Have you ever wondered how groundbreaking products like the first iPhone or services like Airbnb seem to just get what people need, even before they do?

The secret often lies in a powerful, human-centered approach to problem-solving called design thinking. Think of it as a flexible roadmap that guides teams from deep user empathy all the way through to brainstorming, prototyping, and testing real-world solutions.

Whether you're a designer, an engineer, or a business leader, understanding the design thinking process is key to building products that don't just work, but that people genuinely love.

This article explores the design thinking process and how integrating it into your UX design flow can help you build products consumers actually want to use.

What is Design Thinking?

Image source: NN Group

At its core, design thinking is an iterative, non-linear process focused on understanding users, challenging assumptions, and redefining problems to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent.

It’s a solution-based approach to solving complex, often ill-defined or "wicked" problems.

Let's use an analogy. Imagine a chef who wants to create a truly memorable new dish. They don't just start tossing ingredients into a pan.

Instead, they begin by thinking about who they're cooking for—their favorite flavors, their cherished food memories, and the entire dining experience they want them to have.

They might observe diners, ask questions, and even co-create a recipe. That’s design thinking in a nutshell.

This profound focus on the human element is what elevates it from just another business framework into a powerful engine for true innovation.

"The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you're trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing - building empathy for the people that you're entrusted to help.”
— David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

History of Design Thinking: A Closer Look

Herbert A. Simon introduced design as a thinking concept back in 1969 with "The Sciences of the Artificial," where he explored rapid prototyping and testing through observation. The guy was way ahead of his time.

The 1970s and 80s brought more development from scholars like Nigel Cross, who noticed something interesting: designers create satisfactory solutions quickly instead of getting stuck in endless analysis.

Around the same time, Horst Rittel coined "wicked problems" — those complex, multifaceted challenges that need collaborative approaches to solve.

What is the Design Thinking Process?

It's one thing to get the philosophy, but it's another to see how it actually works. The best way to think about the design thinking process isn't as a strict, step-by-step checklist.

Instead, picture it as a dynamic and flexible loop; like a cycle of understanding, exploring, and materializing.

Its real power lies in its iterative nature, with teams being encouraged to jump back stages as they uncover new information.

While many variations exist, two models have been particularly influential in shaping our understanding:

• Don Norman's Human-Centered Design: The Stanford d.school popularized the now-classic five-phase model: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.
  
  

  It's a fantastic entry point because it’s so clear and memorable. It emphasizes a deep dive into the user's world as the non-negotiable starting point for all innovation.
  
  

• The Nielsen Norman Group Model: As a leading voice in UX, the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) offers a slightly expanded six-phase model: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test, and Implement.
  
  The key difference is the addition of the "Implement" phase, which explicitly acknowledges the crucial step of launching the solution and observing it in the real world, reinforcing the process's cyclical nature.

Ultimately, the differences are subtle.

At it's core, both models share the same DNA: start with people, define the right problem, explore a wide range of ideas, and then test them with tangible prototypes.

What Are the 5 Phases of the Design Thinking Process?

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Now that we've learnt about the design thinking process (and its related models) - let's try to break down the design thinking phases used by UX teams on a daily basis.

Borrowing from Don Norman's "human-centered design" model, this five-stage framework gives you a structured yet flexible approach to solving complex design problems:

1. Empathize: Get to know your users

This is where it all begins. The first rule is to park your assumptions at the door. The goal is to develop a deep, genuine understanding of the people you're designing for.

This means going beyond analytics to understand their world, their behaviors, and their frustrations.

Here's what usually happens during this phase:

• Product teams observe real users in their natural environments to see what they actually do versus what they say they do.
  
  

• They then interview users with open-ended questions that reveal deeper motivations.
  
  

• This data is then used to create empathy maps that help organize findings into four quadrants: what users say, do, think, and feel.

The key insight?

Users often can't articulate their real problems. You have to watch them struggle through tasks to understand where the friction actually happens.

2. Define: Pinpoint the 'right problem'

Once research is complete, you synthesize observations into focused problem statements. This stage turns scattered insights into a clear design challenge you can actually solve.

A strong problem statement should be:

• Human-centered (focused on users rather than technology)
  
  

• Broad enough for creative freedom
  
  

• Narrow enough to be manageable

Many teams use "How Might We" questions to frame challenges in ways that invite innovative solutions rather than prescribing specific outcomes.

The goal is creating a problem statement that energizes your team to explore multiple solutions.

3. Ideate: Brainstorm & explore ideas

The ideation phase opens up possibilities through structured creative thinking. This is where teams generate numerous potential solutions without judgment.

Effective ideation techniques include:

• Brainstorming: Building on others' ideas in judgment-free sessions.
  
  

• SCAMPER: Using prompts to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, or Rearrange elements.
  
  

• Sketching: Expressing ideas visually to provoke further thinking.

The secret to great ideation? Quantity over quality.

Generate as many ideas as possible before evaluating any of them.

4. Prototype: Create quick, tangible models

Prototyping turns abstract ideas into tangible forms for testing. Instead of building complete products, you create scaled-down versions that test key concepts quickly and affordably.

