By Janinne Brunyee
Why Design Think
ing. Most media companies today understand and have started the process of transforming for the digital age. Gone are the old business models that delivered audiences and revenue for many generations. In their place there is still much uncertainty as new technologies create new opportunities and new audiences require products and models that may not yet have been invented.
Amongst all this uncertainty, one thing is clear: to succeed, media organizations have to excel at innovation. Innovation must become a core competency along with an appetite for experimentation and quick failure followed by more experimentation.
One place media organizations can look to as they turn their employees into innovators, is Stanford University’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design – also known as the d.school – where the focus is on “creating innovators rather than any particular innovation,” and the art of Design Thinking is best learned by doing.
Design Thinking is at the core of the work of the d.school and can be thought of as a methodology for innovation that combines creative and analytical approaches and requires collaboration across disciplines.
According to the d.school’s website, the focus is on creating’ spectacularly transformative learning experiences’ and along the way, students develop a process for producing creative solutions to even the most complex challenges they tackle.
Design Thinking: Empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test
The principles of design thinking appear deceptively intuitive. What is radical about this approach to human-centric innovation is how each of the steps has been conceptualized.
Empathize: Design Thinking is grounded on a deep understanding of the people you are trying to serve. It requires careful observation of people within their contexts to uncover disconnects between what people say and what they do which is where great insights can often be found. Design thinkers also engage with people in deep and meaningful ways through loosely structured conversations. And of course, they listen and watch.
In many cases, the best solutions are the ones that address the needs of the ‘extreme user.’ During a recent visit to the d.school by participants of the 2016 FIPP/VDZ Innovators’ Tour, Astrid Maier, a journalist and Knight Fellow, described the example of carry-on luggage which was initially designed to meet the unique needs of airline pilots but which today is used by virtually every traveler.
Recent Comments