by Peter Rowe. While the novel pertains primarily to building design, the ideas presented in the book are very applicable in the field of engineering research, where researchers don’t necessarily have hypotheses but rather have envisioned final products. Formally, design thinking is a 5-7 step process:

Empathize – observing the world, understanding the need for research in one’s field
Define – defining one particular way in which people’s lives could be improved by research
Ideate – relentless brainstorming of ideas without judgment or overanalysis
Prototype – sketching, modeling, and outlining the implementation of potential solutions
Choose – choosing the solutions that provide the highest level of impact without jeopardizing feasibility
Implement – creating reality out of an idea
Learn – reflecting on the results and rethinking the process for endless improvement

But more generally, advocates of design thinking call it a “method of creative action”. In design thinking, researchers are not concerned about solving a particular problem, but are looking more broadly at a general solution. In fact, design thinkers don’t even necessarily identify a problem or question (as outlined in the scientific method); they are more concerned about reaching a particular goal that improves society.

This view of research is particularly insightful especially in disciplines beyond the scientific realm. One aspect that particularly appeals to me is the relative importance placed on the solution’s impact. In design thinking, researchers empathize. They understand at a personal level the limitations of current solutions. And once they implement their solutions, they learn from the results and dive right back into the entire process. Societal impact is their overall goal – an idea that carries over into humanities and social science research.

The most important aspect, in my opinion, is the freedom of design thinking. In design thinking, the ‘brainstorming’ process and the solution are given the most attention. Design thinkers are primarily concerned with the overall effectiveness of potential solutions, worrying about the individual details afterwards. This inherently promotes a creative and entrepreneurial research process. Combined with the methodology and analysis components of the scientific method, the principles of design thinking help research ideas blossom into realities. In a sense, design thinking repackages the scientific method to create a general research process in non-scientific fields. Artists, fashion designers, and novelists all use design thinking when creating their products.

So while I certainly didn’t impress the judges that day at the science fair, I did learn something far more resourceful than a display board could teach. In order to complete a satisfying research project, one doesn’t need to rigorously follow a well-outlined protocol. Often, all one needs is the drive to design creative and impactful solutions.

— Kavi Jain, Engineering Correspondent

Design Thinking and Research

In this research conversation with Janet Salmons, Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby discuss the importance of an iterative, design-thinking approach to research. They explain ideas from their new book, Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters .

Learn more!

Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters : This text engages in a dialogue with the reader, providing a serious but accessible introduction to research design, for use as a guide when designing your own research or when reading the research of others. You can preview two chapters , and use the code COMMUNITY3 for a 20% discoung, valid worldwide until 31/03/24..

Also, Dr. Cheek mentions the journal Qualitative Health Research , where she serves as the editor. This international, interdisciplinary journal contains many articles of interest to qualitative researchers, regardless of whether they are studying issues or settings in health care. While many of the articles are open-access, some will require library access.

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Illustration showing five icons, each on represents a different stage in the design thinking process.

The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process

Design thinking is a methodology which provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful when used to tackle complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown—because it serves to understand the human needs involved, reframe the problem in human-centric ways, create numerous ideas in brainstorming sessions and adopt a hands-on approach to prototyping and testing. When you know how to apply the five stages of design thinking you will be impowered because you can apply the methodology to solve complex problems that occur in our companies, our countries, and across the world.

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that can have anywhere from three to seven phases, depending on whom you talk to. We focus on the five-stage design thinking model proposed by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (the d.school) because they are world-renowned for the way they teach and apply design thinking.

What are the 5 Stages of the Design Thinking Process

The five stages of design thinking, according to the d.school, are:

Empathize : research your users' needs .

Define : state your users' needs and problems.

Ideate : challenge assumptions and create ideas.

Prototype : start to create solutions.

Test : try your solutions out.

Let’s dive into each stage of the design thinking process.

Hasso-Platner Institute Panorama

Ludwig Wilhelm Wall, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs

Empathize: the first phase of design thinking, where you gain real insight into users and their needs.

The first stage of the design thinking process focuses on user-centric research . You want to gain an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. Consult experts to find out more about the area of concern and conduct observations to engage and empathize with your users. You may also want to immerse yourself in your users’ physical environment to gain a deeper, personal understanding of the issues involved—as well as their experiences and motivations. Empathy is crucial to problem solving and a human-centered design process as it allows design thinkers to set aside their own assumptions about the world and gain real insight into users and their needs.

Depending on time constraints, you will gather a substantial amount of information to use during the next stage. The main aim of the Empathize stage is to develop the best possible understanding of your users, their needs and the problems that underlie the development of the product or service you want to create.

Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

Illustration of a target with an arrow in the center to represent the Define stage of the Design Thinking process.

Define: the second phase of design thinking, where you define the problem statement in a human-centered manner.

In the Define stage, you will organize the information you have gathered during the Empathize stage. You’ll analyze your observations to define the core problems you and your team have identified up to this point. Defining the problem and problem statement must be done in a human-centered manner .

For example, you should not define the problem as your own wish or need of the company: “We need to increase our food-product market share among young teenage girls by 5%.”

You should pitch the problem statement from your perception of the users’ needs: “Teenage girls need to eat nutritious food in order to thrive, be healthy and grow.”

The Define stage will help the design team collect great ideas to establish features, functions and other elements to solve the problem at hand—or, at the very least, allow real users to resolve issues themselves with minimal difficulty. In this stage, you will start to progress to the third stage, the ideation phase, where you ask questions to help you look for solutions: “How might we encourage teenage girls to perform an action that benefits them and also involves your company’s food-related product or service?” for instance.

Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

Illustration of three light bulbs going off as a representation of the Ideate part of the design process.

Ideate: the third phase of design thinking, where you identify innovative solutions to the problem statement you’ve created.

During the third stage of the design thinking process, designers are ready to generate ideas. You’ve grown to understand your users and their needs in the Empathize stage, and you’ve analyzed your observations in the Define stage to create a user centric problem statement. With this solid background, you and your team members can start to look at the problem from different perspectives and ideate innovative solutions to your problem statement .

There are hundreds of ideation techniques you can use—such as Brainstorm, Brainwrite , Worst Possible Idea and SCAMPER . Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea techniques are typically used at the start of the ideation stage to stimulate free thinking and expand the problem space. This allows you to generate as many ideas as possible at the start of ideation. You should pick other ideation techniques towards the end of this stage to help you investigate and test your ideas, and choose the best ones to move forward with—either because they seem to solve the problem or provide the elements required to circumvent it.

Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

Illustration of the Prototype phase of the design process showing a pencil, wireframes on paper, and a ruler.

Prototype: the fourth phase of design thinking, where you identify the best possible solution.

The design team will now produce a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the product (or specific features found within the product) to investigate the key solutions generated in the ideation phase. These prototypes can be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments or on a small group of people outside the design team.

This is an experimental phase, and the aim is to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages . The solutions are implemented within the prototypes and, one by one, they are investigated and then accepted, improved or rejected based on the users’ experiences.

By the end of the Prototype stage, the design team will have a better idea of the product’s limitations and the problems it faces. They’ll also have a clearer view of how real users would behave, think and feel when they interact with the end product.

Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out

Illustration of the Test phase of the design process showing a checklist on a clipboard.

Test: the fifth and final phase of the design thinking process, where you test solutions to derive a deep understanding of the product and its users.

Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified in the Prototype stage. This is the final stage of the five-stage model; however, in an iterative process such as design thinking, the results generated are often used to redefine one or more further problems. This increased level of understanding may help you investigate the conditions of use and how people think, behave and feel towards the product, and even lead you to loop back to a previous stage in the design thinking process. You can then proceed with further iterations and make alterations and refinements to rule out alternative solutions. The ultimate goal is to get as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

Did You Know Design Thinking is a Non-Linear Process?

We’ve outlined a direct and linear design thinking process here, in which one stage seemingly leads to the next with a logical conclusion at user testing . However, in practice, the process is carried out in a more flexible and non-linear fashion . For example, different groups within the design team may conduct more than one stage concurrently, or designers may collect information and prototype throughout each stage of the project to bring their ideas to life and visualize the problem solutions as they go. What’s more, results from the Test stage may reveal new insights about users which lead to another brainstorming session (Ideate) or the development of new prototypes (Prototype).

Design Thinking: A Non-Linear process. Empathy helps define problem, Prototype sparks a new idea, tests reveal insights that redefine the problem, tests create new ideas for project, learn about users (empathize) through testing.

It is important to note the five stages of design thinking are not always sequential. They do not have to follow a specific order, and they can often occur in parallel or be repeated iteratively. The stages should be understood as different modes which contribute to the entire design project, rather than sequential steps.

The design thinking process should not be seen as a concrete and inflexible approach to design; the component stages identified should serve as a guide to the activities you carry out. The stages might be switched, conducted concurrently or repeated several times to gain the most informative insights about your users, expand the solution space and hone in on innovative solutions.

This is one of the main benefits of the five-stage model. Knowledge acquired in the latter stages of the process can inform repeats of earlier stages . Information is continually used to inform the understanding of the problem and solution spaces, and to redefine the problem itself. This creates a perpetual loop, in which the designers continue to gain new insights, develop new ways to view the product (or service) and its possible uses and develop a far more profound understanding of their real users and the problems they face.

The Take Away

Design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process which focuses on a collaboration between designers and users. It brings innovative solutions to life based on how real users think, feel and behave.

This human-centered design process consists of five core stages Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.

It’s important to note that these stages are a guide. The iterative, non-linear nature of design thinking means you and your design team can carry these stages out simultaneously, repeat them and even circle back to previous stages at any point in the design thinking process.

References & Where to Learn More

Take our Design Thinking course which is the ultimate guide when you want to learn how to you can apply design thinking methods throughout a design thinking process. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition), 1996.

d.school, An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE , 2010.

Gerd Waloszek, Introduction to Design Thinking , 2012.

Hero Image: © the Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

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Research Is Critical for Student Design Projects

This article is part of a longer series on design thinking , a flexible framework for empathy-driven creative work. You might want to check out other articles in the series first.

The Importance of Research in Design Thinking

The LAUNCH process starts with awareness, where students Look, Listen, and Learn . Then it moves to inquiry, where they Ask Tons of Questions . Now, they ware in the Understanding phase. This phase looks different depending upon what you’re teaching. If kids are designing and implementing a service learning project, they might do needs assessments and evaluate data. If they’re researching the setting of their novel, they’re probably going to interview a few people and read some articles. But regardless of the design thinking project, there’s a common trend in this phase of the LAUNCH Cycle . Students should be taking their questions from the Ask Tons of Questions phase and now moving into research as they Understand the Process or Problem.

We include this research phase in the design process for a few reasons:

Design thinking should include research and design rather than just design
After student inquiry, we want students to have the chance to answer their questions
Students will likely create work that is derivative unless they get the chance to see what’s out there. In other words, showing them previously existing products actually sparks more creativity rather than copying
It’s an equity issue. Students with less background knowledge and fewer experiences around the topic deserve the chance to learn more about before generating design ideas
It’s a chance to embed critical research skills and media literacy into the design process

It’s important that students have a sense of choice and agency in this process. They should choose the questions, the sources, and the process. It shouldn’t feel like a dreary process. It should feel like an exploration. It should feel like geeking out on something they find fascinating!

Research Should Be Fun

I remember the first time we did a design thinking unit and I asked students to fill out a survey on their favorite and least favorite parts of the process. Overwhelmingly, students described dreading the research process. Similarly, when we first used design thinking, students asked me why we had to do research instead of just coming up with ideas and then building our prototypes.

My students hated research and I was okay with it. I viewed the research portion as that bitter kale salad you have to eat before you dive into the main course. It’s good for you, yes, but it’s supposed to be enjoyable. (If you happen to like kale, I sincerely apologize. Just kidding. Kale is gross. Sorry, not sorry.) My goal was to make research simple and to demystify the process with solid scaffolding.

But then I had a student who came in one day with a random question. I told him he should go look up the answer and he said, “I wish I could but I have to do research.”

In that moment, I realized that what I had designed as a scaffolding was more like a cage. This student knew how to do research on his own. And the truth is, he loved research . . . outside of school. I realized, in that moment, that true research is fun. It’s less like a chore and more like geeking out.

Looking back on it, I realized that I had tried to demystify it, but he wanted the wade into the confusion and figure out the answer. I had tried to simplify it but he wanted the complexity. This student wanted to ask his own questions, find multiple resources, and figure out the answer on his own. To be honest, that’s the type of self-directed research people do when they work on projects. So, how do we make research more authentic within a PBL unit? How do we approach it in a way that mirrors the way people actually do research in real projects?

Start with a bigger definition of research.

Looking back on that moment, I realized that I needed to start with a bigger definition of research. I had viewed research as a text-based process, where students ask pointed questions and then find verifiable facts online. However, authentic research is bigger than this. Research is not limited to a library or a set of books or even a computer. It isn’t merely a fact-finding mission, either. Research is what happens any time you ask questions and explore sources in order to make sense of new information. Sometimes it means looking for facts but other times it might involve interviewing people to get a new perspective. Or it might even involve playing around a physical phenomenon to see how something works. Authentic research might involve reading a book, but it might also involve gathering and examining a data set based on a needs assessment or watching a video.

Here are a few of the research methods students might use:

1. Research through Reading

The first research approach involves finding information by looking at text-based documents. This is, by far, the most common type of research in school. After all, the information is available at their fingertips. By searching the interwebz, they can find the answers and grow in their understanding of the information. Still, there is also power in having students access Google Scholar and check out articles that go beyond what they might initially find in a typical Google Search.

It might also mean reading a longer book. We tend to think of research as catching bits and pieces from tons of different sources. However, there’s also value in asking students to take a deep dive into a full non-fiction work. I still remember a moment when a student noticed the book Predictably Irrational on my desk when we were waiting for our bus to arrive for the cross country meet.

“What’s it about?” he asked.

“I’m not sure you’d find it that interesting,” I answered. “It’s about the idea that we tend to make decisions that we think are logical but they’re totally not. And everything we believe about decision-making is wrong. See, there are these patterns . . .”

