Design Thinking – Stage 2: Define

The design thinking process takes a human-centered approach towards training and consists of five stages:

• Empathize
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test

In the Empathize stage, designers should connect with users or learners and gain insights into what drives and motivates them. Designers want to consider interviews and observations, as well as empathy mapping and the use of learner personas. Once designers know who their audience is and what really drives them, they can move on to the second stage in the design thinking process, the Define stage.

Define

In this stage, designers leverage all the information they have gathered in the first stage and organizes, interprets and makes sense of it. This allows to define the problem that is at the core of the design challenge. Meaning, designers have to define an actionable and meaningful problem statement that needs to be solved.. This design challenge will guide the designer and kick-start the ideation process rather than just defining learning objectives.This stage is about clarity and focus. Without it, it’s like stumbling in the dark. So let’s bring some light into the design thinking process.

A Good Problem Statement

The first step to shed light onto a design challenge is a good problem statement. It will guide a designer and add focus to their work, and it is the starting point to spark off new ideas in the Ideation stage. A good problem statement is:

• Human-centered
• Broad enough for creative freedom
• Narrow enough to make it manageable
• Actionable

There are multiple ways to define a problem statement that designers can follow with their teams.

Define a Problem Statement – Space Saturation and Group & Affinity Diagrams

This process might sound daunting, but is quite simple. Designers collect their observations and findings in one space using, for example post-it notes. This creates a collage of experiences, thoughts, insights and stories. Once all thoughts and insights are up on the wall, it is easy to draw connections between individual stories and insights and develop even deeper insights which help define the problem.

Define a Problem Statement – Point of View

In order to develop a problem statement in a goal-oriented manner, a point of view (POV) is a meaningful and actionable way to do exactly that. A POV allows designers to reframe a design challenge by combining three elements: user, need and insight. The following sentence can be helpful when developing a POV:

[User] _______ needs a way to [verb] ________ because [surprising insight] ________.

The measure of a successful POV is the number of different questions it will lead to as these questions are the base for the Ideation stage. Keep in mind that a POV should never contain a specific solution or how to fulfill a user’s need, but provide a wide enough scope to get the design team thinking.

Define a Problem Statement – How Might We Questions

Start using the POV by asking specific “How Might We” questions (HMV). These questions need to be built on the observations a designer collected in the Empathize stage. HMV questions should be broad enough for a wide range of solutions, but narrow enough that specific solutions can be created for them. Just like with POVs, the more questions a design team can come up with, the better. It opens up the design challenge to more solutions. HMW questions are really the launchpad for brainstorming sessions in the Ideation stage. To take it even further, ask “what is holding us back” for each HMV question to develop additional insights for the Ideation stage.

The Define stage is the crucial link between the Empathize and Ideation stage. It is however important to note that these stages don’t necessary happen in a linear way, and a design team might realize they have to go back and forth in order to find the best solution for their design challenge. The Define stage will help a design team gather great ideas to establish what possible elements would be part of the training solution.

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