Tag Archives: Design thinking
Adaptability: Key to your success
When a business finally reaches some growth, it’s important to consider one aspect that is not talked about enough regarding innovation – flexibility and adaptability. What organizations need to take into this new period of growth is the need to be adaptable and to increase the focus on agility, so as to be able to […]
Product strategy that’s customer-centric
One of the principles of design thinking is that you need to get employees from different departments, who serve various functions, sitting in a room together and working on solving problems. The natural instinct of employees is to look at a problem from the point of view of their job. So a graphic designer looks […]
What you can learn from extreme customers
Traditional marketing teaches businesses to identify and map out the wants and needs of their typical customer. In addition to this technique, design thinking asks companies to look at their extreme customers. These are customers on either end of the spectrum – those that love the product and those that hate it, those that have […]
Using analogous situations to inspire the design thinking process
One of the principles of design thinking is that innovators need to get into their customers’ heads to understand their wants and needs, pain points and customer experience. One way to do that is to compare your customers’ journey with an analogous situation you have experienced yourself. If your customer experience involves waiting in line […]
Design thinking is not a replacement for product strategy
Design thinking opens up new avenues for innovation that your company had not thought of before. Instead of overthinking, over-analyzing and focusing on minimizing risks, design thinking allows you to stop deliberating and start acting. On the other hand, design thinking can sometimes lead to under-thinking. Just because something is possible, does not make it […]
Find flaws in your design through user shadowing
How do your customers interact with your product? What problems do they encounter in its use? The best way to find the answers to these questions is by “shadowing” them as they use it. This means following them around, filming, photographing or taking notes on how they use the product. While it’s true that you […]
How design thinking saved Airbnb from failure
When Airbnb was just a small startup, its founders participated in Y Combinator’s program for startups to improve their position and refine their pitch to investors. They sat with design thinker Paul Graham and tried to figure out why bookings were so low for the properties available for rent on the site. Joe Gebbia, co-founder […]
Stakeholder mapping as a springboard to innovation
An excellent product or service best serves all the people who interact with it. The majority of these people may be customers, but other stakeholders may include business owners, employees, investors, partner organizations, suppliers and a particular community. When you list all of your product’s stakeholders and map out the interplay between the groups you […]
How Design Thinking and Customer Journey are related?
One of the key principles of design thinking is that it is customer-based. Before attempting to innovate a product which will best serve your customer, it’s important to understand how a potential customer becomes an actual customer, and how he interacts with your brand throughout the entire process. There are several touchpoints in the customer […]
The search for the perfect Customer Experience is killing innovation
Proponents of big data leverage it to connect to customers and respond to their needs. The way they do this is by surveying as many customers as possible and – based on those surveys – defining what works and what doesn’t. Big data can indeed provide some insights into customer behavior and needs, but it doesn’t have the ability […]
Product Strategy 101 