Design Thinking’ Report

Answer

Design Thinking

Introduction

Design thinking is significant in the marketing of products and convincing clients to use them. Great products such as Ipads developed by Apple, Flyknit sneakers designed by Nike are examples of design thinking in action (Handcock, 2017). Creating new products that are relevant to the market requires deviating from the old ways of thinking and embracing new ideas. Design thinking gives clients a wide range of choices. Moreover, clients always want to use products that are in line with their preferences (Handcock, 2017). For a company to ensure that its products are performing well in the market, it must strive to ensure that the design of the product is appropriate with the clients changing needs(Handcock, 2017). For a business to generate profits, there is a need to apply new innovative ideas, tools, and approaches to increase competitiveness.

Design thinking is a fundamental requirement to enable a business to sustain competitiveness (Handcock, 2017). Besides, for software development teams to develop better products, they should apply iteration and prototyping to incorporate the changing needs and preferences of their clients (Handcock, 2017). When an organization has a deeper understanding of their client needs, they will be able to develop the best software solutions. Additionally, companies can develop new ideas and become problem solvers through iteratively integrating changes suggested by their clients (Handcock, 2017). However, most companies do not have client preferences in their applications. It is the lack of a link between clients' preferences that make companies not to do well in the market (Handcock, 2017). The gap between the objectives of the company and the preferences of clients is what calls for the need for design thinking for marketing executives to leverage for better products.

Trends and Needs in the Market

For an organization to perform well in delivering services such as applications, they should be aware of the intricate consumer purchasing decisions, adopt better product design, and communicate with their clients. Additionally, companies need to adopt mobile communications, transparency on brand-customer relations, apply data-driven marketing, and use integrated teams. Complex consumer purchasing decisions is a fundamental aspect that company directors should not overlook while outlining their marketing strategies. For instance, in the development of the TimeTool app, designers should be aware of the existence of similar applications. Therefore, the company is mandated to realize that customer preferences may vary without any particular trend.

Moreover, they should know that clients can go for the cheapest products even if they are known to prefer more expensive products. In pricing of the TimeTool application, there is a need for the company’s marketing department to price the application reasonably. Clients are most likely to resort to using the TimeTool application due to its affordability. Moreover, adopting better product design and communication with customers is essential if an application development company is to be able to make profits. The company’s marketing department can utilize the available big data to know exactly what customers need and address it. For instance, the company can use social media platforms, such as Youtube advertisements to learn customer preference patterns. Youtube uses the Google Adsense technology that can enable a company to know the number of new customers interested in their product.

For a company to gain the trust of its clients, it must be transparent and honest. A company’s transparency is invaluable in its marketing strategy. For instance, companies such as Well Fargo have suffered the brunt of using unethical business practices. Wells Fargo bank employees have been reported as having created fake bank accounts to apply for credit cards using the name of the company’s customers (Prentice, 2017). Therefore, for a company to maintain their integrity and customer perception then they must preserve their transparency at all costs. In the marketing of the Time Tool, the company should ensure that they are as honest as possible with their clients. Moreover, they should address all complaints from the students who use the application with honesty and integrity. They should be timely in fixing bugs that users may experience. Besides, embracing mobile communications in a company is crucial to ensure that the company retains a continuous flow of communication with their clients. Text messages can be used to get direct feedback from clients. The more students can interact with the TimeTool, the more they will be able to plan their activities effectively.

Furthermore, data-driven marketing is one of the most efficient ways that company management can use to know more about potential customers. To market and find more clients for TimeTool, there is a need to utilize data-driven marketing. Such a technique enables the marketing of the application better as the company will be able to know their clients and their preferences. The applications should be able to address the immediate needs of the students so that they can achieve the best results. Therefore, developers of the company should work iteratively by collecting the views of the students on the usability of TimeTool. Additionally, the company should be able to integrate teams so that the marketing personnel and the development personnel work together to build the best products according to client preferences. Marketers and developers should work together to choose the best approaches in designing the TimeTool application to meet the needs and preferences of the students using the system.

Implementing Design thinking in the TimeTool application

The development and design of the TimeTool application require the inclusion of aspects of design thinking to solve the needs of its users. Achieving this requires that both the marketing and design teams apply the design thinking principles effectively. The people in charge of the development and marketing of the system should use the same tools so that modification is simpler and can be understood by everyone in the team. The five components of design thinking, empathy, defining the problem, ideation, prototyping, and testing (Pineda, 2020).In designing the TimeTool application, the development and marketing team should be able to view the TimeTool application from the perspective of customers.

