In their quest for delivering the most advanced solutions or unleashing a new approach companies often end up ignoring the end user. They end up creating products that have scant emotional connect with users and in some cases are difficult to work with. Design Thinking replaces this old and often counterproductive way to develop applications by bringing humans in the center of its development paradigm. It attempts to develop a deeper understanding of end-users for whom an application is being built and tries to cultivate empathy. It’s an inherently an iterative and participative process that involves ideating, prototyping, and testing out solutions and ideas before initiating the core application development process.
Our Design Thinking Lab Places the End-User in the Driving Seat
Design thinking has several advantages over the conventional way of application development. Our dedicated design thinking lab functions as a testing ground for new ideas and concepts. We place the users in the driving seat and try to build solutions around their expectations surrounding the concept we are attempting to create. We listen to user requirements and their stories to a business challenge or idea we are working upon. We absolutely focus on real people who are most likely going to use a specific product and go the extra mile to know their views and real-life challenges.
Our Design Thinking Workflow – We Focus on the Details
We follow the primary five-step design thinking approach popularized by Hasso-Plattner with our unique focus on minute details and a fastidious approach to get accurate results.
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Empathize – Understand and Experience what are our Target Users
are
Experiencing
Building empathy with our users starts at understanding their problems in a way they experience. We try to place ourselves in their shoes and try to understand how they negotiate the concept or business challenge at hand. Next, we try to understand their critical pain points and how they negotiate them at every possible stage.
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Define – Clearly Layout the User’s Needs, Problems
Gleaning as much information from users is just a starting point. Next, we start to define the problems in a human-centric manner based on the data and observations made by us. This stage is critical for providing designers with salient inputs for conceptualizing features and functions that will eventually help them craft the solutions.
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Ideate – Brainstorm and Figure out Ideas
Our designers and related subject matter experts place a lot of effort to come up with ideas that can suitably solve the problem at hand. We try to transform ideas into workable models while incorporating the insights we have gained before.
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Prototype – Build MVPs and Working Prototypes in an Iterative
Manner
Here we start building MVPs and functional prototypes; based on the inputs received and the overall business objective of the client. The prototypes are shared with target users to understand their responses and collect feedback. An iterative process is followed where any actionable feedback is immediately considered and working prototypes are updated and sent back for further feedback.
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Evaluate – Test the Solutions and Reveal Insights
The solutions are thoroughly tested to find flaws and make improvements. A core feature of our evaluation process involves gaining insights into the functioning and real-world challenges that our users experience. The test process also includes real user testing which has the potential to reveal new ideas to tackle the challenge at hand.
How we Approach Design Thinking - Our Recipe for Success
Given our extensive experience in rolling out user focussed solutions across different industry verticals, we have successfully formulated an approach that attempts to improve experiences through innovation. Let’s look at some of the salient aspects
Improved Prototyping Speed
When we are looking to receive as close to actual feedback from users, sharing mock-ups with them serves practically no results. Instead, we believe in improving our prototyping speed and delivering usable working models for our users to test and share feedback.
Delivering Final Solutions in Quick time
Once a prototype has been finalized we attempt to deliver the end solutions in quickest possible time while maintaining the highest quality standards.
Creative Solutions and Out of Box Thinking
We sincerely believe in the ethos of design thinking and always try to create solutions that ingrain out of box thinking. This allows us to develop exceptional products that can meet business requirements and deliver fabulous user experiences.
Meeting Real-World Challenges in Development Process
During the development process, it is common for real insights to be lost in translation. User expectations and business requirements may not get lucidly explained to developers who end up creating solutions that are far off from what was desired. At our Design Thinking Lab, core emphasis is given on bringing the people who are coding with actual users on the same page. We excel in making these communications possible in real-time so that feedback does not get lost and critical inputs are readily incorporated.
We also offer detailed consultation services for businesses to help them understand how design thinking can help them achieve success. During our consultations, we explicitly disclose the hazards of shortcuts and explain the need to garnering detailed feedback. For example, we clearly convey that bracketing users in predefined personas during the empathy stages can backfire. We approach the problem with an open mind and rely on users to share their stories, learn their experiences, and also share all insights with our client. There are several scenarios where concept rework is necessary, and we go the extra mile to arrive at the best solution.
Our Work Expertise - Utilizing Design Thinking for meeting Business Needs of Diverse Industries
We have over the years worked and built up the capacity to introduce the best practices of design thinking to develop solutions for different industries. From business challenges in travel and tourism to enabling new solutions in F&B space; we can handle distinct challenges with equal ease. Irrespective of whether you are looking to develop an app or looking to create unique store solutions; our design thinking approach can help you build solutions that are likely to be successful with your users.
