Jul 25, 2025
Have you ever faced a tricky problem and wished there was a method to find creative, practical solutions that truly work for people? That’s the heart of what design thinking is all about. It’s not just a buzzword—design thinking is a practical, people-focused approach that helps you tackle challenges, whether you’re building a product, improving a service, or driving organizational change.
What Is Design Thinking?
At its core, design thinking puts humans first. It’s about understanding real needs, and then coming up with ideas, testing them, and changing course as you learn. Rather than assuming what people want, you involve them in the process from start to finish.
The Five Stages of Design Thinking
Let’s break down the classic design thinking process. While every challenge is different, most journeys follow these five steps:
1. Empathize: Discover the Real Needs
Start by stepping into your users’ shoes. Listen, observe, and ask questions—how do they feel, what frustrates them, and what do they truly need? This stage is all about empathy and gathering real-world insights.
2. Define: Clarify the Core Problem
Armed with your new understanding, you narrow in on the most important challenge to solve. Defining a clear, human-centered problem statement helps keep your focus exactly where it should be: on people.
3. Ideate: Explore Possibilities
This is where the creative sparks fly. Bring together a diverse group and brainstorm as many solutions as possible—no idea is too wild at this stage! The goal here is quantity and variety.
4. Prototype: Make Ideas Tangible
Instead of endless theorizing, start building simple versions of your ideas. These prototypes can be sketches, models, storyboards—anything that helps people experience the idea in action.
5. Test: Learn and Refine
Finally, share your prototypes with real users and ask for feedback. What works? What doesn’t? Use their input to tweak your solution—or even go back to the drawing board. Testing is about learning quickly and improving constantly.
The Principles Behind Design Thinking
Design thinking isn’t just about the steps; it’s also about the mindset:
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Empathy: Put yourself in others’ situations. Listen first.
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Collaboration: Embrace diverse perspectives. Great ideas often come from teamwork.
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Curiosity: Explore, challenge assumptions, and look for fresh angles.
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Experimentation: Be willing to try, fail, and learn—then try again.
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Flexibility: Stay open to changing your mind as new information comes in.
Why Does Design Thinking Matter?
When you start with people—not just technology or profits—you end up with solutions that matter, ideas that stick, and happier customers or team members. You’ll catch problems early, save time (and money), and create products, services, and experiences people actually love.
Bringing It All Together
Design thinking is more than just a process; it’s a way of working that encourages empathy, creativity, and action. Next time you face a complex challenge, remember: listen deeply, define the real problem, brainstorm without limits, prototype quickly, and learn from feedback.
Let design thinking guide you—you might be surprised at how far it takes you and your team.
Dec 18, 2024
It seems like creating websites is a never-ending task—but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, it can be one of the most rewarding processes out there. While it might feel overwhelming at times, there’s something truly special about watching everything come together step by step. It’s not just about the final product; it’s about the process of building something beautiful and meaningful.
I wouldn’t call it a “struggle” because creating websites can actually be a lot of fun. Each step is a chance to experiment, learn, and refine your vision. It’s like building a puzzle, except you get to design the pieces yourself. From picking the colors that set the right tone, to choosing fonts that speak to the audience, to integrating textures and elements that flow seamlessly—every little detail brings you closer to a work of art.
The beauty lies in the small victories along the way. Adding the perfect image? That feels good. Seeing the layout finally click? Even better. It’s a process of discovery and creativity that builds on itself. Every decision adds a new layer of personality, making the website not just functional but a reflection of something deeper—your purpose, your style, your message.
Sure, it might take time, but good things always do. And when you take a step back and look at how it all integrates—the colors, the textures, the structure—you’ll see how beautifully it all comes together. It’s a reminder that great things are built slowly, piece by piece, with patience and care. So embrace the process. Enjoy it. Because when it’s done well, the result is more than just a website. It’s a story brought to life.
Mar 17, 2023
There may be a detriment to being both a visual designer and researcher. I do guarantee, though, that you need to know the limits of what you present, as well as your limitation. In communicating with visual designers, you need to understand that they have a perspective that is sometimes outside of logic. Please keep in mind that the liking of art and the leaning towards certain visual elements is not linear. Things a person can consider when looking at something:
- What it looks like. This simply means this object. Not the entire scenery.
- Colors. Sometimes regardless of liking a visual element, if a color does not align with what [I] perceive as proper, it can make the whole idea fail.
- The adequacy of colors is subjective to feelings, emotions, experiences, etc.
- The environment. Some people may ask why I would include a professionally styled individual image on the shore of the beach.
- The whole story. Do you know it? Do I know it? Who exactly knows it?
- Do we want to change the story at all?
I can go on. My background includes human factors psychology. This turns into me having a very disecting eye for just about anything that exists in material form. Beyond material form, it includes anything in the “form of possibility.”
And so, as I have previously stated and will continue to defend. Designers and Researchers SHOULD work together as a team! My previous post was not about design being bad! In absolutely no way. It was about the fact that many designers do not understand, as some researchers may not understand, why results are exemplary when they work on THE SAME CONTEXT with DIFFERENT CONTENT!
My previous post may have been somewhat subjective and defensive. Unfortunately, experience has been difficult and shown me that designers do not want to see their work tampered with. I believe researchers need to respect design, but the design also needs to respect the science behind research. No one is free to cross lines here. This does not mean they should not be fluent in each others’ languages, though. That compatibility will give room for great results.
