Best Design Thinking Frameworks

Design Thinking is a philosophy and a set of tools to help you solve problems creatively and overtime time design thinking models have even tailor made for special purposes or for special branches. Design thinking frameworks work quite similar way, these are very special-purpose sets of design thinking processes that are developed to solve specific problems. In this article, we will discuss 10 such Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks that can enable you to solve complex and specific problems in your design.

Design Thinking Frameworks

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a philosophy and a set of tools to help you solve problems creatively. When a team is trying to create something new or when trying to solve a problem, design thinking can be used to help the team get to that solution but there are many processes that can be used for problem solving. Design thinking specifically focuses on the human-centered side of creative problem-solving. Design Thinking is about empathizing and figuring out who you are designing for. what their needs are? and then solving that problem. Design Thinking helps you innovate based on the needs of the customer so whereas many other problem-solving processes look from the technology point of view, design thinking helps you to look at a problem from a human’s perspective.

Steps of Design Thinking

There are five main steps to any design thinking process:

1. Understanding the challenge and empathizing.
2. Defining the problem.
3. Coming up with solutions.
4. Creating a prototype.
5. Testing the prototype, taking feedback and iterating.

10 Insightful Design Thinking Frameworks

The 3I model of IDEO

IDEO is a renowned international design firm founded by David Kelley in 2008. Their 3I model covers the essence of the design thinking. Inspiration to understand people, ideation to generate ideas and implementation. The 3I model was developed in the year 2001 and back then it was created to focus on innovation for social purposes. The 3Is in this model stands for:

1. Inspiration
2. Ideation
3. Implementation.

The Five phase model

The five phase model came from Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, these 5 phases of design are what we closely define a the core 5 principles of design thinking – emphathise, define, ideate, prototype and test. You will also recognize that the three phases of IDEO are also present in the five phase model.
The five phases inn this model of design thinking are:

1. Emphathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

The Google design sprint

The Google design sprint was developed by Jake Knapp at Google in 2010. It is a model with the six steps that are – Understand, Define, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, and Validate. The key differentiator in this design thinking framework is that all this is implemented in a week. In five days the designer focuses of these six phases to come with a prototype.
The Design Sprint by Google involves of these six phases:

1. Understand
2. Define
3. Sketch
4. Decide
5. Prototype
6. Validate

The DEEP design thinking model

The DEEP design thinking model was developed by Mary Cantwell in whose words “Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to learning, creating, and being through empathy”. The DEEP design thinking model is a four-phase acronym, which stands for discover, empathize, experiment and produce. It is pretty clear, the 4 steps involved in this design process is:

1. Discover
2. Empathize
3. Experiment
4. Produce

The SAP design thinking model

The German ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) firm SAP uses a five step model for user centered design. The SAP design thinking model also takes into account the fact that if the idea is not working, let’s pivot it and work towards something better. A five phase approach to innovation that focuses on human centered design. The five phases are:

1. Plan
2. Research
3. Design
4. Adapt
5. Measure

Double Diamond model

The Double Diamond model was introduced by the British Design Council in the year 2005. It is called double diamond because of the of four divergence and convergence phases, that means that each stage has phases that require to balance between divergent and convergent thinking. the 4 steps involved in this design process is:

1. Understand
2. Define
3. Explore
4. Create

Head, Heart and Hand—AIGA

AIGA stands for American Institution of Graphic Arts and it came up with the Head, Heart and Hand design thinking framework in order to solve complex design problems through a design practice with a unique blend of head, heart and hand. The Heart refers to the segment where the designer has to empathize and understand the users need and pain points, head is the critical thinking process that enables the designers to solve the problem and hand refers to the practical designing process that comes after empathizing and understanding the problem statement.
As stated above this process divides the design thinking process into 3 parts:

1. The Head – Understanding the problem
2. The Heart – Empathizing with the user
3. The Hand – Implement the solution

The LUMA System of Innovation—LUMA Institute

LUMA System of Innovation is a design thinking framework by the LUMA Institute which is a well reputed firm that educates designers about innovation and user centered design. This method is considered to me versatile and flexible enough to solve variety of problems in any type of setting. The designers at LUMA institute segmented the entire design thinking process into three key areas:

1. Looking
2. Understanding
3. Making

Designing for Growth

Designing for Growth is a design framework developed by Jeanne Liedtka, a professor at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and Tim Ogilvie, CEO of Peer Insight which is an consultancy firm. With their complementary skill sets and experience they came up with a four question formula to design thinking:

1. What is?
2. What if?
3. What wows?
4. What works?

Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) — Frog Design

Collective Action Toolkit or CAT is a design thinking framework designed specifically to make the design process accessible to communities all around the globe. From Design, the organization behind is specially known for working towards positive social impact. The CAT process includes 6 steps for design thinking:

1. Set a goal
2. Build your group
3. Understand
4. Come up with ideas
5. Prototype
6. Plan for action

Conclusion

The more you deep dive into the design thinking process, you will find out various design frameworks cropping up here and there. Hence it becomes very important for us designers to navigate through the noise and figure out the productive design thinking frameworks that would enable us to streamline our process of design thinking and solving issues in our design. Make sure to go though these insightful design thinking frameworks and choose a framework based on your current project needs.