Consumption patterns have undergone considerable changes in recent years—primarily due to the strengthening of sustainable thinking and, of course, the advancement of digital transformation. Consumers now enter the market aware of what they want and how they want the product or service.

The consequence of this is quickly felt by companies in different sectors: they need to understand this new customer journey and customer needs in order to propose the right solutions., working with technologies There are many possibilities. The challenge lies in how to turn this idea into a scalable reality. Many organizations rely on guesswork and are the first to fail. Others, however, seek research and testing to arrive at a result.

In this context, there's an approach that has a lot to contribute to creating products or services that meet these demands—and we'll discuss that in this post. Keep reading to learn what Design Thinking is, its benefits, and applications.

What is Design Thinking?

This approach involves bringing together creative ideas from everyone involved in creating a product: from the teams that get their hands dirty to make them possible, to the customer, who has needs related to the outcome of this process.

The idea is that each person contributes their vision to make the product more complete. In this way, the result is not just something visually pleasing and correct in theory, but something that, in the end, the customer disapproves of due to usability issues.

We can say, then, that Design Thinking seeks to implement innovation and creativity in the company's creation processes. It works through data, analysis of shared knowledge, and, ultimately, the proposal of solutions, as we will see later. All this while placing people at the center of decisions.

Can it only be used in design?

Upon seeing the name of this approach, many people might think it's a concept applicable only to Design. However, in reality, the proposal is to use elements from this area to enable more effective solutions in other sectors.

How does it work in practice?

Now that you know what Design Thinking is and the positive results of its application, can you imagine how to put this approach into practice? To guarantee success, it's necessary to understand the pillars, the stages, and how it's actually used by companies in their production routine—and that's what we'll see from now on.

The pillars of the approach

To put Design Thinking into practice effectively, the team should prioritize the following pillars:

• Empathy: At this moment, professionals put themselves in the client's shoes to understand how this need impacts their life, how the solution could help, and what their expectations are regarding the product or service — in this way, it is possible not only to meet the demands but also to positively surprise the audience;
• Collaboration: Just as the consumer has their own experience, each team member can contribute different perspectives based on their own experiences—some of them may have worked on a similar project and, therefore, can point out issues that generated conflicts or that present innovative potential (in Design Thinking there is no room for individualism);
• Experimentation: When proposing innovations, the results are not always certain — that's why teams need to test solutions, understand potential errors, incorporate feedback, and ultimately transform all these ideas into efficient projects (this prevents any deviation from the focus in the process).

The steps of Design Thinking

Keeping these pillars in mind, it becomes possible to apply them to the stages of Design Thinking. Despite the established order, it's worth noting that nothing prevents them from occurring simultaneously. See below for these steps.

Understanding

Here, it's essential to apply empathy. The team then understands consumer needs through benchmarking, market research, or even SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the product). It's important not to work based on guesswork, as this goes against the objectives of this approach and can lead to errors.

Listening attentively is essential in order not to miss any information relevant to product creation. Details help to understand the consumer more broadly and to break down their needs into actions for the solution.

Definition

With all the information gathered in the previous stage, it's time to make suggestions about development priorities. This is one of the most challenging stages of the project, as it requires team members to have the ability to synthesize information and a macro-level vision of their role in promoting innovation.

Defining the activities that will be carried out to generate value for the consumer is essential. But the team shouldn't overlook other tasks that, despite often being behind-the-scenes production, make the entire project possible. This is also a challenging step to avoid rework later on. Therefore, all ideas here are valid.

Idealization

At this stage, creativity is more than necessary. The team must find suitable and applicable solutions to the defined proposals. Although there is no single correct idea, attention must be paid to its viability in the final product. It is worth considering that when many people are involved with their different perspectives, a Design Thinking meeting can become chaotic.

In the ideation phase, it's especially important to be organized in order to coordinate ideas and establish certain boundaries. Since the goal is to move towards the next phase (the hands-on work), meetings shouldn't stray from the central topic, and a priority order for actions should be established.

Prototyping

In typical projects, this is usually the first or second step: transforming ideas into a product. But we've seen so far that, in a creative and innovative approach, a deeper understanding of both the consumer and their expectations is necessary to suggest solutions.

Even without knowing exactly which tools or technologies to use, the team must begin the creation process. Think of a programming project: the developers choose the most appropriate languages and, based on their experience in the field, the best method to arrive at a minimum viable product.

