The rise of design thinking as a problem-solving strategy

Having spent the past 20 years developing products for educators and students in the field of educational technology, I have learned to understand that teachers and administrators are themselves designers who use a wide range of tools and techniques to craft learning experiences for students. I came to believe that by expanding this model to see all users as designers, we could tap into our own experiences and gain deeper empathy for their struggles. That way, we can develop strategies that enable our user-designers to successfully deal with change and uncertainty.

If you’re a designer, or if you’ve worked with designers at any point in the past decade, you’re probably familiar with the term “design thinking.” In general, design thinking is represented by a series of steps that look something like this.

There are many variations on this diagram, reflecting the many ways in which this process can be implemented. It’s often a months-long job that starts with empathy: we learn about a group of people’s tasks, pain points, and motivations by immersing ourselves in a particular environment. From there, we summarize our observations, look for patterns, themes, and opportunities to solidify the definition of the problem we hope to solve. We then iterate, prototype, and test solutions until we find one we like (or until we run out of time).

In the end, the process boils down to a simple goal: solve a problem. Of course, this isn’t a new purpose, nor is it unique to those of us who work with the title “designer.” In fact, while design thinking isn’t exactly the same as the scientific method we learned in school, it bears a striking resemblance.

By placing design thinking in this context, we equate designers with scientists, the people responsible for facilitating discovery and providing solutions.

At its best, design thinking is highly collaborative. It brings together people from across the organization, often from outside the organization, so that different groups, including those who are not normally heard, can participate. It centers on the needs and emotions of those we wish to serve. Hopefully it will pull us out of our own experiences and prejudices and open us up to new ways of thinking and light up new perspectives. At its worst, when design thinking is dogmatically followed or ruthlessly applied, it becomes a gatekeeper, imposing a rigid structure and a set of rules that leaves little room for design methods that do not conform to a set of exclusive cultural standards.

Despite its relative merits and demerits, and the occasional high-profile criticism, design thought has become an orthodoxy in software development, where failure to use it amounts to malfeasance. No well-lit photo is complete in the ux designer portfolio, which captures a group of eager problem solvers huddling together and thoughtfully gazing at a wall covered in colorful notes during the “Define” step. My colleagues and I use this approach a lot when developing educational technology products, including notes and all of them.

Like “lean”, design thinking has rapidly expanded beyond the software industry into the wider world. Today, you can find it in the centers of elementary schools, nonprofit organizations, and local government innovation LABS.

In all the hubbub, it’s easy to overlook a central assumption of design thinking that seems too obvious to mention: there are solutions. This process is based on the premise that once the steps are performed, the state of the problem changes from “unsolved” to “solved.” While this problem-solution framework is undeniably effective, it is also incomplete. If we zoom in, we can see the limitations of our abilities as designers, and then we can consider what those limitations mean for how we approach our work.

Chaos and the limitations of problem solving

An unfettered belief in our ability to methodically solve big problems can lead to some pretty big ideas. In his book. The chaos. Creating a New Science James Gleick describes a time in the 1950s and 1960s when, as computing and satellite technology continued to advance, a large international group of scientists began a project that, in hindsight, sounds ridiculous. Their goal is not only to predict accurately, but also to control the weather.

“There is an idea that human society will emerge from the turbulence of the weather as a master rather than a victim. Geodesic domes will cover corn fields. Airplanes will seed clouds. Scientists will learn how to make rain and how to stop it.”

– “Chaos. Creating a New Science. James Glick

Now, it’s easy to laugh at their arrogance, but back then it was the natural result of a growing belief that, with science, no problem was unsolvable. What these scientists did not take into account was a phenomenon commonly known as the butterfly effect, which is now a central pillar of the field of chaos theory. The butterfly effect describes the inherent volatility that occurs in complex and interconnected systems. Its name comes from a famous illustration of the principle that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the earth one day and creating a tiny disturbance in the surrounding air can cause a hurricane on the other side the next. Studies have shown that the butterfly effect affects everything in society, from politics and economics to fashion trends.

Our chaotic system

If we accept that, like climate, our social systems for designing and building solutions are complex and unpredictable, then a tension becomes apparent. Design thinking exists in an inherently chaotic and unpredictable environment, yet predictive behavior is central. Through prototyping and testing, we are basically gathering evidence about what the outcome of our design will be and whether it will effectively address the problem we have defined. The process ends when we are confident in our predictions and satisfied with the results.

