Design thinking has, perhaps, reached peak popularity. Businesses in every industry talk about ideating and iterating. The design-thinking approach loosely follows a four-step process that involves observing a problem, reframing it, designing solutions, and testing them—all with the end goal of improving how humans experience a product or service. The first step in the design-thinking process is to observe a situation and notice what is actually happening. Humans are really bad at observing a situation and noticing what is actually happening—despite having a lot of confidence in our own abilities. Understanding a customer’s motivations for using a product or service are important for developing something that works for the customer. But setting social and emotional goals—like gaining the ability to walk a 5K or dance with your daughter at her wedding—activated a promotion mindset and actually motivated people to change. When it comes to actually building and testing solutions—the final step in design thinking—a successful designer must understand that failure is simply an expected part of the process and will ultimately make the work better.  Read More >>