Design Thinking (sometimes called “Human-Centered Design”) is the interdisciplinary application of design processes, mindsets, and methods, especially in contexts beyond traditional design disciplines.

In recent years, the innovative power of design thinking has been harnessed by universities, social enterprises, NGOs, and many other kinds of organizations. Solutions that can be created using this methodology may take the form of physical or digital products, services, or experiences.

“Design begins with developing understanding and empathy for the human experience. Truly effective and life-changing products not only include the best of science and technology, but also insights from the humanities and social sciences. This is essential to the process of innovation”.

— Professor Peter Robbie ’69

Design Thinking in the Classroom

By asking students to leverage knowledge to create a product, service, or experience, educators across disciplines have used design projects to:

• Deepen student understanding of existing course material;
• Increase student engagement by demonstrating the applicability of course material; and
• Foster social and emotional skills, such as teamwork, empathy, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity.

Faculty participants in one of our introductory workshops. Because all disciplines both inform, and are informed by, the needs of real humans, design projects can deepen the learning objectives of any course.

Design’s Essential Ingredients

A successful design assignment can be as short as one class session and as long as multiple terms. While the range of methods—and depth of student experience—will vary depending on duration, all design projects contain the following three essential ingredients in some amount:

• Needfinding. Combining secondary research with community engagement to identify unmet human needs. While the whole design experience serves to deepen understanding of needs, needfinding is the focus of the “Empathize” and “Define” phases described below.
• Lateral Thinking. Developing multiple, divergent ways to address the identified needs. While lateral thinking is practiced throughout the design experience, lateral thinking is the focus of the “Ideate” phase described below.
• Feedback-Driven Iteration. Refining initial ideas quickly following short experiments and feedback from stakeholders. Feedback-driven iteration is the focus of the “Prototype” and “Test” phases described below.

All three of these ingredients serve to deepen understanding of disciplinary content and community knowledge through engaged action and reflection.

Design Thinking Process

Image from Stanford d.school.

Design assignments can be simple to outline by guiding students along a generalized design process:

• Empathize: First, students might conduct primary and secondary research to understand unmet needs of a specific group of people. Practicing needfinding described above.
• Define: Second, students might synthesize their research findings and articulate a precise problem or opportunity. Practicing needfinding described above.
• Ideate: Third, students might brainstorm a diverse set of ideas, which may include new or improved products, services, and experiences. Practicing lateral thinking described above.
• Prototype: Fourth, students might make their ideas tangible with quick, low-resolution mock-ups. Practicing feedback-driven iteration described above.