Methods
Design Thinking
A way of working out a problem from the side of the people who will use the system, with interviews and rough prototypes, before the scope of a project is fixed.
Part of Digital Strategy & Discovery
Design Thinking is a discovery approach that starts from the people affected by a system. It works in short loops: understand how the work is done today, frame the problem, sketch options, make something rough enough to react to, and test it with the people who will use it.
Where it fits
It belongs at the start of a project, before requirements are signed off. A requirements list records what someone asked for. Watching the work also shows what people are trying to get done and what gets in their way, and that often changes the scope.
Its limits
The method needs someone on the client side who can make scope decisions from what the research shows. It adds less when the problem is already well understood, for example a like-for-like replacement of a stable system.
How we use it
We interview and observe the people who do the work, then test rough designs with them. In a maintenance system redesign for a large manufacturer, we mapped how maintenance teams work, tested a new flow against the current one with six end users and ranked 26 findings. The output is a prototype or a short list of options with the trade-offs written down.
Related
UX/UI Design & User Research, Digital Transformation Consulting