It's important to keep in mind that a prototype is something the user can interact with, not just understand the concept. That's why defining priorities in the previous step is so important.

Test

Feedback is one of the essential characteristics of Design Thinking. Based on this feedback, it will be possible to correct any flaws, propose improvements to the solution, and ultimately arrive at a product that exceeds consumer expectations. This is where the consumer comes into play to offer their contribution—unlike other approaches, which only consider criticism after the official launch.

When showing the prototype to users, it's important not to "give away the game" at that moment. Creating a mystery about functionalities so they can discover them is part of the experience. In this case, it might be discovered that a function that seemed obvious doesn't work the same way for the consumer. If you have more than one prototype, show them all to gather information for comparisons.

In which areas can Design Thinking be applied?

As we've seen, this approach goes far beyond the field of Design and is now applied in diverse companies—such as Netflix, Natura, Havaianas, Totvs, among others. But do you know in which sectors Design Thinking can contribute? See the examples we've listed below.

Sales area

This sector of the company works directly with the public and, right from the start, it's possible to understand how the proposed empathy is beneficial for the professionals. When they seek to understand the ideal persona for whom the product or service is designed, they are able to get much closer to them.

In addition to the research methods we've mentioned, salespeople can also look at organizational data. They likely work with a CRM containing valuable information about acquired customers and their purchasing journey. The team should then arrive at effective approaches and irresistible sales proposals. Finally, feedback serves for personal and professional development.

Human Resources

Innovation must also be present in the Human Resources sector. After all, just as consumers have changed, professionals have also gained autonomy in the market. For a company to recruit the best talent, it must offer advantageous proposals compared to the competition and sustainable in the long term—attracting candidates with false promises is, of course, not enough.

But Design Thinking isn't just for attracting professionals; HR can also use it to maintain employee satisfaction. One option is to partner with leadership to understand these individuals, suggest benefits to improve productivity, and gather feedback on the business as a whole.

Financial sector

Because it involves numbers, many people may find it difficult to bring innovation to the financial sector. However, without good intentions, digital banks that minimize the need for queues and make people's lives much easier wouldn't exist, don't you think?

With Design Thinking, this sector can offer even greater agility to both external clients, such as banks, and internal ones. To achieve this, one suggestion is to integrate with teams from Marketing, Technology, Sales, and so on, to gain a better understanding of the target audience and develop appropriate solutions.

Education

Design Thinking can also be present in primary or higher education schools. This is a way to bring creativity and innovation to meetings formerly called class councils. This contributes to improving the pedagogical proposals and teaching methodologies chosen, understanding if they are truly productive for the students.

In this case, the students themselves and their families are the target audience for understanding. Thus, the pedagogical team (composed of teachers, principals, and other professionals) meets with students of different levels or classes to collect feedback and propose learning according to their expectations, which helps them to... focus on studies.

What are the benefits of Design Thinking?

See how many sectors can use Design Thinking in their growth strategies? In fact, the benefits go far beyond organizing company processes. Check out the main ones.

Participant development

Those who are part of Design Thinking teams have a much more productive and engaged routine. This is because their tasks are laid out by leaders, and professionals know what they need to do to contribute. Not to mention that they feel heard and that their ideas truly matter in decision-making. The same does not happen, for example, when a manager defines tasks and only distributes them.

Furthermore, employees also have the chance to develop important skills, such as quick thinking, strategic thinking, and intrapreneurship — which is the ability to... to undertake within their role in a company, in order to improve their performance.

Investment in communication

One of the challenges for companies with a digital culture is misalignment in communication. With so many tools at their disposal, they often think their ideas are self-explanatory and don't need context. As a result, employees may follow paths that are often not in line with the organization's ideals.

It also happens that they have excellent ideas, but if these ideas are not communicated correctly, they can be negated. Then, they waste time developing solutions that will not actually serve the purpose of the project or business.

However, this is not a problem with Design Thinking, which promotes dialogue and closer communication. By involving everyone in this model, the learning can be applied to other areas of work. Therefore, they begin to adopt information documentation, meeting follow-up, and so on.

Creation or strengthening of culture

Speaking of culture, this is another area that benefits from this approach. With strengthened communication between team members and even between different teams within the company, these relationships can be based on principles that drive the business.

If the organization doesn't have a pre-established culture, it can create one based on employee perceptions and with the help of Design Thinking. If one already exists, its concepts can be enhanced during meetings.