Since the TimeToolapplication is aimed at solving the challenges faced by students in their day to day activities, developers should think like students. They should emphasize the immediate functionalities that a student may need (Pineda, 2020). Empathy can be achieved by doing a survey and collecting the views of students on the use of the system. For instance, the survey can contain the number of hours that a certain student spent in the library, at the cafeteria, or attending a lecture. In the collection of information from the students, the development team should listen keenly to obtain the actual views of students. Keen listening prevents assumptions by the developer and only modifies the application according to the customers' preferences (Pineda, 2020). An effective way of doing this is by using an empathy map.

The empathy map comprises four research phases including discovery, immersion, connection, and detachment. the discovery phase involves finding and interacting with the users and knowing their specific needs (Pineda, 2020).In the case of TimeTool, the design team can identify students using the application and learn about their unspoken requirements while using the application. In the immersion phase, the design team needs to put themselves in the shoes of university students using the application and have a first-hand experience interacting with it. Through first-hand experience, they will be able to identify the problems that students face when navigating the system and document them. They will then be able to use the information gathered to assist them in the redesigning process of the TimeTool.

Besides, the connection phase entails where the developers of the TimeTool can connect and have a similar mindset with the University using the system. They can then be empathetic of the specific needs, challenges and user interface interaction issues that students go through. Subsequently, the design and marketing teams can then work together to implement the observations gathered in the connection phase to improve TimeTool in the Detachment phase. By following the four phases of empathy, the design and marketing personnel can work as a team to gain the insights of students, and be able to map the empathy phase effectively.

Acquisition of Insights on TimeTool application using an Empathy Map

Gaining insights from the TimeTool application entails identifying the university students using the system, choices made by the students, and what they interact with (Reinecke, 2016). Additionally, it involves what they talk about, their occupation and lifestyles, what they are interested in or hear and how they feel about the application.

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Fig 1:TimeTool Empathy Map           

The users of the TimeTool application are University students who need to manage their time well, record their activities, and be able to analyze the progress during their study. The students follow the schedule set by the University administration and have to ensure that they record the lectures attended, assignments are given, previous and previous lectures, and share scheduled tasks with friends. However, some students using TimeToolfeel that the application is slow and that they would rather use other time management applications such as Clockify, GoogleTasks, and RescueTime (Reinecke, 2016). For instance, a majority of students prefer using GoogleTasks as they feel it is better, simplifies tasks, and is available for all platforms. Since the majority of students at the University own devices running on Android and IoSoperating systems, they prefer GoogleTasks as it supports all these operations.

Since TimeTool is web-based, one has to have an internet connection for the application to work effectively (Reinecke, 2016). Due to the incompatibility of TimeTool with all platforms, most lecturers advise their students to use GoogleTasksthat is compatible with both Android and IoS platforms. Other time management tools that a majority of Universities recommend for their students are Clockify and RescueTime. Clockify is free and also available for Chrome, Firefox, Android, iOS, Mac, and other platforms (Reinecke, 2016). Therefore, for TimeTool to be used by many students, it should be available in all versions. Students having devices supporting Android, IoS, Chrome, and Macintosh operating systems should be able to use and download TimeTool. The company chief executive officer and the management need to engage the development team to start creating a multiplatform application (Reinecke, 2016). A multiplatform application will seamlessly run on all operating systems.

Students have registered numerous complaints as a result of code errors or bugs in the TimeTool time management application. These bugs have made the online application crash or freeze mainly because of many requests from students who use this application. Moreover, many students have reported losing tasks previously recorded. Losing these tasks has caused them inconveniences as they can no longer be traced. As a result, they lose track of their progress. Additionally, several students are disgruntled with some features of TimeTool.Some of them observe that some of the features are unnecessary. Therefore, the design team should redesign the user interface to make it more user friendly. They can achieve these by applying the human-computer interface guidelines to improve the usability of TimeTool.

However, some students are comfortable with the TimeTool as it is easy to access. Accordingly, accessibility is the most significant aspect of the time management tool. These university students majorly consist of those students who have no problem accessing the internet. Furthermore, in the marketing of the TimeTool application, marketers should craft-friendly appealing messages to captivate more clients to use the time management tool. They can actualize this by being honest and transparent and avoiding offering unrealistic promises. The marketing team and a team of designers can make an effort to visit universities and interact with the students to monitor exactly how students use TimeTool. 

Problem definition is a significant aspect of TimeTool that the design and marketing teams cannot overlook. Instead of the marketing team only targeting a particular volume of sales, they can work with the design to identify a gap or a human-centered problem with time-management tools and solve it with TimeTool. Problem definition will give the TimeTool application an upper hand in the market. With a unique problem solved by the application, many students will prefer it. Marketers can easily craft the most relevant adverts having the problems that users experience in mind.

