Why it is important to test your idea before launching it to market and how you can do that quickly, this is what we learned during the Design Thinking Marathon organized in Cluj-napoca by Homecomers, with the objective to activate civic engagement in the local community of Cluj-Napoca.
The main steps are:
Step 1 – Empathize
The big challenge is to really understand your clients and design a process to ensure accurate data collection from them.
Step 2 – Define
Every cogent work of design requires something of a mission statement to bring clarity and focus to your work. What exactly are you trying to convey? What and who are you addressing? What are you bringing to the table?
Step 3 – Ideate
What separates design thinking from other empirical forms of thinking is the primacy placed on thinking wide, until you arrive at interesting solutions. The first rule of brainstorming dictates that there are no rules; all ideas are welcome and encouraged. Ideation gives us better answers to our problems, and gives us a better idea of a prototype.
Step 4 – Prototype
The design thinking process, in all it’s stages poses many questions “Will it work?” or “How will they respond?” or even “Will they even get it at all?” The best way to get rid of these fears is to come up with a prototype, a demo or a test model if you will. This can be pretty much anything, as simple as possible with only goal that he user engages with.
Step 5 – Test
Once you have sent out your prototypes, the next natural step is to solicit feedback from you users about their experience interacting with it. The way you choose to do this can even get you closer to your users, making yourself more personable and relatable. It’s all about empathy!