I would like to point out again that there is nothing wrong with this approach! We should trust this process to validate our design. We should trust this process to confirm that our design is useful and usable in a direct sense. At the same time, every time we offer a solution, we flap our wings like butterflies and contribute (along with countless others) to constant change. So while short-term outcomes are often predictable, the long-term outlook for the system as a whole, and how long our solution will last as the system changes, is unknowable.

impermanence

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

One of the basic things we can do is to remain aware of the impermanence of our work, recognizing that it is built to meet the needs of a particular time. It is more akin to a tree fort built in the woods than a castle fortress built of stone. Whereas castles can take years to build and last for centuries, impervious to the weather while protecting their inhabitants from all the chaos beyond their walls, tree forts, even if well designed and built, are directly connected to and at the mercy of their environment. Although the tree fort provides shelter, we didn’t build it expecting it to last forever, just to serve us well while it’s here. Hopefully, with the experience of building it, we can continue to learn and improve.

The fact that our work is impermanent does not diminish its importance, nor does it give us sloppy permission. This means that the ability to adapt and evolve quickly and continuously without sacrificing functional or aesthetic quality is at the heart of the job, which is one of the reasons why design systems that provide consistent, high-quality reusable patterns and components are critical.

Design for user-designers

A more fundamental approach to dealing with the impermanence of our work is to rethink our self-image as designers. If we position ourselves only as problem solvers, our work becomes obsolete quickly and suddenly as conditions change, while our users have to wait helplessly for the next solution to arrive. In reality, our users are forced to adapt and design their own solutions, using whatever tools they have at their disposal. In effect, they were their own designers, so our task shifted from providing complete, fixed solutions to providing our user designers with useful, usable tools tailored to their needs.

Thinking in this way, we can gain empathy for our users by understanding our equal status on a continuum, that each of us depends on others as much as others depend on us.

Key principles that focus on the needs of user designers

Here are some things to consider when designing for user designers. In the spirit of the user-designer continuum, and of finding universality in the concrete, the following examples are lessons I’ve learned from both sides of the relationship. First, AS a designer in the field of educational technology, educators rely on people like me to build tools that enable them to design learning experiences for students. Second, as a user of the product, I rely on them for my day-to-day user experience work.

1.1. Don’t lock in value

It’s vital to have a clear understanding of why someone is using your product in the first place, and then make sure it doesn’t interfere with your work. While there is a temptation to maintain this value and the user must stay in your product to get all the benefits, we should resist this way of thinking.

Remember, your product is most likely just a larger tool, and our users rely on their tools to be compatible with each other as they design their own coherent, holistic solutions. Whereas designers as problem solvers tend to build a stand-alone solution, jealously locking value into their products, designers as designers facilitate the free flow of information and continuity of task completion, regardless of how our user-designers choose to use them. By _ share _ value, we not only enhance its source, but also give our users full use of their toolbox.

As a designer of educational technology products, for example.

In student assessment applications, as in many other types of applications, the core value is data. In other words, the fundamental reason schools conduct assessments is to understand student achievement and growth. Once this data is collected, we can make informed, research-based recommendations in a variety of ways around tasks such as setting student goals, creating teaching groups and assigning exercises. To be clear, we do try very hard to support all of this in our products, often through the use of design thinking. Ultimately, though, it all starts with data.

In practice, teachers often have many choices when completing tasks, and they have their own reasonable reasons. Everything from state requirements to school policies to individual work styles may determine what they do, for example, with student goal setting. If — out of a desire to keep people in our products — we make it harder for teachers to use our assessment data to set goals outside of our products (in spreadsheets, for example), then instead of adding value to us, we add inconvenience and frustration. In this case, the lesson is not to lock your data away. Ironically, by hoarding data, we make it less valuable. By providing educators with simple and flexible ways to access it, we unleash its power.

As an example of a design tool user.

When I think through the design process, I tend to switch between different tools based on the core value each provides. All of these tools are equally important to the process, and I rely on them to work together as I move between stages so I don’t have to build from scratch at each step. For example, the core value I get from Sketch is mainly in the “idea” phase, as it allows me to brainstorm quickly and freely so I can try out multiple ideas in a short amount of time. By enabling me to easily bring the product’s ideas into heavier prototyping applications like Axure, rather than locking them in, Sketch has saved me time and frustration, and increased my attachment to it. If these tools no longer work together for competitive reasons, I’ll be more likely to give up one or both.

2.2. Use established patterns

It’s always important to remember Jacob’s Law, which simply states that users spend more time on other sites than they do on yours. If they’re used to accessing information or completing tasks in a certain way, and you ask them to do it differently, they don’t see it as an exciting opportunity to learn something new. They will be disgusted. Climbing the learning curve is often painful and frustrating. While it is possible to improve or even replace established models, this is a very tall order. In a world full of unpredictability, consistent, predictable patterns across tools create harmony between experiences.

As a designer of educational technology products, I give an example.

