Tag Archives: design thinking

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How IDEO pushes boundaries of design thinking: B2B and generative AI

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During a recent visit to IDEO‘s San Francisco office, I learned how design thinking can be harnessed in B2B contexts and the transformative potential of generative AI. IDEO’s approach highlighted how design thinking is not limited to extreme end-users but extends meaningfully to B2B industries. By embracing this methodology, companies can reduce development timelines while serving the needs of various stakeholders.

IDEO’s collaboration with Ford highlights how design thinking can adapt quickly to address B2B challenges. Ford identified a gap in van driver security due to the long product development cycles. In response, IDEO designed a van security solution within just 12 weeks, quick prototyping to expedite development. This solution ultimately led to the creation of the joint venture between Ford and ADT, which integrated sensors, cameras, and AI to detect window breakage or unauthorized access.

One particularly inspiring session was learning about the integration of generative AI into design thinking processes. Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has opened new avenues for, so called, “synthetic research.” Generative AI enables the creation of hypothetical personas that bring fresh insight into understanding potential customer needs. Additionally, by using video prototypes developed through AI, designers can iterate on ideas faster and more creatively than traditional methods allow.

This visit enlightened me about the transformative potential of merging emerging technologies like generative AI with established design thinking frameworks. By continuously pushing the boundaries of design thinking, IDEO opens new possibilities for the B2B sector, fostering faster, tailored solutions to meet evolving needs.

Tim Brown & Jaewoo Joo

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Reference

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard business review, 86(6), 84.

In the past, design has most often occurred fairly far downstream in the development process and has focused on making new products aesthetically attractive or enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative advertising. Today, as innovation’s terrain expands to encompass human-centered processes and services as well as products, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up.

Brown, the CEO and president of the innovation and design firm IDEO, is a leading proponent of design thinking—a method of meeting people’s needs and desires in a technologically feasible and strategically viable way. In this article he offers several intriguing examples of the discipline at work. One involves a collaboration between frontline employees from health care provider Kaiser Permanente and Brown’s firm to reengineer nursing-staff shift changes at four Kaiser hospitals. Close observation of actual shift changes, combined with brainstorming and rapid prototyping, produced new procedures and software that radically streamlined information exchange between shifts. The result was more time for nursing, better-informed patient care, and a happier nursing staff.

Another involves the Japanese bicycle components manufacturer Shimano, which worked with IDEO to learn why 90% of American adults don’t ride bikes. The interdisciplinary project team discovered that intimidating retail experiences, the complexity and cost of sophisticated bikes, and the danger of cycling on heavily trafficked roads had overshadowed people’s happy memories of childhood biking. So the team created a brand concept—“Coasting”—to describe a whole new category of biking and developed new in-store retailing strategies, a public relations campaign to identify safe places to cycle, and a reference design to inspire designers at the companies that went on to manufacture Coasting bikes.

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Bridging theory and practice: My CSULB talk on consumer-centric design

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Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Apostle Incubator. This is a course designed by Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (IIE) at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). This interdisciplinary, entrepreneurial program brought together students from diverse backgrounds, creating a lively atmosphere for our discussion on understanding consumers.

In my talk, I shared insights from my project experience with Korean designers, where we explored how companies can use psychology to improve product design and boost sales. One project I discussed involved creating product bundles. I explained how even small changes can have a big impact on whether people decide to buy.

The students were curious and engaged, asking thoughtful questions. One asked, “What’s the difference between Samsung and Apple?” Others questioned about which marketing tools these companies uses now. We even touched on how Google Nest might face similar questions when trying to bundle products effectively.

Overall, it was inspiring to see the students’ enthusiasm. Many left with new ideas on how to think about consumers in their own projects. I am excited to see where these future entrepreneurs take these insights.

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Design thinking can inspire engineers, if customized as a corporate training program

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Rebecca Ackermann wrote “Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong? An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.” In this MIT Technology Review article, she claimed that design thinking disappointed us.

But in recent years, for a number of reasons, the shine of design thinking has been wearing off. Critics have argued that its short-term focus on novel and naive ideas has resulted in unrealistic and ungrounded recommendations. And they have maintained that by centering designers—mainly practitioners of corporate design within agencies—it has reinforced existing inequities rather than challenging them.  

