DESIGN THINKING — Human Centered (Human Needs) and Design Knowledge
Design thinking in general (human needs, wicked problem, and changes the way we work)
What comes to your mind when you first hear “design thinking”?
What is Design?
“Design is not a monologue; it’s a conversation.”
— Whitney Hess, Empathy coach and UX design consultant (from Interaction Design Foundation)
Design is creating something as a way to solve problems. If we make a design but the problem is increasing, our designs are bad. So, what is design thinking?
Design thinking is a method that designers use in ideation and development. That also has applications elsewhere. The method describes a human-centered, iterative design process consisting of 5 stages (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test).
Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) says “Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers — all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it”. Design thinking is determining the best choice when we have to choose the path. In other words, help us to solve problems in a creative and innovative way. Simple question is “how do we go from home to office?”, then we will think to find the way to solve our problem (go from home to office). We usually think the fastest, best and most comfortable way. That’s how the design thinking works. Design thinking help us to know what human needs and its change the way we work.
In 2009 TED talk, Design Thinking pioneer Tim Brown (CEO of the celebrated Innovation and design firm IDEO) discusses Design Thinking’s value in solving very complex challenges. Design thinking need to balancing Desirability (what humans need), with technical Feasibility and ergonomic Viability (business).
- Building to think.
- Prototypes à Prototype speed up the process of design thinking
- Participatory à From consumption to participation (passive relationship to active relationship). We have to involve the user/consumer in design thinking.
Why design thinking? Design thinking help us to explore the new solutions so it can solve the wicked problems.
Illustration by Tim Brown
Human Needs
Abraham Maslow has provided one of the most prominent accounts of human motivation with the Hierarchy of Needs (five basic human needs).
- Self-actualization: desire to become the most that one can be
- Esteem: respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom
- Love and belonging: friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection
- Safety needs: personal security, employment, resources, health, property
- Psychological needs: air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction
Wicked Problems
The term “wicked problem” was first coined by Horst Rittel, design theorist and professor of design methodology at the Ulm School of Design, Germany. IDF says, “Wicked problems are problems with many interdependent factors making them seem impossible to solve.” That’s why we need design thinking to solve the wicked problems. Design theorist and academic Richard Buchanan connected design thinking to wicked problems in his 1992 paper “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.” Design thinking’s iterative process is extremely useful in tackling ill-defined or unknown problems.
Five-Stages of Design Thinking Process (Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design)
1. Empathize
The first stage of the Design Thinking process demands gaining an empathic understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve. “You are not user”, this sentence means that we (designer) are not the user. So we have to design for the user not for us (designer).
2. Define (the problem)
After empathize, we can define the problem that user has been through. From this stage, we can start to gather the great ideas to establish features, functions, and any other elements that will allow us to solve problem.
3. Ideate
We are ready to start generating ideas.
4. Prototype
As Tim Brown said, “Prototype speed up the process of design thinking”. So, this is the good way to help us build design thinking.
5. Test
We don the user testing for our prototype and we get insight for the design
Design Knowledge (based on psychology and sociology is timeless)
There is no useless design. Even though the design is bad, that remains useful as learning. Design from the past should be used whether good or bad, to inform future designs. Design knowledge is a part of design thinking. Design knowledge is gain timeless knowledge, why? Because its focus on human-centered. Means, focus on human psychology. Again, human-centered is the key of the design thinking success. IDF says, “Technology and design may change over time, but human psychology — our desires, emotions and motivations — changes very little”. So does sociology. That’s why design knowledge based on psychology and sociology is a stable foundation to stand on, means gain timeless. Simple is, its help us to learn from mistake to reduce risk in the future.
Design Principle
In design thinking process, we have to know about the design principle. The example for design principle is Mobile UX Design Checklist by Frank Spillers (CEO experiencedynamics.com):
1. Consistency of Control (OS and app consistent action) →like motion, button action etc.
2. Proximity (closeness of items if similar) →means that items are should be in the same group
3. Visual Hierarchy (top important to bottom less) →Content first. Means, user doesn’t have to navigated or play look for the most important content or core information (such as: core function or goal) on application.
4. Color Contrast & Emphasis →This is the graphic design issue. Let’s test the design in the dark and go outside and test your design in the sun, so you can see “what is your design look like on both way”.
5. Intuitive Icons →Not intuitive that’s mean is not usable. Icon should be understanding by user. Means icon should be common and cleanable.
6. Make main task apparent →Main information in an app should be clean and clear to see. For the example: Pie menu is well suited for mobile apps with heavy content. With pie menu, user still can see the main content in the app without distraction. Example:
Source:
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking
https://designthinking.ideo.com/
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-principles
https://ar.pinterest.com/acernick/
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/wicked-problems