By following the conventions of domain-specific data visualization, we make it easy for users to switch and compare between different sources. In education, it is common to use a chart of test scores to show a student’s progress, with a table of scores on the vertical axis and a timeline on the horizontal axis. In other words, a scatter plot or line plot, usually with one or two dimensions, may be represented by color or the size of the dots. With repeated, constant exposure, even the most data-phobic teacher can easily and immediately explain this data visualization and narrative around it.

You can hold a sketch session during the “conception” stage of your design thinking, during which you brainstorm dozens of other ways to present the same information. Some of these ideas are undoubtedly interesting and cool, and may even emerge as new and useful insights. This will be a valuable activity. Of all the possibilities, however, the best decision would not be to replace the accepted model. While it can be useful to explore other approaches, in the end the greatest benefits often come from using patterns that people already understand and are accustomed to using in a variety of products and environments.

As an example of a design tool user.

In my job, I often need to learn new UX software quickly, either to facilitate collaboration with designers outside the organization, or when my team decides to adopt something new. When this happens, I rely heavily on established patterns of visual language to move quickly from learning to production. Where there is consistency, there is relief and understanding. If there is disagreement without a clear reason, there will be frustration. For example, if a product team decides to rethink the standard color palette in the name of innovation, this will almost certainly make the product harder to adopt while providing no benefit.

3. Build for flexibility

As an expert in a particular field, you may have strong, research-based positions on how certain tasks should be done and want to incorporate these best practices into your product. If you’ve already established trust with your users, it can be powerful to add guidance and guardrails directly to your workflow. But, remember, this is just guidance. User-designers know when to apply these best practices and when to ignore them. While we should generally avoid overwhelming our users with _ opt-in _, we should strive for flexibility whenever possible.

As an example, designers of educational technology products

Many educational technology products provide mechanisms for setting students’ learning goals. In general, teachers will be happy to get advice and intelligent acquiesce when completing this task, knowing that there is a wealth of research that can help determine a reasonable range of expectations for a particular student, based on their historical performance and a larger data set from their peers. It is often helpful and appreciated to provide such guidance in a form that is easy to understand. However, as designers, we are detached from individual students and situations, as well as changing needs and requirements, to drive educators’ goal-setting decisions. We can build suggestions on the road to happiness and keep their implementation as intact as possible, but users need an easy way to edit our guidance or reject it altogether.

As a user of design tools, an example.

In most UX applications, the ability to create a reusable object library increases their efficiency by orders of magnitude. Knowing that I can pull in a pre-made, appropriately branded UI element when I need it, rather than creating one from scratch, is a big benefit. Often, in the “idea” stage of design thinking, I can use the completely generic form of these prefabricated components to convey the main ideas and layers of a layout. However, when it comes to filling in details for high-fidelity prototyping and testing, the ability to override default text and styles, or even to separate objects from their libraries and make more drastic changes, may become necessary. With the flexibility of quick start and gradual customization, I can adapt quickly as conditions change and help move quickly and easily between the various steps of design thinking.

4. Help your users — designers build empathy for their users

When thinking about our users as designers, a key question is: who are they designing for? In many cases, they are designing solutions for themselves, so their designers naturally empathize with and understand their users’ problems. But in other cases, they’re designing for a whole other group of people. In this case, we can look for ways to help them think like designers and resonate with their audience.

As an example, designers of educational technology products.

To educators, users are students. One way to help them design their experiences with the needs of the audience in mind is to follow the standards of universal learning design, empowering educators to provide teaching materials with multiple ways of engagement (i.e. using various strategies to drive motivation), multiple ways of presentation (i.e. adapting to students’ different learning styles and backgrounds), As well as multiple ways of action and expression (i.e. supporting students in different ways of interacting with the material and presenting learning). These guidelines open up ways of learning and prompt users to remember that all ways of engaging their audience in practice and teaching must be supported.

As an example of a design tool user.

Any tool that encourages accessible design decisions is very helpful because it reminds us to think about those who face the biggest barriers to using our products. While some common user experience tools include the ability to create Alt-text for images, set label order for keyboard navigation, and enable responsive layouts for devices of different sizes, there are opportunities for these tools to do more. I would like to see accessibility checks built in, which will help us spot potential problems early in the development process.

conclusion

By applying the core principles of unlocking value, leveraging existing patterns, understanding individual needs for flexibility, and promoting empathy in our product design, we can help our users adapt to unforeseen changes. By treating our users as their own designers, we not only recognize and take into account the complexity and unpredictability of their environment, we also begin to see them as equals.

While those of us with the word “designer” in our official job title do have a specific and necessary role to play, we are not gods, solutions from on high, but companions trying to navigate a complex, dynamic, stormy world. No one can control the weather, but we can make great overshoes, raincoats and umbrellas.

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The rise of design thinking as a problem-solving strategy