For the next ten minutes, we talked about the various experiments in the book and what they demonstrate. Later, when we got onto the bus, he asked if he could borrow it when I was finished with it. I had never considered full non-fiction books to be interesting for middle schoolers. My bookshelf was packed with fiction and I frequently went out of my way to try and find books that kids would enjoy. But not a single one was non-fiction.

By contrast, when I was in the eighth grade, I read every single non-fiction book about Jackie Robinson and the Negro Leagues that I could get my hands on. It was part of a year-long History Day project. The project had created an authentic context where I could ask questions and find specific answers but also immerse myself in the world of new information through tons and tons of books.

2. Multimedia Research

Some of the best information online isn’t text-based. Think of the last time you tried to figure out how to learn something new. Chances are you didn’t limit yourself to text-based answers. You probably watched a few YouTube tutorials along the way. Similarly, if you’re an avid podcast listener, you’ve probably learned about concepts from a different angle by listening to 99% Invisible or Invisibilia or Hardcore History.

Sadly, I’ve seen classrooms where students are discouraged from using multimedia resources. School will completely shut down YouTube because it’s a distraction. And yet, what if students could view YouTube as a resource instead of just watching kids open gifts (unboxing videos) or watching reaction videos? What if they saw it as a place where they could geek out on their world?

Video, pictures, and audio resources make concepts to come alive in a way that reading alone does not. It’s not that multimedia resources are better but that they allow students to see things and to hear things that they can’t see or hear in a text.

3. Exploring Data

Another research option involves exploring data. When my son was in the third grade, he got excited about the plants growing in his classroom garden:

“We recorded our data on graphs, dad. And guess what? Even though the plants don’t seem like they’re growing much, I can prove it with my graph!”

When you think of things that typically ignite the passion of a third grader, data and graphing probably don’t hit your radar. However, it was meaningful research that shaped his experiment.

Students can access tons of data online. But they can also connect with other students in share data, increasing the sample size and finding larger trends. By using a spreadsheet or a Google Form, students can collect data in a connected way and then share their observations both synchronously and asynchronously.

You might have students create a Needs Assessment or a survey and analyze the results. Or they analyze data in market research before designing a project. They might look at crime rate statistics or climate data. When students learn to analyze data within a project, they grow more statistically literate. Here, they can see the data as being rooted in a real context and they are less likely to feel anxious when presented with data sets and graphs.

4. Conducting Interviews

We typically think of research as something static. Students consume information that has already been crafted in something like a video, book, blog, or podcast. But when students conduct interviews, they are able to ask questions, get direct answers, and ask follow-up questions. It’s a dynamic way for students to learn about a specific topic.

In PBL, this might involve interviewing a specific person who is an expert on the subject. They might talk to a professor who has taught the subject, an author who has written about it, or someone within a certain profession who has inside knowledge. Other times, they might interview a person who has been impacted by a system, idea, or problem.

Their interviews can be face-to-face video conferences, where they can interact synchronously. But this isn’t always realistic. Sometimes the interaction occurs on social media or through email exchanges. I’ve noticed that many experts who might be too busy to talk to another adult will gladly interact with a student and when they do, students gain a more authentic understanding of the topic.

5. Hands-On Research

This might involve playing around with physical items before ideating and prototyping. Here, it often feels less like research and more like play. I remember having students doing research for their roller coaster projects. While the informational texts and the videos were powerful, the best way for them to make sense out of forces and motion involved dropping items, measuring distances, and repeating them. This wasn’t an issue of testing a prototype, either. Instead, it was a process of discovery.

However, this type of research might involve observing natural phenomenon to inspire biomimicry in design . Other times, it might involve watching human behavior. In UX Design, researchers often watch the way people use particular items to increase empathy and have a deeper understanding of how people interact with their world.

Let Students Own the Process

Authentic research begins with student ownership. It’s what happens when students ask their own questions related specifically to their project. Although you might provide sentence stems or sample questions, they goal is to get them engaged in the inquiry process on their own. But it also means letting them find their own sources and pick out key information. They then organize the information in their own way. When students ask the questions and organize the content in their own way, they learn how to be curators, which is a vital lifelong skill:

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It’s also helpful to allow students to choose the specific strategies for recording and organizing information. When I first had students do research within a project, I gave students a handout with a research grid. There was a space for a question, answer, and source. I then modeled the strategy I wanted them to use. Later, I changed it to notecards but some students preferred the research grid. Later, I realized that different kids could have their own methods of organizing their research. Some would use a concept map, others would use tables or lists and still, others preferred visual curation or digital notecards. I had some students who preferred sticky notes while others wanted to sketch-note.

A little nuance here. Although we want students to own the process, we also need to teach students information literacy. So, while they might use notecards or grids or sketch-notes, they still need to learn the basic thinking skills involved in finding sources, looking for bias, and determining which facts are most relevant. The following video is an approach I have used:

Student ownership in the research process also means they will share their answers with one another and work collaboratively with the new information.

Launch Into Design Thinking

If we want students to be problem-solvers and creative thinkers, we also need them to be researchers. Too often, though, the research is disconnected from real problems, real sources, and real products. The finished product is a report they turn in to the teacher. Often, this happens at the beginning of the year. However, with design thinking, students engage in authentic research from day one and practice the process throughout the year. They see the connection between creativity and analytical thinking and in the process, they learn to be curators and critical consumers of information.

Want to get started with design thinking? Check out this page with free articles, videos, and resources. Also, check out the toolkit below.

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John Spencer

My goal is simple. I want to make something each day. Sometimes I make things. Sometimes I make a difference. On a good day, I get to do both. More about me

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Design thinking supported by generative AI: How far can we go?

Stefan Agamanolis, associate director of strategic research initiatives, Weatherhead School of Management

In the rapidly evolving landscape of product and service development, generative AI tools are already having a transformative effect throughout the design process.

In early process stages, LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT can reduce the time needed to create things like interview discussion guides and surveys with appropriately worded questions. The same tools can help analyze data and create user personas and journey maps. The value of generative AI in ideation exercises is already well recognized, and these models can also be applied in the tasks of pattern detection and cluster creation that can be jumping off points for further brainstorming. Image generation systems like DALL-E can greatly speed the process of creating product sketches and interface wireframes, and indeed go far beyond these traditional steps with photorealistic renderings or polished storyboards that generate richer feedback when exposed to potential customers.

The outcome of a design process is frequently intended for human use, aiming to significantly influence and enhance the quality of human lives. And so we actively seek insights and contributions from humans at every stage of the design process, from initial discovery and research to gathering feedback from pilot programs and tests. However, it is often difficult to achieve a desired volume of human input, or to achieve a suitable diversity and depth of perspectives, for a variety of reasons. Time and resource constraints are common and it is all too easy to cut corners in the selection and involvement of human participants. Could generative AI be helpful in filling these gaps?

For example, could you use ChatGPT to not only generate an interview guide, but also conduct the interview itself, leveraging ChatGPT’s ability to play roles, which can be based on detailed design personas presented as part of the prompt? Could you have these personas vote on or otherwise react to individual ideas emerging from an ideation exercise, helping a designer arrive more quickly at a prioritized list of the most promising ideas? Could you expose solution specifications, features, and visuals to these personas in a virtual product test and ask each persona, and variations thereof, to fill out your feedback survey?