Although design thinking *process* rarely produces market-shaking products, design thinking *training* shakes the way people think. When carefully customized, it encourages engineers to be customer-centric and think outside the box. More details about how LG Academy customized a design thinking training is available upon request.
Figure 1 The overall structure and time allocation of the d.school’s design thinking training program

Bertao, R. A., Jung, C. H, Chung, J., and Joo, J. (2023), Design thinking: a customized blueprint to train R & D personnnel in creative problem solving., Thinking Skills and Creativity, 48, 101253.

Abstract

Organizations have sought to adopt design thinking aiming at innovation. However, implementing such a creative problem-solving approach based on designers’ mindsets and practices requires the navigation of obstacles. Corporate structure and culture hinder the adoption course, and cognitive barriers affect non-designer engagement. In this regard, training has been used as a means of easing the process. Although considered a crucial step in design thinking implementation, research on training initiatives is scarce in the literature. Most studies mirror that about d.school boot camp and innovative programs developed by companies globally remain unknown. This practice-oriented paper investigates a training blueprint tailored for LG Corporation in South Korea, targeting R & D personnel working in several affiliates that needed creative problem-solving skills to improve business performance. The study findings unveil a customized initiative that expanded the established boot camp model by adding preceding activities to increase learning opportunities and enable empathetic observation. Fundamentally, the customization strategy aimed to provide participants with customer-oriented tools to solve business problems. In addition, the training program reframed the design thinking steps in order to make it relevant for employees and foster corporate implementation goals. Ultimately, this case study supplies literature describing a training blueprint to disseminate design thinking considering two dimensions: individual adoption and organizational implementation challenges.

Keywords

design thinking, creative problem-solving, boot camp, training, customer orientation

Figure 2. The overall structure and time allocation of the LG Academy’s design thinking training program
Figure 3. Structure and process of the LG Academy’s design thinking pre-boot camp
Table 5 The LG Academy’s training blueprint
Publications

How should we customize design thinking training program for engineers?  

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Bertao, R. A., Jung, C. H., and Joo, J. (2022). Identifying inconveniences in daily life: a problem finding prompt to foster non-designers’ engagement in design thinking training. In Gabriela Goldschmidt and Ezri Tarazi (Ed.), 13th Design Thinking Research Symposium, Expanding the Frontiers of Design: A Blessing or a Curse? (pp. 354-368). Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa: Israel.

Abstract

In general, companies use training programs to implement design thinking’s creative problem-solving approach and encourage employees to adopt it. However, non-designers face individual barriers when joining such initiatives and experience challenges related to the implementation of regular practices in organizations. This paper conducts a case study of a design thinking training program developed by LG Corporation and explores a particular perspective applied in the initial phases of the design thinking methodology—namely, problem finding via empathetic observation. The initiative focused on helping non-designers develop the skills to identify customer inconveniences that may require design thinking’s problem-solving attitude. The program blueprint encompassed a preceding activity designed to increase awareness of design thinking methodology via immersion in customer issues and utilized innovative strategies to promote participant engagement in training.

Keywords

design thinking, training, boot camp, problem finding, LG Corporation.

Cases

Empty space sparks creativity

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Space matters when we need creativity. According to research, when a ceiling is high, people become creative because a high (vs. low) ceiling primes the concept of freedom (vs. confinement). Similarly, Jump Associates has various types of cubicles for designers; “garage” cubicles are widely open for those who want to be creative, whereas “Zen rooms” are tiny small cubicles. Interestingly, Dev Patnaik, the founder of the Jump Associates, mentioned that US people prefer garage offices whereas Japanese clients like Zen rooms.

When I visited the design department at the University of Sao Paulo, one of the best universities in Brazil, I was shocked by its building. It has a huge empty space in the middle and has tons of bright, natural lights. I learned that empty space not only increases the perceived value of a product inside. It boosts the creativity of the people inside.

Inside the building, the walls allow people to write and erase easily, which also may enhance creativity.

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Reference

Meyers-Levy, J., & Zhu, R. (Juliet). (2007). The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(2), 174–186.

This article demonstrates that variations in ceiling height can prime concepts that, in turn, affect how consumers process information. We theorized that when reasonably salient, a high versus low ceiling can prime the concepts of freedom versus confinement, respectively. These concepts, in turn, can prompt consumers’ use of predominately relational versus item-specific processing. Three studies found support for this theorizing. On a variety of measures, ceiling height–induced relational or item-specific processing was indicated by people’s reliance on integrated and abstract versus discrete and concrete ideation. Hence, this research sheds light on when and how ceiling height can affect consumers’ responses.

