Design Thinking Light: 5 Practical Tips for Innovating with Limited Resources

Design Thinking is a structured approach to solve complex problems and a human-centred approach to innovation. Typically applied in group settings (workshop), it encourages diverse brainstorming and collaboration, paving the way for designing the best solutions.

But does it mean it is out of reach for solo practitioners or a resource-starved startup working on very small projects?

The answer is a resounding no.

Having studied and practised User-Centric Design (UCD) long before Design Thinking became popular, I’ve seen firsthand how these approaches work, regardless of company size.

What we need are thoughtful adaptation of the process to suit the needs of a single person or a very small team.

To start, let’s look at the essence of Design Thinking, then identify components that can be modified for a Light version.

What is Design Thinking

Various definition exist. I am a fan of the one by IDEO, the firm which popularized the concept in the 1990s.

Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

Tim Brown, IDEO

For those who have used the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder, you’ll notice how closely the principles of Design Thinking align with its three pillars: Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability."

• Desirability, a product that people want or need

• Feasibility, a product that can be created with new or existing technology

• Viability, a product that will be profitable

These are powerfully useful concepts to help corporations and entrepreneurs alike to go from observing problems to systematically innovating solutions to suit the requirements of the target audience.

A typical Design Thinking process consists of 5 stages:

• Empathize: research to know the users, their needs, their paints, and the general environment

• Define: define the target users’ needs, frame the problem you try to solve

• Ideate: generate ideas to solve the defined challenge

• Prototype: create low- to med-prototypes

• Test: iteratively test and tweak the prototypes with target users till arrive at the ideal solution

More details can be found in the references below:

• The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process

• What is Design Thinking and Why is it Beneficial?

• What is Design Thinking (video)

Another way to view Design Thinking is its blend of Convergence and Divergence thinking, which is central to the famous “Double Diamond” by the British Design Council (see below).

The Double Diamond is a visual representation of the design and innovation process. It’s a simple way to describe the steps taken in any design and innovation project, irrespective of methods and tools used.

One Size does not Fit All

At its core, Design Thinking is more a philosophy and approach than a rigid step-by-step process. Therefore, you will discover its exact definitions and process details vary.

When I started applying Design Thinking outside of a team setting, I recognized the need to modify it to a Light Version.

Design Thinking Light is a simplified and more accessible version of the traditional Design Thinking methodology. It retains the core principles and essence of Design Thinking but streamlined to fit the needs of solo practitioners or teams with limited resources.

Truth be told, I never heard of it and *thought* I invented Design Thinking Light! Turned out, many share my frustration with the rigid and resource-intensive demand of Design Thinking (as laid out in traditional/popular literature).

I started tweaking and experimenting and paring everything down to suit my needs. Afterall, user-centric has been my approach since graduate school, and one of my first jobs was to evangelize a startup’s design and development process to include iterative prototyping and user feedback.

I continue to refine my framework, using a current project to test its usefulness and applicability.

So what does Design Thinking Light look like? Let’s dive deeper.

Practising Design Thinking Light

There are many ways to “lighten" up a full-scaled Design Thinking process.

Below are 5 top points from my personal experience:

1. Recognize the significance of early seed ideas

• Design Thinking
  No solutions should be entertained till the team has full understanding of the user (Empathy stage) and the problem (Problem Definition Stage).

• Design Thinking Light
  No early ideas should be discarded, as explained in my post Design Thinking Build Log #2: Tips on Organizing Initial Thoughts. Capture all inspirations, organize the info, and re-examine as needed throughout the project.

2. Iterate across the process

• Design Thinking
  Focus iterations in the prototyping and testing stages.

• Design Thinking Light
  Iterate as often as needed anywhere along the process. For instance, it is entirely possible that a significant discovery in the late prototype stage sends one back to re-conducting a much earlier user research. Here, a solo or small team can fully leverage its advantage of agility.

3. Accept that quantitative, large-scaled research may not be possible

• Design Thinking
  Select from an array of experimental methods and recruit as many representative users as possible for reliable, statistically relevant data.

• Design Thinking Light
  Embrace the “some user data is better than no user data” attitude. Creatively get user feedback even if outside of a proper experimental design.
  One personal example: due to tremendous difficulty in finding unpaid beta testers, I collected feedback in the way they, not I, preferred (one-on-one casual conversations over Facebook messengers).

4. Consider combining Ideation with Prototyping, if applicable

• Design Thinking: In larger teams, ideation often involves multiple brainstorming sessions, sticky notes, and whiteboards with divergent ideas being explored before converging on a solution.

• Design Thinking Light: When working solo or in a small team, streamline to short, focussed brainstorming sessions. In some projects, hands on work on tools like Miro may even double as your first low-fidelity prototype for user feedback or to guide the next step of prototyping. For instance, in some cases a mindmap may lend itself instantly to be a website structure.

5. Experiment with economical, rapid prototyping tools and methods

• Design Thinking
  Invest in tools that support collaboration, communication, and documentation (e.g. for workshops). They tend to come with higher price tags.

• Design Thinking Light
  For smaller teams or projects, focus on adopting methods that “get the job done”. Yes, that includes drawing on a napkin! I have shared a couple of tools I personally tried and liked that fall under this category
  
  When Less is Right - Why I adore the most basic Wireframing tool
  

  Taking Claritee for a Spin: First Impressions of a Design Tool for Site Mapping and Wireframing

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Final Thoughts

The best Design Thinking practitioners recognizes that it is more a discipline than a rigid method and are not afraid to be creative in applying the principles as long as its core essence remain intact.

For a while now, devising a framework for Design Thinking Light has been my personal innovation project. I continue to tweak and test my framework which is currently outlined on Notion.

If you too practise Design Thinking on your own or in a small team, I would love to exchange notes and knowledge - please leave a comment below and we can start the conversation from there!