Replacing real human input with generative AI in this fashion is provocative to say the least. The most advanced LLMs display a breathtaking ability to channel the full breadth and depth of human experience, including human emotion and cultural nuances, which is no surprise considering the vast library of human creative products these systems have been trained on. Nevertheless, several potential concerns exist: Would an interview of a persona in ChatGPT result in stale insights because of a training date cutoff? Will researchers miss unexpected anecdotes that ChatGPT can’t summon due to insufficiently detailed prompts or gaps and bias in training data (for example around the specifics of existing solutions or competing products)? Could one of those missed anecdotes have been the spark of the next genius product feature?

These are very active research questions, and any perceived deficiencies stand to be mitigated rapidly as generative AI systems improve. And if today’s systems don’t suffice to support every aspect of the design process, they can certainly assist in accelerating it, addressing common gaps, and increasing confidence in outputs. One thing is certain, the integration of generative AI into the design thinking process offers a frontier brimming with potential, promising to revolutionize how we approach virtually everything in product development.

Join me on May 29th for my one-day Weatherhead Executive Education course “Leveraging Generative AI in Product Development”, co-designed with Mike Fisher, former CTO of Etsy.

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 4.4.2024 in Vol 8 (2024)

Correction: Improving the Engagement of Underrepresented People in Health Research Through Equity-Centered Design Thinking: Qualitative Study and Process Evaluation for the Development of the Grounding Health Research in Design Toolkit

Authors of this article:

Corrigenda and Addenda

Alessandra N Bazzano 1 , MPH, PhD ;
Lesley-Ann Noel 2 , PhD ;
Tejal Patel 1 , MA ;
C Chantel Dominique 3 , AA ;
Catherine Haywood 4 , BSW ;
Shenitta Moore 5 , MD ;
Andrea Mantsios 6 , PhD ;
Patricia A Davis 1 , BSc

1 Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA, United States

2 College of Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States

3 Global Impact Board, New Orleans, LA, United States

4 Louisiana Community Health Outreach Network, New Orleans, LA, United States

5 Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, United States

6 Public Health Innovation & Action, New York, NY, United States

Corresponding Author:

Alessandra N Bazzano, MPH, PhD

Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences

Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine

1440 Canal St

New Orleans, LA, 70112

United States

Phone: 1 5049882338

Email: [email protected]

Related Article Correction of: hhttps://formative.jmir.org/2023/1/e43101 JMIR Form Res 2024;8:e58397 doi:10.2196/58397

In “Improving the Engagement of Underrepresented People in Health Research Through Equity-Centered Design Thinking: Qualitative Study and Process Evaluation for the Development of the Grounding Health Research in Design Toolkit” (JMIR Form Res 2023;7:e43101) the authors noted one error.

In Reference 28, the URL:

https://pcornet.org/about/

has been changed to:

https://www.pcori.org/engagement/engagement-resources/grid-toolkit

The correction will appear in the online version of the paper on the JMIR Publications website on April 4, 2024 together with the publication of this correction notice. Because this was made after submission to PubMed, PubMed Central, and other full-text repositories, the corrected article has also been resubmitted to those repositories.

This is a non–peer-reviewed article. submitted 14.03.24; accepted 14.03.24; published 04.04.24.

©Alessandra N Bazzano, Lesley-Ann Noel, Tejal Patel, C Chantel Dominique, Catherine Haywood, Shenitta Moore, Andrea Mantsios, Patricia A Davis. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 04.04.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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Introduction Nurses are essential for implementing evidence-based practices to improve patient outcomes. Unfortunately, nurses lack knowledge about research and do not always understand research terminology. This study aims to develop an in-service training programme for health research for nurses and midwives in the Tshwane district of South Africa.

Methods and analysis This protocol outlines a codesign study guided by the five stages of design thinking proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. The participants will include nurses and midwives at two hospitals in the Tshwane district, Gauteng Province. The five stages will be implemented in three phases: Phase 1: Stage 1—empathise and Stage 2—define. Exploratory sequential mixed methods including focus group discussions with nurses and midwives (n=40), face-to-face interviews (n=6), and surveys (n=330), will be used in this phase. Phase 2: Stage 3—ideate and Stage 4—prototype. A team of research experts (n=5), nurses and midwives (n=20) will develop the training programme based on the identified learning needs. Phase 3: Stage 5—test. The programme will be delivered to clinical nurses and midwives (n=41). The training programme will be evaluated through pretraining and post-training surveys and face-to-face interviews (n=4) following training. SPSS V.29 will be used for quantitative analysis, and content analysis will be used to analyse qualitative data.

Ethics and dissemination The protocol was approved by the Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee of the University of Pretoria (reference number 123/2023). The protocol is also registered with the National Health Research Database in South Africa (reference number GP_202305_032). The study findings will be disseminated through conference presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Nursing Care
Patient-Centered Care
Patient Satisfaction

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-076959

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STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY

This study will be strengthened through the use of quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the research problem.

The inclusion of two hospitals and the participation of different nurses and midwives will ensure the credibility of the findings.

Local research experts, nurses and midwives will collaborate to develop a training programme appropriate to the context of the setting.

The findings will be limited to two hospitals; therefore, the findings may not be generalisable to other hospitals.

Introduction

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has gained prominence in health services internationally over the past three decades. 1 EBP integrates individual clinical expertise with clinical evidence generated from systematic research. 2 EBP aims to deliver appropriate, efficient patient care. 3 Consequently, generating evidence that informs care delivery has become increasingly important for improving patient-centred care, patient safety, patient outcomes and the healthcare system. 1 3 In healthcare, nurses are well positioned to implement EBP because they constitute the largest proportion of the health workforce. 1 4 Nurses thus have to be proactive in acquiring, synthesising and using research knowledge and the best evidence to inform their practice and decision-making. 3 4

Recognising the need for EBP, many nursing organisations worldwide have developed best practice guidelines for patient-care decision-making. 4 In South Africa, the roadmap for strengthening nursing and midwifery acknowledges that nurses are vital for providing safe and effective patient care. Strategically, investing in nurse-led research will help develop nurse-led models of care. 5 Similarly, the South African Nursing Council expects nurses to actively participate in research activities, including academic writing, reading and reviewing, as part of continuing professional development. 6 Training nurses and midwives can enhance their research capacity and enable them to use available resources for research, ultimately leading to changes in EBP in clinical settings.

Nurses need to gain research knowledge and become comfortable with research terminology. 7 8 Although undergraduate nursing training includes a research component, this training does not always translate into a strong understanding of research. 7 As such, there needs to be more nurse-led patient-centred research. A recent review of nursing research from 2000 to 2019 showed that most nursing research is conducted by nurses working at higher education institutions. Research output and collaboration are also disproportionately more prominent in high-income countries across North America, Europe, and Oceania than in low-income and middle-income countries. 9 The other challenges that affect health research include limited time, lack of research facilities, research culture, mentors, access to mentors, and workforce capacity. 10

Little is known about the research literacy of nurses and midwives and research training programmes for practicing nurses and midwives in South Africa. Therefore, we developed a protocol to develop a research training programme for nurses and midwives in the Tshwane district of South Africa. This protocol is guided by the following research questions: (a) what are the levels of nurses’ and midwives’ knowledge, attitudes and involvement in research?; (b) what are the learning needs of nurses and midwives regarding research design and implementation?; (c) what content should be included in a research training programme for nurses and midwives?; (d) how does the developed training programme impact nurses’ knowledge about research?

