When creating a product design to solve a problem, you will come across various tips, suggestions, and terms. These things can complicate the process, but remember, certain aspects are more important than others.
Product design is a lengthy process that needs to be divided into different phases. This way, you can create a solution that users will like. So, instead of acting on all the tips, you should choose a design thinking approach to create a customer-centric product.
Design thinking gives you the power to think independently so you can deliver practical solutions. That’s why companies like Future Factory are offering innovative consulting and services so you can transform your business.
How Design Thinking Work in New Product Design Process
#1 Empathize
Design thinking involves empathizing with the people you are designing the product for so it can be user based. It also gives you a clear understanding of the problem you want to solve.
You can empathize with your targeted users in multiple ways. For example, you can interview, conduct surveys, perform usability tests, or develop an understanding of pain points.
Empathizing is important because it helps you gather useful user experience and information, which is needed in the further stages of product design.
#2 Define the Problem
Compile all the user information and thoroughly analyze it to define the core problems. It’s always helpful to define a problem in a human-centered way instead of using the product-center approach. Why? Because it helps you stay in the essence of design thinking.
UI and UX design team members must ask questions during this stage to determine possible solutions. They must define the problem in a human-centric way and think outside the box.
#3 Ideate
After gathering the user information and defining the problem, your next step involves generating ideas and finding solutions for the identified problem.
Try to come up with creative ideas and designs to address the problem. This way, you can arrive at an innovative solution.
Don’t forget to organize collaborative brainstorming sessions to promote free thinking. At this stage, you can bring stakeholders, designers, and developers together to develop relevant ideas.
#4 Prototype
After generating ideas, you must select the best one to begin prototyping. It will help you simplify the testing of proposed solutions.
Prototyping also brings ideas to life and allows you to choose the best solution for multiple problems. You can involve all the solutions in a simple prototype to solve multiple problems.
Once prototyping is done, the design team can explore solutions to understand any limitations present in the product. Lastly, the team will select the workable solutions and reject the weaker ones for further improvement.
#5 Test
The final stage of creating product design with design thinking involves testing the prototype’s usability. It helps in understanding whether or not it solves the identified problem.
If the prototype does not solve the problem, you need to follow all the steps by going all the way back to emphasize the stage. But if the problem is minor, you can start from the ideate stage.
4 D’s of Design Thinking
While beginning the process of product designing with design thinking, you need to focus on four basics:
- Discover: It means discovering the problems that your targeted users face when reaching your business. Try conducting user research for better results.
- Define: Next, define the problem and solution while also having alternate solutions.
- Develop: Continue the ideation to develop your research and final product. This step involves testing and prototyping.
- Deliver: Deliver the solutions before the team runs into a problem. This stage is also considered a testing phase where you can conduct experiments.
Conclusion
Design thinking companies are an important element that helps a business grow. Regardless of the industry, anyone can use these 5 stages to create better product design with industrial design thinking.
That’s why companies like Future Factory are offering the best services. Jashish Kambli and Geetika Singh Kambli have started this product design firm to help businesses make a stable identity in the ever-changing market.
Future Factory is an award-winning design studio that offers the best consulting and new product design services.