By learning about the fears and hopes of customers, the marketing department should innovate messages that capture the emotions of their target market (Pineda, 2020). Besides, the ideation stage requires developers and marketers to brainstorm to identify the best ideas to be incorporated into the system after interaction with the users of TimeTool. At this point, they can select the best ideas but still be open to new ideas such as the addition or removal of features from the TimeTool application. The management should encourage new ideas, especially from new employees. Incorporating new ideas will significantly encourage the design team to be innovative (Pineda, 2020). During marketing, ideation should be embraced. Marketers should try new approaches in their marketing techniques such as sketching their marketing plans or even rehearsing through skits.

Prototypes can then be developed by the design team to incorporate the new changes. Prototypes are not only effective but also give the design and marketing team a clear picture of how exactly users respond to the new features added to the system (Pineda, 2020). For instance, if TimeTool kept crashing while in use, the prototype can be tested for this functionality. Once the University students using TimeTool are satisfied with the changes, the design and developers of the system can then be permitted by the management to finalize building the application.

Subsequently, the marketing and development teams should work hand in hand during the final stage of testing the TimeTool application. They can successfully implement this by using the feedback received in the prototyping stage (Pineda, 2020). The testing process should be iterative so that the final product addresses all the new specifications defined in the feedback given by the students. In case the problem is not solved completely, the development and the marketing team are required to hold meetings again to identify the source of the problems. Throughout the design thinking process, the entire organization should be involved so that the final product be the best possible version of the system (Pineda, 2020). Design thinking encourages the participation of all employees irrespective of their status in the company.

Evaluation of the performance of using design-thinking in problem-solving and the impact of the solutions TimeTool

Design thinking plays a fundamental role in increasing the marketability and performance of software products. Throughout the design thinking stages of TimeTool, the performance and functionality of the system improve significantly. Design thinking on the improvement of TimeTool can improve organizational outcomes through high-quality problem solutions, minimize the risk of failure, increase the possibility of execution of TimeToolsoftware, and enhance adaptability (Liedtka, 2018). Moreover, it can improve the usability of the system, give clarity and transparency to developers, and act as a feasibility check in the development of the system (Sumasoft, 2019). After the implementation of all the feedback from the student surveys using the TimeTool application, time management amongst the majority of them improved significantly. Most of the university students registered better grades as a result of having an efficient time management tool.

Moreover, students could now be able to record their progress effectively. At the end of every semester, students could track and account for how they spent their time at the University. Besides, following the design thinking process, the chances of the TimeTool application failing were significantly lowered (Liedtka, 2018). A system that has undergone a series of iterative processes in the development process can have minimal chances of failing. Applications usually fail when users' preferences are not put into consideration. However, at every stage of the design thinking process in the development of the TimeTool, students were involved. Additionally, any potential errors that could affect the TimeTool were removed at the prototyping stage of the application development process. Since students were the major end-users of the system, implementing their feedback fundamentally minimizes the chances of the time management application failing (Liedtka, 2018).

Furthermore, the design thinking problem-solving process increased the possibility of implementation of TimeTool software. A software that has passed all usability tests is easier to implement as compared to software that has not undergone the iterative processes in design thinking. The implementation of TimeToolwas fast since the users of the system were involved right from the empathy stage to the test stage. Bugs that were detected in the system were removed by the developers hence enhancing the delivery of a complete system. Furthermore, the adaptability of the TimeTool application with the number of platforms increased. Previously, the system was only web-based. However, after realizing the need for a time management application that runs on all platforms, the developers refactored the code to enable it to run in other operating systems.

The adaptability of the system encouraged many students to start using TimeTool to manage their time effectively. Besides, the usability of the system improved meaningfully. The user interface features and fonts on the TimeTool were revamped. Complex features were simplified. By improving the interactivity of the students with the system the number of Universities that began using the system increased significantly. Besides, the company started having more from new clients who wanted to use TimeTool in their institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, by addressing the complaints of students using TimeTool, the development team got a clear picture of the design features to include in the time management application. Besides, following the design thinking process enabled the company to have a clear feasibility check at every stage of the development process of TimeTool. Design thinking is a great way of putting the interests of the users first and ensuring that the final product possesses all the needs of clients.

Conclusion

A design thinking approach to product development is one of the most effective ways of delivering satisfactory products to clients. The thorough iterative cycles involved in the design thinking process ensures that software applications have minimal faults. The five-phase approach model of design thinking ensures that all employees in a company are part of the product development process. User satisfaction is easily achieved by using iterative methodologies. Moreover, problem-solving using design thinking has an impact on the development of a customer-oriented product. With all the needs incorporated into the system, the possibility of failure of the system will be completely minimized. Also, the application will easily be adaptable to the needs of clients. Besides, the usability of the system will improve. Developers will also have a clear and transparent on the changes to make to the system. Besides, feasibility checks for the company will be significantly simplified. Design thinking is the best approach to encourage innovation in a company. Moreover, it allows all employees to be part of the product development process.