Theoretical framework

The principles of constructivism learning theory will guide this study. This theory is rooted in the work of Piaget and Vygotsky. 11 This paradigm explains how people might acquire and retain knowledge. 12 Through the lens of constructivism learning theory, adult educators acknowledge learners’ previous experiences, appreciate multiple perspectives and embed learning in social contexts. The instructor is a mentor who helps learners understand new information. Constructivism learning theory has three dimensions, namely, individual constructivism, social constructivism and contextualism. In individual constructivism, learners are self-directed and construct knowledge via personal experience. Social constructivism assumes that learning is socially mediated, and that knowledge is constructed through social interaction. In contextualism, learning should be tied to real-life contexts. 13 Some benefits of constructivism theory are that learners enjoy learning because they are actively engaged and have ownership over what they learn. 12 The theory was considered appropriate because the study will be conducted at two research-intensive hospitals. Therefore, nurses and midwives are familiar with the research process.

Methods and analysis

Research design.

We will use a codesign approach guided by the stages of design thinking proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. 14 15 The design originated from participatory research and involves active engagement of the participants to identify needs and collaboratively propose solutions. 14 16 The approach is considered appropriate because it ensures meaningful involvement of end-users, thereby creating meaningful benefits. 17 A codesign approach ensures fewer challenges when implementing the initiative because stakeholders are fully engaged throughout the process. 14 Underpinned by the African philosophy of Ubuntu, the process will promote the culture of working together and collective solidarity. 18

The study will be guided by the five stages of design thinking: empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test. Empathise aims to understand the deeper issues, needs and challenges needed to solve the problem. Define involves data analysis and prioritising the needs of the end users of the training programme. Ideate includes brainstorming for innovative solutions to address the identified needs. In the prototype stage, the idea or innovation is shown to the end users and other stakeholders. Finally, testing involves checking what works in a real-world setting. 14 15

Study setting

The study will be conducted at two public hospitals in the Tshwane district of Gauteng Province in South Africa. The province has the highest population density, the most hospitals and the greatest number of nurses and midwives. 19 According to a 2016 community survey, Gauteng has a population of 13.4 million people. 20 Tshwane is one of the five districts in the province and the third most populous district, accounting for 24% of the population in the province. 21 There are three district hospitals, namely, Tshwane, Pretoria West, Jubilee and ODI; one regional hospital, Mamelodi; and three tertiary hospitals, namely, Steve Biko Academic Hospital, Dr George Mukhari Hospital and Khalafong Hospital. The two hospitals were selected due to their proximity to the University of Pretoria. One of the hospitals is a tertiary hospital with 800 beds. The second hospital is a 240-bed district hospital linked to the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Health Sciences. 22

Target population

The population will comprise nurses and midwives working at the two hospitals. In South Africa, there are six categories of nurses and midwives based on qualifications as follows: registered auxiliary nurse (higher certificate), registered general nurse (diploma in nursing), registered midwife (advanced diploma), registered professional nurse and midwife (bachelor’s degree), nurse specialist or midwife specialist (postgraduate diploma), advanced specialist nurse (master’s degree) and those with doctorate degrees. 5 Nurses working at academic hospitals are expected to engage in research activities, including academic writing, reading and reviewing, as part of continuing professional development. 6 A preliminary audit revealed 1900 nurses and midwives working at the two hospitals.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Participation will be limited to registered auxiliary nurses, registered general nurses, registered midwives, registered professional nurses and midwives older than 18 years, those registered with the South African Nursing Council, and those with more than 3 months of experience. All people older than 18 years are mandated to give legal consent in South Africa. Nurses with less than 3 months of experience or undergoing orientation will be excluded from the study.

As illustrated in table 1 , the study will be implemented in three phases and five stages to address the four objectives. Stage 1 is currently underway. The collection of the qualitative data started in December 2023 at one of the two hospitals. This will proceed at the second hospital until April 2024. The whole study is expected to be completed by September 2024.

View inline

Illustration of the research process guided by the stages of design thinking

In this phase, we aim to understand the nurses’ and midwives’ perceived knowledge, attitudes and involvement in research and their learning needs. We will base our investigation on empathising and defining. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design will be used. This design begins with collecting and analysing qualitative data. The qualitative findings are used to develop quantitative measures or instruments to test the identified variables. 23 In this study, the qualitative findings will be used to revise a questionnaire for the subsequent quantitative strand.

Strand 1—qualitative study

Qualitative methods are appropriate for investigating the who, what and where of events or experiences of informants of a poorly understood phenomenon. 24 25

Sample size and sampling

Forty-six participants (n=46) will be selected from nurses and midwives working at the two hospitals. The sample size was pragmatically determined according to the mode of data collection and the volume of data to be collected. However, the final sample size will be determined by data saturation.

We will purposively sample nurses and midwives from the following cadres: registered auxiliary nurses, registered general nurses, registered midwives, and registered professional nurses and midwives. As presented in table 2 , two focus group discussions (FGDs) will be held at each hospital and will involve 10 participants each. Due to power differences that can cause a halo effect among the participants, 26 one FGD will include senior professional nurses and midwives. In contrast, the other FDG will include junior nurses and midwives with either diplomas or certificates. For the individual interviews, three participants (one registered auxiliary nurse, one registered general nurse with a diploma and one professional nurse (with either a bachelor’s or postgraduate qualification)) will be invited to participate. The participants will be expected to share their knowledge of the competencies needed for conducting health research.

Sampling plan for the qualitative strand

Data collection

The study information will be communicated through nursing and midwifery managers. Participation will be voluntary. Nurses and midwives willing to participate will be invited for either FGDs or individual interviews. The participants will be given the details of the study and a consent form. The interviews will be conducted in English in hospitals in private settings at times and places that are most convenient for participants. The participants will be requested to use pseudonyms during interviews. A semistructured interview guide will be used for the interviews (refer to online supplemental file 1 ). The interviews will be audiotaped and later transcribed verbatim in English.

Supplemental material

Data analysis.

The data will be analysed manually using conventional content analysis as described by Hsieh and Shannon. 27 The steps of the analysis will be as follows: (a) repeatedly reading the data to achieve immersion and a sense of the whole; (b) deriving and labelling codes by highlighting the words that capture critical thoughts and concepts; (c) sorting the related codes into categories; (d) organising numerous subcategories into fewer categories; (e) defining each category; and (f) identifying the relationship of the categories in terms of their concurrence, antecedents or consequences. To ensure the reliability of the qualitative coding, tHead2he two researchers will code the first transcript independently. The online Coding Analysis Toolkits 28 will be used to calculate intercoder reliability. The two researchers will discuss differences and agree on the coding before proceeding to the next transcript.

