5 Design Thinking Fundamentals

5 Design Thinking Fundamentals

Design thinking is incredibly useful in helping to build your business and establish solid ground in your niche. Some level of design is necessary for just about any business and the fundamentals of visual design can be applied across the board to many other areas of business.

Learning a designer’s mindset can help to improve your understanding of how people might respond and interact with your ideas.

 


 

01. Discovery/Research

So you have a great idea, but that idea need shaping. Making sure it’s well developed will take research and refining.

You’ll need to find out what’s already out there, and what can you do better than anyone else. Most ideas aren’t totally unique, but you can bring together combinations of skills to come up with a service that gives a totally unique impression.

 

discovery and research

 


 

02. Generate Ideas

Write down everything. Try not to censor yourself, even if you think of something that might be a bit off, it could lead to other pathways or new ways of thinking about your business. Use this time to outline both immediate and long-term goals.

 


 

03. Create

Start outlining your best thoughts and build upon them. The more output you have, the better. Be prepared to experiment with different content or further refine finished content down the line. It’s okay to make lots of changes, especially in the early stages. Finding the right path can take a lot of trial and error, so don’t worry if you have to rethink and revamp your ideas down the line.

 

create content

 


 

04. Implement

Now is time to let your ideas fly. Hopefully you’ve generated enough content to make it though some updates while you think about your next steps. You’ll likely see ways to make improvements soon in the process and it’s okay to release something that’s not quite perfect. Just keep building upon your ideas incrementally. It might take a while to find your rhythm, but you’ll find better paths when you continually release new content.

 

implement ideas

 


 

05. Analyze

How is your audience reacting? Listen to feedback and find out if you’ve really hit your mark. Providing a steady stream of content is necessary to properly gauge where you stand. Once you figure out your strengths and weaknesses you can get back to ‘Step 1’ and begin to fine-tune and develop new ideas. The key to successful design thinking will be to keep this process going and to always be creating new ways to interact.
analyze users and feedback

 


 

Design thinking is greatly important to envisioning how people will respond to your ideas. It is critical understand this process if you want to build a successful business. If you have a great startup that needs help getting off the ground, work with us, and we’ll help set you in the right direction.

simon, an author on the DesignUps Nashville Design Blog

About the Author

Simon is the founder and creative director of DesignUps. His specialty is understanding perspectives of clients and end-users and the thought process to craft a solid experience based on this insight.