Understanding The Fundamentals of Design Thinking from a Graphic Design Agency in Charleston, SC
The understanding of design thinking is vital to fostering success in our graphic design agency. At Bear Paw, we solve problems with creative solutions to bring our clients unique and tangible branding solutions. Take a peek inside the minds of our creators as we explain a basic model for design thinking.
Understanding Design Thinking
What is design thinking and how is it important to graphic design agencies? Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that is centered around understanding users, challenging assumptions, and finding solutions. It is a process that emphasizes empathy, collaboration, and experimentation. It is important to remember that design thinking is not a linear process.
Let's take a look at the 5 steps of Design Thinking:
Empathize
Understanding the needs, wants, and experiences of the people you are designing for.
Define
Take the insights from the research to define the problem.
Ideate
Fostering a creative environment to come up with possible solutions.
Prototype
Create a rough draft of what your product may look like.
Test
Test prototypes to gather feedback and insights.
Problem Solving Through Graphic Design
To begin design thinking you need to fully understand the problem and the customer. Empathetic research techniques are vital. This research allows us to step into the users’ shoes and gain insights into their needs and experiences.
Below are five empathetic research techniques for graphic design companies.
User Persona
User personas define demographics of the target audience, their needs, their aspirations and their pain points.
Empathy Mapping
Empathy mapping is outlining the customer’s emotions to gather user data and identify patterns in their wants and needs to identify the problem.
Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping visualizes how a customer will interact with the product or service from introduction to purchase and gather insight on different aspects of the customer.
Assumption Mapping
Assumption mapping is identifying the designers’ assumptions about a project and comparing it to the user’s wants and needs to articulate a solution.
Storyboarding
Storyboarding is a visual tool to clearly outline the user experience and see the problem at hand before creating solutions.
Prototyping in Design Thinking
Prototyping is a pivotal stage in the design thinking process. This is where graphic designers begin to see the solution coming together. Prototyping gives the opportunity to visualize any flaws in a design and go back because design thinking is a nonlinear process. When prototyping, try to develop modular components that easily allow for changes.
During prototyping, the design thinking process can look like this:
The prototyping stage allows for important factors of solution development. You will not see if the possible solution from the ethical research is viable without the prototype. Prototyping opens the eyes of the graphic designers so they can go back to the other steps of the design process.
- Validates assumptions
The prototype allows the designers to see their research was accurate and aligns with the customer. - Uncovers biases
Inherent biases may become apparent towards certain ideas, promoting a different perspective than the targeted audience agrees with. - Gains user insights
Through testing prototypes, designers gain new insights on the user’s behaviors and their likes and dislikes. - Mitigates risk
Testing prototypes allows designers to identify any flaws in the design or a different solution than intended.
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