Methodological rigour

Trustworthiness will be achieved through credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. 24 29 Credibility will be achieved through spatial and personal triangulation. Spatial triangulation refers to collecting data on the same phenomenon from multiple sites, while personal triangulation refers to collecting data from different types and levels of people. 29 This study will collect data from different cadres of nurses and midwives at two hospitals. Transferability will be enhanced by providing sufficient study details. Dependability and confirmability will be achieved by establishing an audit trail describing the procedures and processes. Additionally, reflexivity will be used to ensure the transparency and quality of the study. 29 30 Reflexivity is where researchers critique, appraise and evaluate the influence of subjectivity and context on the research process. 30 In some branches of qualitative inquiries, researchers use reflexive bracketing to prevent subjective influences. However, Olmos-Vega et al 30 observed that this approach is no longer favoured in modern qualitative research because setting aside certain aspects of subjectivity is problematic. In this study, reflexivity will be ensured by keeping memos and field notes to document interpersonal dynamics and critical decisions made throughout the study.

Strand 2—quantitative study

A cross-sectional survey will be used to assess nurses’ and midwives’ perceived knowledge, attitudes and involvement in research.

The sample size was calculated using Yamane’s formula 31 as follows: n=N/(1+N(e2), where n is the sample, N is the population size, and e is the level of precision. Assuming a 95% CI and the estimated proportion of an attribute p=0.5, the calculated sample size for a population N=1900 with ±5% precision is 330. In this study, a convenience sampling technique will be used to select participants.

The researchers will brief nurse managers about the study. Furthermore, posters inviting nurses and midwives to participate in the study will be placed in each department. The poster will include details of the study and relevant contact details. The nurses and midwives willing to participate will be given an information sheet, consent form and questionnaire. They will be requested to leave the completed questionnaire in a designated box in the unit manager’s office.

Data collection instrument

The data will be collected using the Edmonton Research Orientation Survey (EROS). The EROS was developed in Canada and is a valid and reliable self-reported instrument for measuring perceived knowledge, attitudes and involvement in research. The tool has four subscales with 43 items. The four subscales are the value of research, value of innovation, research involvement and research utilisation (EBP). Valuing research is a positive attitude towards research; the value of innovation refers to being on the leading edge or keeping up to date with information; research involvement relates to active participation in research; and research utilisation (EBP) pertains to whether respondents use research to guide their day-to-day practice. Additionally, there is a category for the barriers and support for research. 32–34

The EROS items are measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1—strongly disagree to 5—strongly agree. The maximum score is 215. Higher overall scores indicate a stronger research orientation. The scores will be categorised into high (between 143 and 215 points), medium (73–142 points) or low (0–72 points). 32 33 The tool has been extensively used to assess the research orientation of health professionals, including physiotherapists, 35 midwives, 36 occupational therapists, 33 academics 32 and undergraduate students. 34 Previous studies reported high internal reliability with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.95 37 and 0.92. 34

Although the tool has been previously used among South African occupational therapists, 33 the copyright author observed that the tool had been developed at a time when there was no access to information via the internet, hence the need to find ways of incorporating such issues. This study will use qualitative findings to identify items not included in the tool but relevant to the South African context.

The quantitative data will be entered into Microsoft Excel and imported to IBM SPSS statistics V.29. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarise demographic characteristics and questionnaire scores. Mean scores and SD will be calculated for individual items, subgroup scores and overall scores. Independent sample t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and multiple regression will be used to compare the scores of different groups of nurses and midwives. The assumptions for each test will be assessed before analysis. The level of significance will be set at 0.05.

During this phase, we will develop the training programme based on the learning needs identified in Phase 1. Research experts (n=5) will participate in a one-design studio workshop to brainstorm the content to be included in the training programme. Although there is limited literature on the definition and characteristics of an expert, Bruce et al 38 defined an expert as a person who is knowledgeable or informed in a particular discipline. Bruce et al 38 further observed that maximum variation or heterogeneity in sampling experts yields rich information. This study will select experts based on the criteria proposed by Davis 39 and Rubio et al . 40 The characteristics include clinical experience in the setting, professional certification in a related area, research experience, work experience, conference presentation and publication in the topic area.

A design studio workshop is a process in which participants create, and critique proposed interventions. 16 The researcher will share the findings of Phase 1 and explain the workshop’s goal to the participants. Participants will be provided with pens, sticky notes and flip-chart paper. The researcher will facilitate discussion and capture feedback. At the end of the workshop, the researcher will consolidate the ideas, create a more detailed programme design and communicate with the participants.

Next, we will develop a prototype to be discussed in a consultative meeting and validation meeting. An iterative process will be used to validate the developed training programme. The consultative meeting will be held with research experts (n=5). A validation exercise will also be conducted with nurses and midwives (n=20), the programme’s end-users. The nurses and midwives will be identified in consultation with nurse managers at the two hospitals to avoid disruption of services. During the validation exercise, the participants will be grouped into smaller idea groups to review and discuss the developed programme. Each group will be requested to identify a representative to report on behalf of the group. The feedback from the consultative and validation meeting will help to improve the developed programme.

The purpose of this phase is to assess the impact of the developed training programme. The developed training will be delivered to 41 nurses and midwives in the Tshwane district. The sample is based on similar studies that have implemented interventions for health professionals. For example, a study by Gundo et al 41 used G-Power software 42 to calculate the sample size based on a conservative effect size of d=0.5, a power of 80% and an alpha=0.05. The calculated sample size was 34, but 41 participants were invited to participate in training to allow for a dropout rate of at most 20%. The identification and invitation of the participants will be negotiated with nurse managers at the two hospitals to avoid service disruptions. The selection process will ensure the representation of the different cadres of nurses and midwives. We will invite a team of research experts to facilitate the training. The impact of the training will be assessed by comparing pre-survey and post-survey EROS scores, FGDs with participants, and evaluations at the end of the training. A paired-sample t-test will be used to compare the pretest and post-test scores.

This protocol aims to develop a research training programme for nurses and midwives in the Tshwane district of South Africa. Initially, we will investigate the learning needs of nurses and midwives. The learning needs will inform a training programme to improve research capacity. As observed by Hines et al , 7 implementing a training programme will improve nurses’ research knowledge, critical appraisal ability and research efficacy. Building capacity for health research in Africa will enhance the ownership of research activities that target relevant topics.

Furthermore, findings relevant to local populations will be communicated in a culturally acceptable manner. Research recommendations may also resonate better and have a better uptake among African policymakers than research produced by internationally led teams. 43–45 This research training programme could be used in other hospitals with similar contexts and other categories of healthcare professionals. However, this will require a larger, multicentre validation study. Our findings will be limited to the two hospitals; therefore, the findings may not be generalisable to other hospitals.

Ethics and dissemination

The protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria (reference number: 123/2023). The protocol is registered with the National Health Research Database in South Africa (reference number GP_202305_032). The two hospitals also provided permission for the study. Permission to use the EROS was obtained from the copyright authors, Dr Kerrie Pain and Dr Paul Hagler.

The participants will receive an information leaflet and be required to provide written informed consent. The researcher will ensure that the participants’ personal information is anonymised. Participants can give the researcher written permission to share their personal information. During the FGDs and individual interviews in Phase 1, the participants will be asked to use pseudonyms of their choice. In Phases 2 and 3, anonymity will not be possible because the meetings will be in person. However, the participants will be requested to maintain confidentiality. The data will be stored in compliance with the research ethics committee’s guidelines. The findings of the study will be disseminated through conference presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals. The preparation of this manuscript followed the standards for reporting qualitative research 46 and the guidelines for reporting observational studies. 47

Ethics statements

Patient consent for publication.

