What is Design Thinking?
You’ve heard a lot about AI lately from me, but you know that I’m really a design guy. So how do they come together? How can I use design to tackle the AI challenge or ANY challenge that may come next
I’ve written quite a lot about AI lately. It’s a meaningful conversation happening in many fields, especially education. Educators are wrestling with a nasty multi-faceted problem. They’re trying to decide AI’s “right-sized” place in their school and classroom. So what do you do with a powerful tool that can also be used for cheat but can also be used as a legitimate part of a creative process and also can be used to help make teachers’ lives easier? What a messy problem!
That’s where design comes in. Design Thinking (DT) is a process for organizing thoughts, creativity, and activities. Design can help people wrestle through these messy problems and find solutions to try. We call these draft solutions “prototypes.”
Design, then, is a series of activities that are hyper-focused on human-centered solutions to discrete problems. That's it. Nothing too fancy. Design is an accessible creative process that anyone can use.
There is some jargon, to be sure. But, for example, if you’ve encountered Design Thinking before, you've probably seen the hexagons and tried to figure out what they mean.
To pose this model as a sentence, you can see how accessible yet profound design can be.
Empathize: This is the “human-centered” part. Who are we designing for? What do they really want or need? Can we design together?
Define: You have a big problem; let’s state it as a “How Might We” statement.
Ideate: let’s think of lots of solutions
Prototype: Let’s try a solution to see what happens (Test).
Design Thinking is for inventing solutions for messy problems — even the messy problem of AI in schools.
"Inventing" doesn't need to mean a modern-day Edison creating the next lightbulb (but it can!). We can invent many things - solutions to social problems, new curricula, new processes, clubs and activities, ways to check for kids' understanding, and cures for diseases. New devices, new toys, and new objects that make life easier. Nearly any problem is a design challenge!
Everything can be a product of design!
Empathy, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing are those essential parts of Design Thinking is shown in the "hexagon steps." Though the process of Design Thinking is broken into these discrete steps, the actual process is way messier. Thus, it's a bit insincere to create some sort of worksheet for Design Thinking. Rather, it helps to know any number of "moves" or activities students and teachers can take in each DT step to help facilitate problem-solving. I would never suggest a group do a single activity to check one of the steps off the list. Instead, groups can build real meaning around a project by engaging in many activities at each step. The more you do, the deeper your thinking will become.
Looking to string the pearls from my recent AI articles and this one on Design Thinking? Try this quick AI-focused design sprint with your teacher team:
Empathize:
On a whiteboard, create a column for students and teachers.
Under the Student column and the Teacher column, draw a plus sign for positive considerations. Draw a negative sign for negative concerns.
Write everything you believe a teacher might think about AI on sticky notes. Then, place those stickies in the “Teacher” column under the positive and negative signs. Do the same for students. Not sure where one belongs? That’s a great source of conversation.
Define:
Choose an audience you’ll design for first, students or teachers.
List any problems (stick notes again!) you may perceive when your audience meets AI. For example, what problems might teachers have with AI? What problems might students have with AI?
As a team, group together similar sticky notes. Discuss which one or two problems are most worthy of the team's time. If you want to try a design protocol, consider Dot Voting to capture everyone’s voice.
Finally, use the sentence stem “How might we…” to create a problem statement you can all agree on tackling.
Ideate:
This is the fun part! We’re back to using sticky notes. Write down as many solutions as possible for your “How might we” (HMW) statement.
The hard part of ideating is keeping an open mind. Encourage your team to let ideas flow from their brains to their sticky notes with no filter in between. Wild ideas are encouraged! We will filter out ideas later. This is a time to fill top sticky notes.
Use a timer for this part, especially if you’re working with a group already comfortable with their creativity.
Once complete, post and look at what everyone said. You can group similar stickies and Dot Vote on the ideas if you want.
Prototype
The next step is to figure out what you actually want to try. Then, for the ideas with the most energy (or dots!), run them through the 3 “abilities” of design: Feasibility, Desirability, and Viability.
Feasibility asks whether something is practical or achievable, considering various constraints such as resources, time, effort, and limitations. Constraints are a powerful part of the design process, as you must design with them rather than around them. In short, it can be done given available resources if something is feasible. You have the time, money, people, and other resources to make it happen.
Viability, however, typically relates to whether something can be successful, sustainable, or effective in the long term. If something is viable, it means it can continue to exist or function effectively over time. Something may also be viable if you have the skills and expertise to make it happen.
Finally, desirability is all about how well your idea meets the needs of the audience you thought about in the Empathize phase of this sprint. A desirable solution appeals to its target audience, evokes positive emotions, and generates interest or demand. Desirability is fickle and subjective, so some teams may struggle to discuss this one.
Once you’ve tested your ideas against the design “abilities,” you’ll need to develop a prototype. In the past, I’ve had teacher teams react strongly to the word “prototype.” They’ve been trained to think of a prototype as a physical object - like a 3D print. However, you can prototype plans, lessons, policies, and any other design product. Ask yourself and your team these questions:
What is the minimally viable version of this idea?
How can I share this idea to normalize it and get feedback?
What would be small enough and safe enough to try out tomorrow?
Finally, you’ll TEST your new prototype by sharing the idea, using the policy, or delivering the lesson - or whatever else your team may have designed! Of course, the thought that you are testing an idea insinuates that this entire process is cyclical. Once you’ve learned something from the test, you’ll want to design (or re-design the next iteration)!
The more you do this, the better you’ll get. You may also learn other protocols to use during each design phase as well. There are a lot out there - I highly recommend the workshop-building app SessionLab, which has many protocols for each design phase. What other problems might you tackle with this mini-design sprint?