Ankur Revankar
What is design thinking?
Well, it’s just about thinking of designing is it? The answer is not as straightforward as what we typically find in a text book either. The response you get is different when you ask people from different industries and what product you work on. All of these answers make sense in their own way.
So what is design thinking? It’s the set of steps you follow to develop concepts that solve your problem. It can be a simple flowchart like this.
Or the one which does not look that simple.
It’s a systematic way of finding solutions to problems, where the problem is unclear or requirements are under defined and a lot of things are left to assumptions.
Design Thinking & Xperimentor
This section talks about our approach to design thinking and how it has helped us reach conclusive solutions to our problems. Design thinking being a hands on approach to problem solving, believe in testing the solution even before we propose it. The approach working on parallel solutions to any given problem has helped us reduce the overall lead time. The emphasis is always on the user, in our case it’s the students. So the question everyone asks oneself, Can the child understand this? Can a child assemble this? Is this safe for a child to use?
Many times the answers surprisingly came in as we summoned the child in each one of us. The ability to think like a child gives you the advantage to understand the problem in a much better way and get the right solution.
Steps we followed in design thinking.
Problem Definition: A popular saying in many circles is that ‘understanding the problem is more than half the solution’. This helps to narrow down to the exact stumbling block you are trying to address.
Focus on the User: As important as the solution is knowing who the solution is for. The solution is no longer a solution if the user cannot use it.
Parallel Solutions: In cases where your requirements are under defined, it’s ideal to have multiple solution concepts. This gives you the unique ability to choose a solution which best suits your needs based on the problem & user experience.
Prototyping and Testing: A solution without testing is half baked. Testing is an integral part of problem solving. A concept can only be deemed as a solution after iterative rounds of prototyping and testing. Just as how a cake is not ready until it’s baked, the solution is not ready until it’s tested.
How has Design Thinking helped us?
Stand Out: In an ever growing and flooded market of educational solutions, we owe it to design thinking to help us stand out from the crowd. Thinking outside the box to tackle problems however big or small.
Quick turnaround: It’s no surprise that we have and will face hurdles along the development process. The unique ability to quickly solve problems along with issue anticipation and the solution readiness helped us to be in a position to reduce the overall cycle time.
Customer Success: It’s wrong to talk about customer satisfaction when we are just in the nascent phase of the Product. That being said, the response to the solution from the trials and early adopters is a testament to the effectiveness of design thinking.
