How can you customize your design thinking process to different contexts, domains, and audiences?

Design thinking is a creative and human-centered approach to solving problems and designing solutions. It involves understanding the needs and preferences of the users, generating and testing ideas, and iterating and improving the outcomes. However, design thinking is not a one-size-fits-all method. Depending on the context, domain, and audience of your project, you may need to customize your design thinking process to achieve the best results. In this article, you will learn how to adapt your design thinking process to different situations and challenges.

1 Define the problem

The first step of any design thinking process is to define the problem you are trying to solve, which requires you to empathize with users, stakeholders, and domain experts. To customize your problem definition, you should consider the scope and complexity of the problem (e.g., is it a specific or a broad problem?), the context and domain of the problem (e.g., what are the relevant environmental, social, cultural, technical, or legal factors?), and the audience and users of the problem (e.g., who are the people who experience or care about the problem?). By taking these factors into account, you can define your problem in a way that reflects reality and diversity, ultimately guiding your design thinking process.

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Santiago Perez

Marketing | Growth | Lifelong Learner | Coach | Health & Wellness
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At first it might be hard to talk directly to users, one thing you can do is leverage all the information you can find on discussion forums like reddit or quora, and try to write down the kind of questions people ask around the problem, how they talk about it and the solutions that come more often in these spaces. Having real verbatim from people that's trying to learn about a problem is a great first step to empathize with your users.

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2 Research and gather data

The next step of the design thinking process is to research and gather data about your problem, users, and domain. This involves conducting qualitative and quantitative research methods such as interviews, surveys, observations, experiments, or analytics. To customize your research and data gathering, consider the type and quality of data needed to understand your problem, users, and domain, as well as reliable and valid sources and methods of data collection. Additionally, be sure to think about the synthesis and interpretation of data, such as the best ways to visualize, organize, and communicate it. By taking these factors into account, you can research and gather data that supports your problem definition and design thinking process.

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Santiago Perez

Marketing | Growth | Lifelong Learner | Coach | Health & Wellness
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Use as many visual aids as you can to gather and present the data. There are tons of tools you can use, like Miro, Figma and more... Be sure you are adding as many real examples of the different faces of the problem. Divide them by categories and try to create a mental image of all the factors involved in the situation.

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3 Ideate and generate solutions

The third step of the design thinking process is ideating and generating solutions for your problem. This involves brainstorming, sketching, prototyping, or testing various ideas that address the needs and preferences of your users. To customize your ideation and generation, you should consider criteria and constraints of solutions, such as requirements and limitations that your solutions must meet or overcome. Additionally, evaluate the diversity and creativity of solutions to ensure you generate a wide range of possible ideas that explore different perspectives. Finally, assess and compare the strengths and weaknesses of your solutions to select the best ones for further development and testing. By taking these factors into account, you can ideate and generate solutions in a way that matches your problem, users, and domain.

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4 Test and refine solutions

The final step of the design thinking process is to test and refine your solutions. This involves getting feedback from users, stakeholders, and domain experts, and making improvements and adjustments to your solutions. To customize your testing and refining, you should consider the format and level of solutions, the methods and metrics of testing, and the iteration and learning of refining. For example, you should think about the best ways to present and demonstrate your solutions, how detailed or realistic they should be for testing and refining, how to measure their performance and impact, what tools and techniques to use for testing in different scenarios and conditions, how to incorporate feedback into refining, and how to learn from successes or failures. Taking these factors into account will ensure that your solutions are of high quality and usability.

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5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Alina C.

Lead UX Designer at Valora Group
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In my opinion the article doesn't really reflect on how to customize your design thinking, speficically. It just describes the general design thinking process. 🤔

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How can you customize your design thinking process to different contexts, domains, and audiences?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Define the problem

2 Research and gather data

3 Ideate and generate solutions

4 Test and refine solutions

5 Here’s what else to consider

User Experience Design

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How can you customize your design thinking process to different contexts, domains, and audiences?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Define the problem

2 Research and gather data

3 Ideate and generate solutions

4 Test and refine solutions

5 Here’s what else to consider

User Experience Design

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