Why you too should start with design thinking

Gaining a better understanding of what the customer exactly wants and adapting your product or service based on that: that is the core of design thinking. How can this design method help you? 
Develop or improve a product or service? Most companies collect and analyze historical data and make certain design choices based on this. In this way they arrive at an improved or completely new product. That can work. But at least as often companies and organizations miss the mark, says Dirk Deichmann, associate professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). 'With traditional design methods, you usually look at choices that customers or users have made in the past. But analyzing that data will seldom yield great new insights. "

Insight into the customer
In order to arrive at truly new insights, it is better to opt for design thinking: an innovation technique that in four steps - understanding and observing, defining, ideation, and prototype and testing - helps to clarify what drives the end user. You can then use that input to devise truly innovative solutions. "Instead of thinking for yourself what is best for the customer, you get real insight into what the customer wants through design thinking."

Observation
To this end, users of the design thinking method have several techniques and instruments available. In the most basic form, it is simply about observing the end user or customer. How does he or she use a product or service? What obstacles does the user encounter? These observations often provide interesting input for product improvement or even new products.

Customer journey
A step further is structured mapping of the entire customer journey. In e-commerce, the customer journey is often charted in detail to optimize the design and conversion of webshops. The smoother the customer moves through the purchasing process, the greater the chance that he or she will actually pay.

Anxiety reduction
An example is the research that Deichmann and Roel van der Heijde conducted at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital. For many people, a hospital visit is accompanied by a certain degree of uncertainty and fear. It is not without reason that anxiety reduction is an important theme within hospitals. '

Transparency
In the case of the Eye Hospital, this search ultimately led to a number of concrete, accessible innovations that contribute to anxiety reduction. For example, EyePad was developed for patients: an app that allows individual patients to monitor their treatment in detail. "Transparency is an important factor in removing anxiety," explains Deichmann. "By giving patients more control over what is happening, we have succeeded in largely removing anxiety."


Read full article at : https://www.ooa.nl/nieuws/17971903/Waarom-ook-jij-met-design-thinking-aan-de-slag-moet
Source: MT.nl  | June 16,2020