What's Design Thinking All About?

Have you ever heard of Design Thinking? Or have you heard of it and thought, “I’m not a designer, when would I use Design Thinking?” While a dedicated designer is responsible for applying Design Thinking practices in an organization, everyone who creates products can benefit from a Design Thinking mindset. According to Forbes, Design thinking practices can “deliver an ROI of 85% or greater”. It can also reduce product development cycles by 33-50%.

At a high level, design thinking is the process of keeping your customers’ needs at the center of the product development process. It sounds straightforward, but how often does a new feature create frustration or end up being under-utilized? The Design Thinking methodology involves interviewing and observing customers to get a better understanding of what they truly need. This gives us enough data to make an initial prototype that we bring back to the customers for feedback. The final product ends up being customer-informed, helping teams feel confident that they are spending resources building the right things.

So how can this mindset help developers? The knowledge of what a user needs can empower anyone to raise concerns about a product. While designers can use customer research to ensure the usability of the interface is smooth, the same research can help developers be mindful of what needs to go smoothly in the front and back ends. This knowledge rallies the team to work towards a common goal: make the best product we can for the customer.

For all developers coming to Global Summit 2023, we invite you to join our two workshops on Day 3: Introduction to Design Thinking and Application of Design Thinking. In session one, we’ll dive deeper into what Design Thinking is. In session two, we’ll join with customers as we explore challenges they’ve faced, and brainstorm potential solutions together. We look forward to seeing you!

Any questions? Please contact UX@intersystems.com