Improved leadership

Not only do managers benefit from Design Thinking proposals. Similarly, employees can develop their own leadership skills, for example. Furthermore, strengthening this competence contributes to... career planning — especially those who aspire to management or specialist positions.

Bringing the public and the company closer together.

Since the idea is to put the customer at the center of decisions, not only is understanding the audience improved, but customer service can also be more personalized, faster, and aware of the pain points of that persona. This increases the chances of creating a connection between the audience and the brand or product, which is created almost to measure.

Cost reduction

Large companies see no problem in hiring consultants to find solutions to certain problems. However, this is not a scalable reality. By involving all employees in thinking about these resources, it's possible to achieve the same understanding of the demands that external professionals could propose.

We also saw that Design Thinking helps with employee engagement, right? This also represents a reduction in costs associated with premature departures and turnover. As a result, they become more committed and feel involved.

What is its importance to the field of computing?

It's only fair that the technology field itself should be the main beneficiary of its innovations, isn't it? Therefore, developers have much to gain from Design Thinking. See below the main benefits of this approach for computer professionals, which provide a... standout in the job market.

Using Design Sprint

Design Sprint is one application of Design Thinking and can be understood as a "recipe." In this case, development teams use the entire week to think about a part of the project each day. The goal is to achieve solutions that are not only efficient but also quick and aligned with their work.

The steps, as we can see, are similar to those of Design Thinking. Check out a practical example:

• Understanding: On the first day of the week, the meetings aim to map the problem and then define the area that needs more attention — an example might be the creation of a user application, which will require the help of... mobile developer, from the programmer full stack or a front-end and back-end etc.;
• Ideation: Here, there is a brainstorming session with a wide variety of ideas, from conservative to extremely innovative ones — in our example, the team members discuss what they think is necessary to include in the application, such as clickable buttons, usage paths, colors, and so on;
• Decision: Of all the ideas from the previous stage, the third day is dedicated to defining which ones are applicable and can make a difference in the product — which, in this case, is the application;
• Prototype: the time has come to start creating and prototyping — this is where developers sketch out every usability detail of the product, in order to allow the next stage;
• Test: Finally, the last day involves the presence of potential end users — if the company provides learning solutions, for example, the application can bring the game development for classrooms, and guests (teachers, principals, parents of students, etc.) test whether it will actually be a useful application.

In practice, it's quite different and more intense than a normal Sprint, where each developer usually takes on a task to work on. In those cases, the objectives have already been defined and the process becomes slower, which is not the case with a Design Sprint.

Obtaining answers

The routine of a Computer Engineer, This often involves Sprints, which we mentioned in the previous topic. Generally, a developer has a few days to solve a problem related to the project they are working on independently. If they encounter a roadblock or don't know how to solve the problem, they ask a colleague for help or search developer forums.

Often, the solution to that problem depends on just one perspective—which, later on, may not be what the user needs, thus generating rework. With Design Thinking and multiple perspectives on the project, this is no longer a challenge for IT teams.

Competitive advantage

Companies want good results and, to achieve them, may overwhelm employees with the urgency of finding solutions. Imagine how much more decisive you become when you suggest Design Thinking for production? Certainly, processes benefit, and professionals gain more autonomy in their work.

Furthermore, by studying this approach, you develop a mindset of creativity and empathy, which you can apply to various areas of your career. These are highly valued skills in the job market—which, in fact, considers them some of the most important. characteristics of a good professional.

A broader understanding of users

Still within the idea of more individualized work, many developers may not truly understand the client's needs. How they use functions and other elements of mathematics in their daily lives and in their work. Study Computer Engineering, The tendency to opt for completely logical solutions is much greater. But we know that what is logical for them isn't always so simple for users, right?

With the concepts of empathy and collaboration among team members in the process, everyone can better understand these needs. Thus, proposals become more accurate, and the user experience is enhanced. For the company, this means better results and the confidence that there are excellent employees on its staff.

Knowing what Design Thinking is is easy. Your challenge from now on will be to apply its concepts in your daily life to become accustomed to it—who knows, in the near future you might be able to make a difference in a company with your ideas? If your ideal career is in computing, be sure to invest in the right sources of knowledge and continuously update your skills. After all, Computer Engineering contributes to innovation..

At this point, ESEG has a lot to contribute to your professional development. See how this... Computer Engineering faculty in São Paulo This is what you need for success.