What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is a way of solving problems by focusing on the needs of people. It involves understanding what users need, thinking of creative solutions, and testing those ideas to see what works best. The process usually includes five steps: empathize (understand the user), define (clarify the problem), ideate (come up with ideas), prototype (create a simple version of the solution), and test (try it out and see how it works). Design thinking helps create solutions that are practical and user-friendly. The design thinking process typically involves the following stages:
1. Empathize
Empathy is the first step in design thinking because it is a skill that allows us to understand and share the same feelings that others feel. Through empathy, we can put ourselves in other people's shoes and connect with how they might be feeling about their problems, circumstances, or situations. Some questions to consider:
- What is the person feeling?
- What actions or words indicate this feeling?
- Can you identify their feelings through words?
- What words would you use to describe their feelings?
These are just some of the guided questions that students can reflect on to identify the problem and how others are feeling about it.
2. Define
The next step is to define the above feelings and identify the main problem to be solved. It's important that, throughout this process, students use language that is identifiable, positive, meaningful, and actionable. Instead of focusing on the negative side of the problem and the lack of options, steer students to using language that is positive, and empathetic, and will direct them toward solution-based thinking. Defining the problem is part of the process of shaping a point of view -- our own and others -- about the problem. Therefore, the framing should inspire the group, the student, or the entire class to find solutions.
3. Ideate
This process is where ideas are generated. Students can learn empathy here when you teach them new and different ways to find solutions to a problem -- there is no single right way for a great idea. Here are a few strategies that you can encourage:
- Mindmapping
- Brainstorming
- Sketchnotes
- Bodystorming
- Inquiry
This process helps students to see things from different perspectives. It allows them to step outside of what they might think is the obvious solution and instead generate ideas outside of their realm.
4. Prototype
In the prototyping phase, students get to make and create the solution to the problem. Empathy helps them see that they're in the first step in a longer process. A prototype can be changed, altered, re-evaluated, and recreated many times based on the needs of the users (either the students themselves or someone else). This process also helps students to recognize that failing is part of learning and that it's OK to fail. Failure, however, needs to be analyzed so that we learn and grow from our mistakes. Ask these questions:
- Why did we fail?
- What worked?
- What didn't work?
- How can we improve to help the user next time?
- Is this solution feasible? Is it manageable?
- Are these changes designed with the user in mind?
5. Test
During testing, empathy plays a key role in shaping the user's experience. Focus on showing and not telling. This helps the users to create their own experiences and also helps us to identify how to improve their experiences next time. The opportunity for empathizing is important at this stage because one can see the user's experience and hear his or her thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Testing also helps to shape our point of view about the user's point of view.
conclusion
Design thinking to teach empathy can be applied to many problems that arise in the classroom and help encourage students on solution-based thinking -- a process that concentrates on positivity, feedback, iteration, and empathy. If you're interested in implementing design thinking in your classroom, visit(https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/empathize) for some free resources.
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