Case Study: Design Thinking
A Company has reached out to your (your team) to create a solution to aid their users order food online. Using the design thinking approach, walk me through how you intend to create the solution.
Solution
The first thing I would do is to schedule a meeting with the company. During the meeting, I would ask some fundamental questions pertaining to their users. I would do a secondary research to help shed light on why the problem exists and what’s been done to address it in the past. If I don’t have a clear view of the challenges they face, then I dive into empathizing with the users using different methods.
Stage 1 - Empathize: I would start by doing a thorough research of their users’ needs, the challenges they face, and critical things that deter them from using the app. My team members and I will brainstorm to generate questions to ask users and create themes or topics around the interview questions so they can flow smoothly from one to another.
This I would carry out through surveys, google forms, and contextual interviews with necessary personnel and stakeholders since engaging with people directly reveals a tremendous amount about the way they think and the values they hold. I would make sure I do my research with an open, investigative mind that is free as much as possible of preconceived notions.
Stage 2: Define: After this stage, I would document, accumulate and gather the information and responses from the series of interviews and answers we collate from people. We would piece the puzzle together to form whole ideas. We would organize, interpret, and make sense of the data we have gathered to create a problem statement.
Stage 3 - Ideation: We move on from here to the Idealization stage, where we spark off ideas in the form of questions and solutions through creative and curious activities such as brainstorming and coming up with the worst possible ideas. We would use our creativity and innovation to develop solutions. Ideation would help us uncover unexpected areas of innovation, bring together team members’ perspectives and strengths, and ask the right questions.
Stage 4: Prototyping: Quickly we move to the prototyping stage. We would do this by producing an early, inexpensive, and scaled-down version of the product to reveal any current design problems.
This would offer our designers the opportunity to bring their ideas to life, test the practicability of the current design, and potentially investigate how a sample of users think and feel about a product.
Stage 5 - Testing: Then we conclude with testing our new product to ensure and confirm its work-ability and effectiveness.
In conclusion, carrying this processes would give a concise and comprehensive idea of the challenges the company is facing, and spell out the best possible solutions to aid their users order food online.