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

The manuscript was written during a writing retreat that was funded by the National Research Foundation through the Ubuntu Community Model of Nursing Project at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. We also thank Dr Cheryl Tosh for editing the manuscript.

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Contributors RG and MFM conceptualised the study, developed the proposal, drafted and revised the manuscript.

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.

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Design Thinking Research

Innovation – Insight – Then and Now

Christoph Meinel 0 ,
Larry Leifer 1

Hasso-Plattner-Institut, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

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Stanford University, Stanford, USA

Based on scientific evidence from the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research program
Provides outlook on the emerging field of neurodesign research
Highlights how design thinking can tap the potential of digital technologies in a human-centered way

Part of the book series: Understanding Innovation (UNDINNO)

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Table of contents

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Table of contents (18 chapters)

Front matter, introduction/roadmap.

Christoph Meinel, Larry Leifer

Decades of Alumni: Perspectives on the Impact of Project-Based Learning on Career Pathways and Implications for Design Education

Sheri D. Sheppard, Helen L. Chen, George Toye, Aya Mouallem, Micah Lande, Lauren Shluzas et al.

Application of Design Thinking to Governance and Social Causes

Predicting creativity and innovation in society: the importance of places, the importance of governance.

Julia von Thienen, Kim-Pascal Borchart, Detlef Bartsch, Lars Walsleben, Christoph Meinel

An Exploration of Agile Governance in Rwandan Public Service Delivery

Reem Abou Refaie, Lena Mayer, Karen von Schmieden, Hanadi Traifeh, Christoph Meinel

Voices from the Field: Exploring Connections Between Design Thinking Approaches and Sustainability Challenges

Nicole M. Ardoin, Alison W. Bowers, Daniella Lumkong

Prototyping

User perceptions of privacy interfaces in the workplace.

Michelle S. Lam, Matthew Jörke, Jennifer King, Nava Haghighi, James A. Landay

Assisting Learning and Insight in Design Using Embodied Conversational Agents

Rebecca Currano, David Sirkin

How to Tame an Unpredictable Emergence? Design Strategies for a Live-Programming System

Marcel Taeumel, Patrick Rein, Jens Lincke, Robert Hirschfeld

Enhancement through Design Thinking

What is design thinking.

Jan Auernhammer, Bernard Roth

NeuroDesign: Greater than the Sum of Its Parts

Jan Auernhammer, Jennifer Bruno, Alexa Booras, Claire McIntyre, Daniel Hasegan, Manish Saggar

A Neuroscience Approach to Women Entrepreneurs’ Pitch Performance: Impact of Inter-Brain Synchrony on Investment Decisions

Stephanie Balters, Sohvi Heaton, Allan L. Reiss

Priming Activity to Increase Interpersonal Closeness, Inter-Brain Coherence, and Team Creativity Outcome

Stephanie Balters, Grace Hawthorne, Allan L. Reiss

Design the Future with Emotion: Crucial Cultural Perspectives

Chunchen Xu, Xiao Ge, Nanami Furue, Daigo Misaki, Hazel Markus, Jeanne Tsai

Design Thinking Best Practices and Strategy

Opportunities and limitations of design thinking as strategic approach for navigating digital transformation in organizations.

Annie Kerguenne, Mara Meisel, Christoph Meinel

Designing Innovation in the Digital Age: How to Maneuver around Digital Transformation Traps

Carolin Marx, Thomas Haskamp, Falk Uebernickel

Extensive research conducted at the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA, and at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, has yielded valuable insights on why and how design thinking works. The participating researchers have identified metrics, developed models, and conducted studies, which are featured in this book and in the previous volumes of this series.

This volume provides readers with tools to bridge the gap between research and practice in design thinking, together with a range of real-world examples. Several different approaches to design thinking are presented, while acquired frameworks are employed to understand team dynamics in design thinking. The contributing authors introduce readers to new approaches and fields of application and show how design thinking can tap the potential of digital technologies in a human-centered way. The book also presents new ideas on neuro-design from StanfordUniversity and the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, inviting readers to consider newly developed methods and how these insights can be applied to different domains. Design thinking can be learned. It has a methodology that can be observed across multiple settings. Accordingly, readers can adopt new frameworks to modify and update their current practices.

Design Thinking
Innovating creativity
School of Design Thinking
Team Dynamics
Organizational learning
Neurodesign
Social virtual reality
Stanford Design Thinking Research Program
IT development
Digital transformation
Hasso Plattner Institute
Creative collaboration
Multi team design
Human-Robot interaction

Christoph Meinel

Larry Leifer

Christoph Meinel is head of the Department of Internet Technologies and Systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (HPI), Potsdam, Germany, where he previously served as Director and CEO. A former Dean and Vice Dean of the Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam, he currently teaches at the HPI School of Design Thinking and at HPI Internet Technologies and Systems. Meinel is an honorary professor at the Department of Computer Sciences at Beijing University of Technology, guest professor at Shanghai University and concurrent professor at Nanjing University. He is a member of acatech, the German “National Academy of Science and Engineering,” and numerous scientific committees and supervisory boards. Together with Larry Leifer, he was program director of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program from 2008 to 2022.

Larry Leifer is a former professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, CA, USA. Dr. Leifer’s engineering design thinking research is focused on helping design teams to understand, support, and improve design practice and theory. Specific issues include: design-team research methodologies, global team dynamics, innovation leadership, interaction design, design-for-wellbeing, and adaptive mechatronic systems. Leifer has launched various design initiatives at Stanford including the Smart-Product Design Program, Stanford-VA Rehabilitation Engineering Center, Stanford Learning Laboratory, and most recently the Center for Design Research (CDR). Together with Christoph Meinel, he was program director of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program from 2008 to 2022.

Book Title : Design Thinking Research

Book Subtitle : Innovation – Insight – Then and Now

Editors : Christoph Meinel, Larry Leifer

Series Title : Understanding Innovation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36103-6

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Business and Management , Business and Management (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-031-36102-9 Published: 20 September 2023

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-031-36105-0 Due: 21 October 2023

eBook ISBN : 978-3-031-36103-6 Published: 19 September 2023

Series ISSN : 2197-5752

Series E-ISSN : 2197-5760

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : VIII, 419

Number of Illustrations : 34 b/w illustrations, 49 illustrations in colour

Topics : IT in Business , Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems , Neurosciences , Management of Computing and Information Systems , Business and Management, general

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IMAGES

The Design Thinking Process
Design Thinking in Practice: Research Methodology
Design Thinking Process
Design Thinking, Part 2: Breaking Down the Discovery and Implementation
The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process
The Design Thinking Process framework (Stanford's d.school, 2015