Publications

Why is it so hard to apply Design Thinking to Korean Companies?

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Joo, J., Lee, A. J., & Park, J. H. (2018). A New Framework of Design Management and Three Additional Requirements To Apply Design Management to Korean Companies: Experience Design, Collaboration, and Trial and Error. Design Convergence Study, 17(6), 145–165.

The present research has two objectives. First, we introduce a new framework of design management proposed by Heather Fraser, the Director of Rotman Designworks. It comprises three gears: (1) user understanding, (2) concept visualization, and (3) strategic business design. Second, we investigate the key requirements that are necessary to apply the new framework to Korean companies. We collected fifty reports about the five special lectures from a new product development course at a university in Korea. These lectures were given by three designers and two product managers. We used interpretative analysis and followed three process of qualitative analysis of transcription, coding, and theme discovery. We derived specific requirements for applying design management to Korean companies: (1) experience design, (2) collaboration, and (3) trial and error. We introduced a novel design management framework and clarified the requirements how to successfully apply it to Korean companies. These findings imply that, firstly, executives and practitioners need to improve mutual communication and, secondly, corporations and agencies respect each other in their partner relationships.

Keywords
Collaboration, Design Management, Design Thinking, Experience Design, Trial and Error

“In sum, our review of the past research on design management shows various approaches introducing design into chronological business management and supporting successful business cases. However, it focuses design management in the strategic stage; it does not provide specific assistance with practitioners who are interested in applying design management in their tasks. Therefore, we introduce a model for practitioners to undertake management planning efficiently” (pg. 150)

“…we should accept the meaning of designing the customer experience, which includes the company’s identity, rather than emphasizing the product’s design-centered simple styling. … respect is required in partner relationship of corporations and agencies. In order to activate design management, the corporation’s interior decision-making and organization structure should change” (pg. 162)

Designworks written by Heather Fraser
Cases

Design Thinking vs. Behavioral Economics

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Crate and Barrel sells various cookware. Most products in this store are grouped into product categories. However, some are grouped into why we need them. There are two “ad hoc” categories.

One is “7 Essentials for Every Kitchen.”

The other is “Everything You Never Knew You Needed.” 

Ad hoc categories, coined by Barsalou, motivate impulse buying. I bought some tools I did not plan ahead and saw some customers standing in front of one of the two sections for a while.

Interestingly, the two ad hoc categories in the Crate and Barrel tap into different psychological processes.

“7 Essentials for Every Kitchen” are the products selected by others. They nudge me to follow others, which is often recommended by behavioral economists. In contrast, “Everything You Never Knew You Needed” are the products useful for me. They help me discover my own unmet needs, which is often suggested by design thinkers.

Then, which framing is more effective between “competing against others” and “following your heart”?

I believe we could answer this question by comparing the sales numbers between spatula and dual citrus squeezer. The two products belonged to the “Everything You Never Knew You Needed” four years ago. Now, only spatula belongs to the [7 Essentials for Every Kitchen]. If spatula sales increased and squeezer sales did not, behavioral economics beats design thinking. In contrast, if spatula sales dropped and squeezer sales did not, design thinking beats behavioral economics.

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Reference

Barsalou, Lawrence W. (1983), Ad hoc categories, Memory & Cognition, 11 (3), 211-227.

People construct ad hoc categories to achieve goals. For example, constructing the category of “things to sell at a garage sale” can be instrumental to achieving the goal of selling unwanted possessions. These categories differ from common categories (e.g., “fruit,” “furniture”) in that ad hoc categories violate the correlational structure of the environment and are not well established in memory. Regarding the latter property, the category concepts, concept-to-instance associations, and instance-to-concept associations structuring ad hoc categories are shown to be much less established in memory than those of common categories. Regardless of these differences, however, ad hoc categories possess graded structures (i.e., typicality gradients) as salient as those structuring common categories. This appears to be the result of a similarity comparison process that imposes graded structure on any category regardless of type.

 

Publications

Does a Persona Improve Creativity?

