CIO Asia: Cognizant’s Digital Transformation and User Experience Experts Discuss the Key Principles of Successful Design Thinking

“Successful design thinking incorporates four principles that work best when used together and repeatedly,” write Cognizant Digital Works’ Theo Forbath, Global Vice President of Digital Transformation, and Kipp Lynch, Assistant Vice President of UX Research and Design. Excerpts:

“Performing these components in isolation―observation, ideation, prototyping and testing―misses the critical point of design thinking, which is both a journey and a mindset.

Observation: Because the end goal is to deliver a meaningful user experience, teams should aim to gain an in-depth understanding of user needs―emotionally, psychologically and functionally. This customer research is a critical first step of the process―not spending any actual time with users or target groups most often means experiences do not fill the gap in user needs and goals, resulting in wasted time and money.

Ideation: This is where the team translates the insights gained through customer research. Teams should use visual ideation techniques to promote creativity, such as jotting down or sketching their observations on sticky notes and grouping them on a wall. This ‘thinking aloud on paper’ can help crystallize thoughts. The ideation process is an important step in encouraging teams to creatively solve problems, rather than stick to a fixed list of requirements. Very often, we encounter companies that directly listen to and observe their customers, then quickly jump to translating the notes into a spreadsheet.

Prototyping: Testing and validating prototypes need not be approached as formal usability tests. Rather than developing a fully functional and robust prototype, consider having the team create mockups, stimulations, and process sketches to convey the overall concept to users―the look, feel and functionality of the experience―and get feedback quickly.

Testing: With design thinking, testing and validation can be treated as an informal and participatory experience, where potential users (customers, business partners or employees) can interact playfully with it and provide genuine feedback. The testing should not be held off until the prototype is complete; rather, user feedback should come at all stages of ideation―process sketches, simple mock-ups, simulations, and so on.

The design thinking process does not end when the product or service is launched. Instead, it is imperative that teams incorporate design thinking into the experience itself, so it can be used to continuously refine and enhance the experience.”

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