What are the four Ds of Design Thinking?

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is an unpredictable monotonous task carried out by the design team to recognize the demands of the end-users. This involves challenging assumptions with reanalyzing problems and producing ingenious solutions to master the model. Along with decoding the technical problems associated, it is then followed by the testing of the prototype. The design thinking process is very suitable to intercept tasks and equations that are vague and not known.

In the modern world, the term design thinking has evolved a lot, and teams globally have adopted this technique, which has led to exceptional improvements. Employing these techniques, it was discovered that the efficiency of working of the staff was highly increased. Design thinking has been introduced and adopted by teams of all sectors, including business, health care, information technology, and social service. Design thinking possesses the potential to unleash people’s entire omnific energies,  rejuvenate their commitment towards their duties and fundamentally improve processes.  

The E-commerce business has seen a boom in the past years. The design thinking teams and the research and analysis team with the help of engineers, have developed products that have been commercially very successful. The ideas and technology involved and adopted by the design thinking team are discussed in the article below.

The creative design thinking has been further ascertained to come up to a conclusion which led to the innovation of the four D’s, which were crucial and very influential in a way the process turned out to be. The four D’s are namely, Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver.

The Four D’s 

1. Discover
2. Define
3. Develop
4. Delive

Coming to the explanation of the Four D’s :

1. Discover: Most of the finest familiar procedures of the design thinking discovery process connect to the “task to be executed”. Embraced from ethnography and sociology, these methods focus on surveying what makes for a fruitful customer experience compared to the examination of data. The discovery process is further divided into three subcategories namely,

1. i) Immersion
2. ii) Customer experience

iii) Practicality

1. i) Immersion: Different people have different opinions about the same thing, but arriving at a particular decision that satiates the needs of people involves a lot of research and analysis. The design thinking team has to ponder upon the collected analysis and come up with something appealing enough to make the consumers immerse in the process of purchase or make them believe in the product. The first look of the product should be attractive enough for the end-users to make them immerse in the feeling that this was the item they were in search of. The product should be convincing enough at first glance which would make them buy it impulsively.
2. ii) Customer Experience: The basic objective of the design thinking team after the product has been launched and accepted by the customers or consumers with good response, comes up with the after-sales experience and the quality of the product, which shall play an important role in the customer experience. So, this makes us come to the initial points where research and analysis have already played a vital role and after conducting many types of research, the design team was satisfied with the final product that would be received positively by the user. A mouth-to-mouth marketing plays a vital role in the success of a product, the customer experience has to be dealt with deliberately. The boom in Information Technology that led to the rise of the call centers that attend to the customer’s queries, and grievances should be trained accurately and respond to each and every grievance positively, which would help the product attain positive feedback among the consumers.

iii) Practicality: As the word suggests, before entering a shopping or a food mall, a consumer is already prepared of the inventory which he has to procure which consists of items that may be basic or even luxury, but it is well-defined before a person enters the shopping zone, so the objective of the design thinking team is to create items which are mass appealing and in the stipulated budget which is the afterthought of a consumer and which they end up buying without the items being on their checklist. For an example we can take that when a person enters the shopping it is observed that most of the shopping malls have eateries within the shopping premises which inescapably attracts the consumers to have a quick bite, the second example is observed that when a person goes out to buy bread and butter and if cheese, sauce, and jams are on offer with discounts he buys them as well without thinking about the practicality of the items.

1. Define: During the designing of an item or a product, the design thinking team focuses on the primary goal that the product should design according to the consumer’s needs and the consumer should find it easy to operate and function the product in his daily routine, and it should not be of occasional use. The main aim of this process is to create objects which are user-friendly and should not be restricted to a particular gender or age-specific. Even in the food industry, the items which are launched have been tested for all possible allergies that people may be susceptible to. This process is of great significance for the design thinking team as it would define in what genre the product would fit. The product should be programmed around the user and not try to program the user around the product. In short, it should be user-friendly along with being financially and practically purchasable. 
2. Develop: This is the initial stage where the basic concept of the master model is created, tested, and briefed at this stage. As this process involves a lot of trial and error, it also helps reduce the risks involved with the product with the help of engineers, developers, and designers, which help in the quick resolution of the problems. Conceptualization, inner monolog, Visualization, laddering technique, and creating a new user interface. The example can be taken of an Android-based device that successfully replaced the Symbian-based devices and almost outsmarted them in every aspect of technology. The Symbian-based company that refused to analyze and reinvent and incur the android based on their devices had to suffer great losses. So the development part for the design thinking team is of great importance, and much heed has to be paid in this aspect. The development is the crucial part that decides the success of a product, and this D among the four D’s is as important as any other Dz
3. Delivery: This is another stage that is as significant as all the other steps involved and needs to be addressed. There are many products which have been designed exquisitely, involving great research and analysis and have found to be faltering in customer experience and after-sales services and during the delivery of the product, shipment mainly.

So, all the above factors have to be taken into consideration while launching a product, and the design thinking Stanford online programs take note of all the above factors in this process and specialize you in the field. The documentation or the listing of the product in the suitable genre among the e-commerce websites is also vital in the market visibility of the product. It has to be given due importance by the design thinking team.