Design-oriented research and Design Thinking in your thesis

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is an approach that concentrates on resolving intricate issues and developing inventive solutions through a creative and user-centric process. It stresses the significance of empathy, creativity, and iteration in order to achieve efficient solutions for the end user.

Can I use Design Thinking in my thesis?

Design Thinking can be effectively applied as a method in theses, particularly in design-oriented research. It allows you to gain in-depth insights into the problem area, collaborate with stakeholders, and generate practical solutions. It is important to understand that Design Thinking goes beyond academic research and focuses on practical applications.

Differences between design-oriented research and Design Thinking

Design-oriented research and Design Thinking have similarities, but they differ in their application and focus. Design-oriented research focuses on generating new knowledge and insights within a field, while Design Thinking focuses on finding practical solutions to specific problems, often outside of an academic context.

Steps in using Design Thinking in your thesis

The Design Thinking cycle in design-oriented research includes several steps:

1. Empathize: Take the time to empathize with the users. Thoroughly investigate their wants, needs, and challenges. What are their pain points and desires? In this phase, you should avoid coming up with solutions and instead focus purely on understanding the problem.
2. Define: The second phase of the Design Thinking process revolves around clearly defining the problem. By analyzing the insights from the Empathize phase and identifying patterns, you can formulate the core of the user problem. At the end of this phase, you should have formulated a clear problem statement. The key here is to understand the problem from the user’s perspective. Once the problem is clearly defined, you are ready to generate solutions and ideas.
3. Ideate (Generate Ideas): The Ideate phase aims to come up with as many solutions to the problem as possible and present them to the user. You start with broad thinking and then narrow down your ideas, also known as divergence and convergence.
4. Prototype (Prototypes): This is the phase in which learning and experimentation are central. You quickly develop simplified prototypes of your ideas at a low cost and test them within your team or with the end user. The outcome of this phase is to understand how users would respond to the chosen solution (behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively) and to understand the limitations of the design.
5. Test (Testing): After the Prototype phase, the Test phase follows. The product or service is tested by real users. Often, the results of the Test phase lead back to an earlier step in the process and provide insights needed to redefine the original problem statement or generate new ideas. Design Thinking is an iterative process, in which continuous testing and experimentation take place in collaboration with the user until the perfect solution is found.
6. Results and Conclusions: Present the results of your Design Thinking process in your thesis. This can include the final designs, user feedback, and insights you gained during the process. Analyze and interpret these results in the context of your research questions.

Some courses omit the initial step of the Design Thinking cycle, and instead, design begins with the Discover phase or utilizes the Double Diamond method. Therefore, it is always advisable to consult your graduation manual for confirmation.

Practical tips when applying Design Thinking

• Focus on empathy: Immerse yourself in the needs of users. You frequently employ qualitative research, such as in-depth interviews, along with observations, to comprehend the user. This marks the beginning of your problem analysis.
• Start with a clear problem analysis: Formulate the problem area concisely and clearly. Consider both the internal and external context, and focus on the specific problem at hand.
• Diverge and converge: Continuously utilize divergence and convergence throughout the process. This involves gathering ample information about the problem in order to formulate a clear problem statement and design question. Then, generate as many ideas as possible before refining them.
• Organize brainstorming sessions: Involve users and stakeholders in the idea generation process.
• Create prototypes: Transform ideas into tangible solutions for testing.
• Engage users in testing: Collect feedback to further enhance the designs.
• Repeat the process: Utilize feedback to iteratively improve the solutions.
• Keep the user at the center: Ensure that the solutions meet the needs of the users.
• Use storytelling: Communicate the underlying design story to create support.
• Regularly document your findings: Maintain a reflection diary about the process, which can be incorporated into your reflection or reflection report.

Would you like to discuss your research?

At Jouw Scriptiecoach, we have extensive experience in design-oriented research and Design Thinking. We provide personalized guidance to assist you in structuring and conducting your research. Schedule a free consultation appointment now and explore how we can support you.