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Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale (Aron et al., 1992)

 

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test whether the priming of a brainstorming task by a persona increases ideational fluency and originality, i.e. the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of creative performance. We conducted a preliminary (n = 18) and final (n = 32) experiment with international students of business. These experiments revealed that priming of brainstorming by a persona increases originality of ideas by a large effect size (Cohen’s d = .91, p = .02), and not significantly ideational fluency by a medium effect size (Cohen’s d = .33, p = .39). As an alternative explanation to empathy, the found creativity effect may be attributed to priming that retrieves related memory items and thereby facilitates idea generation. As practical implications, design thinking practitioners can expect more original ideas and overcome design fixation if they brainstorm on a persona which is modelled in a concise and consistent way that caters to understanding the user need.

Keywords

empathy, persona, creativity, originality, ideational fluency, brainstorming, brainwriting, design methodology, design thinking, design research

 

 

 

Publications

Design works published in Korea

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Heather Fraser published “Design works: how to tackle your toughest innovation challenges through business design” five years ago. It demonstrates how organizations can drive innovation and growth through Business Design – a discipline that integrates design-inspired methods and mindsets into business development and planning. Roger Martin said in his forward that “This book tells the story of the 3 Gears of Business Design, simply and practically. Its goal is to provide an easy-to-use guide for organizations that are eager to harness the power of Business Design.” The Korean version of the Design works is published in Korea.

 

 

Buy Design Works @ Amazon.com

 

 

Author: Heather M. F. Fraser / A seasoned business strategist, brand-marketing expert, and longtime entrepreneur and educator, Heather is a global thought leader in Business Design. Heather co-founded Rotman DesignWorks with Roger Martin in 2005 and served as Executive Director of DesignWorks through 2012. She has cultivated Business Design as a discipline, delivered student curriculum, and led innovation programs for over 3000 executives. She advises leading organizations on how to advance their business through innovation, including teams from Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Pfizer, General Electric, Target, and VF Corporation.

Translator: Jaewoo Joo / Jaewoo Joo is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration and a Participating Professor of Experience Design in the Graduate school of Techno Design, both at Kookmin University. He earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Jaewoo writes and teaches about Design Marketing and New Product Development (NPD) through the lens of the Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making (JDM).

Translator: Ran Yoon / Ran Yoon is a product planner and marketer at SK Telecom, the leading service carrier company in Korea, and collaborates with a wide variety of planners, developers, and designers. Previously, she worked as a planner and marketer at Samsung Electronics Canada.

 

Buy Design Works in Korean @ Naver.com

 

Please click here for more detailed information about the Korean-version Design Works.

 

 

Cases

What are the problems of ATM machine?

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We use ATM machines to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money. However, strangers unintentionally overlook what we do when they stand behind us or next to us because they stand side by side and people queue behind us. Unfortunately, this issue has not been addressed in Korea yet. Only a tiny, low-resolution mirror is attached on top of each machine.

Differently from Seoul, Shenzhen provides safer and more comfortable experience. A orange-colored bank not only provides sufficient distance between machines but also allows users to get inside the closed space. Therefore, Chinese users feel safe while being “encapsulated.”

In fact, ATM safety is an international issue. Designers address this issue from an innovative perspective. For instance, IDEO designed humanized ATMs for the Spanish bank, BBVA. This concept was introduced in Fastcodesign.

The biggest overhaul, though, has nothing to do with the touchscreen; it’s the position of the machine itself. It’s rotated 90 degrees, forcing people to queue up next to the ATM rather than behind it — a remarkably simple solution to a longstanding problem: the ominous feeling, when you’re taking out cash, that the guy behind you is about to rob you blind.

Another interesting idea is a concept called Magic Carpet proposed by a Polish industrial designer, Judyta Wojciechowska. This concept was introduced at the Behance.

Magic Carpet is a decorative floor covering located on the footway beside an ATM. The carpet design guides ATM users as to where to stand to maintain the privacy of the person using the ATM and also to accommodate pedestrian flow. This visual guidance on the footway indicates the desired direction and distance for the people to form the queue for the ATM. If the ATM user’s private space is invaded then sensors in the carpet detect this movement and activate a vibration system beneath their feet. The vibration alerts the user to respond and the “invader” to step back. This design consequently protects the ATM user from crimes such as shoulder surfing distraction theft and pick-pocketing.