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COMMENTS

Design Thinking in Practice: Research Methodology
Over the last decade, we have seen design thinking gain popularity across industries. Nielsen Norman Group conducted a long-term research project to understand design thinking in practice. The research project included 3 studies involving more than 1000 participants and took place from 2018 to 2020: Intercepts and interviews with 87 participants.
What is design thinking?
Design thinking is a core way of starting the journey and arriving at the right destination at the right time. Simply put, "design thinking is a methodology that we use to solve complex problems, and it's a way of using systemic reasoning and intuition to explore ideal future states," says McKinsey partner Jennifer Kilian.
Design thinking, explained
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 ...
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. It is most useful to tackle ill-defined or unknown problems and involves five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.
Why Design Thinking Works
Design thinking provides a structured process that helps innovators break free of counterproductive tendencies that thwart innovation. Like TQM, it is a social technology that blends practical ...
A framework for studying design thinking through measuring designers
6 Future work: exploring design thinking results to develop new models, new tools and new research questions. The set of results on design thinking obtained from all three paradigmatic approaches provides a source of feedback to designers, design educators and researchers in design science (Figure 22). This new knowledge has the potential to ...
What Is Design Thinking?
An essential contribution of this chapter is a schema (as shown in Fig. 1) of different meanings of design thinking. Design thinking is understood as (1) a methodology, (2) the thinking of designers, and (3) practice-based design thinking (i.e., embodied thinking). These different understandings have emerged from diverse schools of thought from ...
Design Thinking Research: Interrogating the Doing
Christoph Meinel, Larry Leifer. Based on scientific evidence from the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program. Provides outlook on the emerging field of neurodesign research. Highlights how design thinking can tap the potential of digital technologies in a human-centered way. Part of the book series: Understanding Innovation (UNDINNO)
Design Thinking Research: Achieving Real Innovation
Christoph Meinel, Larry Leifer. Based on scientific evidence from the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program. Provides outlook on the emerging field of neurodesign research. Highlights how design thinking can tap the potential of digital technologies in a human-centered way. Part of the book series: Understanding Innovation (UNDINNO)
Unlocking Innovation: A Comprehensive Guide to Design Thinking Research
Design thinking is an iterative process and the output from research needs to go through multiple feedback loops before it is finalized. This feedback loop can be done through customers and experts. The feedback process is simple, show the product to a customer and ask for their opinions or have them use the product and take a survey afterwards.
What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It Important?
Design thinking is generally defined as an analytic and creative process that engages a person in opportunities to experiment, create and prototype models, gather feedback, and redesign. Several characteristics (e.g., visualization, creativity) that a good design thinker should possess have been identified from the literature.
Design Thinking in Research
Formally, design thinking is a 5-7 step process: Steps to the Design Thinking Process. Empathize - observing the world, understanding the need for research in one's field. Define - defining one particular way in which people's lives could be improved by research. Ideate - relentless brainstorming of ideas without judgment or overanalysis.
Design Thinking and Research
Learn more! Research Design: Why Thinking About Design Matters: This text engages in a dialogue with the reader, providing a serious but accessible introduction to research design, for use as a guide when designing your own research or when reading the research of others. You can preview two chapters, and use the code COMMUNITY3 for a 20% discoung, valid worldwide until 31/03/24..
The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process
Table of contents. What are the 5 Stages of the Design Thinking Process. Stage 1: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs. Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems. Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas. Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions. Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out.
The Importance of Research in Design Thinking
Design thinking should include research and design rather than just design; After student inquiry, we want students to have the chance to answer their questions; Students will likely create work that is derivative unless they get the chance to see what's out there. In other words, showing them previously existing products actually sparks more ...
Applying the Design Thinking Process in Qualitative Research
Design Thinking (DT) is a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It's extremely useful in tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown. This is accomplished by understanding the human needs involved, re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, creating multiple ideas in brainstorming sessions ...
Design Thinking Research: Making Design Thinking Foundational
This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research carried out at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. The authors offer readers a closer look at Design Thinking with its processes of innovations and methods. The contents of the articles range from how to design ideas ...
Don't forget design research in design thinking
Many businesses think they're "doing" user centred design because they followed design thinking methods... yet they never actually spoke to a real user. It's OK — "we know our users ...
Research in design Thinking
Research in design Thinking. N. Cross, K. Dorst, N. Roozenburg. Published 31 December 1992. Engineering. Proceedings of a Workshop meeting held at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, May 29-31, 1991. No Paper Link Available.
PDF DESIGN THINKING REPORT
The most often descriptions of Design Thinking processes One of the most popular Design Thinking models is the Double Diamond model. It describes Design Thinking as alternating cycles of divergence thinking (expanding, research, and exploration) and convergence thinking (narrowing and analytic). It shows the progress of a process as two ...
Design thinking supported by generative AI: How far can we go?
The outcome of a design process is frequently intended for human use, aiming to significantly influence and enhance the quality of human lives. And so we actively seek insights and contributions from humans at every stage of the design process, from initial discovery and research to gathering feedback from pilot programs and tests.
Coding and Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum: A Review of
This meta-synthesis analyses research on coding or computer programming and associated computational thinking skills to identify pathways for education systems at all levels to design learning environments for coding that are underpinned by robust conceptual frameworks, to navigate the pedagogical constraints, and to guide the integration of computational skills to support learning outcomes ...
The Role of Research in Design Thinking
The Four Roles of Research. Research in design thinking plays the roles of Equalizer, Archeologist, Interpreter, and Devil's Advocate. Research levels the knowledge field and puts all of your team members on the same page, understanding your business challenge from the same data set.
JMIR Formative Research
Correction: Improving the Engagement of Underrepresented People in Health Research Through Equity-Centered Design Thinking: Qualitative Study and Process Evaluation for the Development of the Grounding Health Research in Design Toolkit JMIR Form Res 2024;8:e58397
Collaborative design of a health research training programme for nurses
Methods and analysis This protocol outlines a codesign study guided by the five stages of design thinking proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. The participants will include nurses and midwives at two hospitals in the Tshwane district, Gauteng Province. The five stages will be implemented in three phases: Phase 1: Stage 1—empathise and Stage 2—define.
The GenAI Compass: a UX framework to design generative AI experiences
Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize experience design, but it demands a new approach and fresh thinking. The Generative AI Design Compass provides a structured framework for integrating GenAI into design practices. Use this as another tool in your toolkit to build the right experiences.
Design Thinking Research
The HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program is a rigorous academic research effort, aiming to understand the scientific foundations of how and why the innovation methods of Design Thinking work. Its researchers study the complex interactions between members of multidisciplinary teams that engage in design co-creation. Beyond descriptive ...
Frederick Fisher and Partners Is the 2024 Aia California Firm Award
Frederick Fisher and Partners, founded by Frederick Fisher, AIA, FAAR, was honored with AIA California's Firm Award. "Frederick Fisher and Partners has completed a select, but distinctive body of work," the AIA California Board of Directors said in aligning the firm with the criteria for the Firm Award — a firm that has consistently produced distinguished architecture for over a decade ...
Design Thinking Research: Innovation
Extensive research conducted at the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA, and at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, has yielded valuable insights on why and how design thinking works. The participating researchers have identified metrics, developed models, and ...
Thinking bigger: Teckemeyer produces 200% enlargement of sculpture
Jessica Teckemeyer, associate professor of sculpture in Oklahoma State University's Department of Art, Graphic Design and Art History, commissioned a 200% bronze enlargement of her sculpture "Fox or Foe" using a Humanities-, Arts- and Design-Based Disciplines Research Grant.

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