Low-fidelity prototypes might include paper sketches or basic wireframes, while high-fidelity prototypes more closely resemble the final product. As

Tim Brown from IDEO notes, prototypes "slow us down to speed us up" by helping teams fail quickly and cheaply.

The goal isn't perfection, but learning what works before you invest serious development time.

5. Test: Gather feedback from real users

Testing puts prototypes before real users to validate assumptions and gather feedback. You observe users interacting with prototypes, noting pain points and opportunities for improvement.

Testing often reveals the need to revisit earlier stages of design thinking as new insights emerge. The goal isn't to prove the design works but to learn what doesn't work and improve it through iteration.

Moreover, real users will break your designs in ways you've never imagined. That's exactly what this design thinking phase helps you discover.

Why is the Design Thinking Process So Valuable?

So, what's the real payoff? At its core, design thinking is a powerful tool for reducing risk. It helps organizations avoid the single most expensive mistake they can make: building something nobody wants.

By putting real user needs at the very start of the process, teams can test and validate ideas early and often. This creates a culture of "fail fast, learn faster."

Flawed concepts are identified at the whiteboard stage, not after countless hours and dollars have been poured into development.

Advantages of Design Thinking in UX

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For UX designers, the value of design thinking is even more prominent, driving true user-centricity & ensuring every design decision is backed by human-led insights, not just assumptions.

Here are some of the key benefits of design thinking:

• Developing user empathy: Design thinking forces teams to move beyond surface-level personas and gain a genuine understanding of a user's context, motivations, and pain points through techniques like interviews and observation.
  
  

• Clear problem framing: The "Define" phase in the design thinking process turns messy qualitative research into a sharp, actionable problem statement. This gives UX/product teams a tangible north star to guide their work.
  
  

• Speeds up design cycles: Design thinking speeds up design cycles by encouraging early prototyping and quick testing, helping you catch issues before they turn costly. This helps you validate hypothesis faster, gather real feedback & ship smarter.
  
  

• Improved stakeholder buy-in: Tangible prototypes make it much easier to show, not just tell, stakeholders the vision for a product, fostering alignment and support across the organization.
  
  

• Improved cross-functional collaboration: Design thinking brings together diverse skills and perspectives, breaking down silos and sparking real collaboration. Instead of waiting on handoffs, teams co-create, share ideas, and move faster.
  
  

• Balancing data with creative exploration: Design thinking blends data with creativity. It balances hard numbers with human insight, combining both qualitative and quantitative research to guide smarter decisions.
  
  

  Big data shows patterns; thick data reveals the hidden context that can shift the whole problem. The result? Innovation that’s informed, not based on guesswork.

Ultimately, this process ensures the final product isn't just a functional piece of software but an intuitive, enjoyable experience that solves a real problem.

This is critical in modern product development, especially when working on complex systems like artificial intelligence, where user trust is paramount.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Design Thinking

We've worked with more than 30+ clients, and there are certain mistakes we often see even the best product teams make.

Here are 4 common design thinking mistakes that can derail your efforts:

1. Skipping the user research phase

Teams rush through or completely bypass the empathy stage - usually because of tight deadlines or because leadership doesn't see the value. This creates a domino effect that ruins everything downstream.

Without solid user research, you're building personas based on assumptions instead of reality.

You'll struggle to identify genuine customer needs and end up creating solutions nobody wants. User research serves as the bridge between abstract design concepts and actual user-centered outcomes.

2. Treating it as a one-time workshop

Here's what happens: teams get excited during a design thinking workshop, generate tons of creative ideas, then return to their desks and go back to churning out features and fixing bugs.

The user focus disappears within days. Real innovation happens when design thinking becomes part of your daily routine, not a special event.

Companies that embed this approach into their workflow see substantial results - IBM cut design time by 75% and achieved a 301% return on investment from their design thinking program.

3. Focusing too much on aesthetics

Visual appeal matters, but functionality should drive your design decisions. We've seen teams create beautiful designs that completely frustrate users because they prioritize looks over usability.

The purpose of user experience design is to create seamless, efficient digital interactions.

When aesthetics override usability, accessibility, and user value, you end up with pretty designs that nobody can actually use effectively.

4. Not involving real users in testing

Testing with fake data and scenarios reveals completely different issues than watching real users interact with their actual information.

Users become more invested in completing tasks when using their own data, and they notice errors they'd miss with generic test information.

Without authentic user involvement, your iterative design thinking process fails, since you're optimizing for problems that don't exist while missing the real issues that matter.

How to Actually Practice Design Thinking?

Image source: UX Hints

Knowing the theory is one thing, but making it part of your team's DNA is another. Adopting design thinking is a cultural shift.

It requires building a culture where curiosity, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty are the norm.

Here's how you can actually practice design thinking in your UX process:

1. Start small & build momentum

Don't try to overhaul your entire development process overnight. Instead, pick a small, manageable pilot project. This gives you a low-risk way to demonstrate the value of design thinking and create a success story that can win over skeptics.

Assemble a cross-functional team with people from design, engineering, marketing, and customer support.

This diversity of perspectives is your secret weapon for uncovering unique insights and sparking creative solutions.

2. Foster a creative and collaborative environment

A thriving design thinking practice needs a space where ideas can grow without being prematurely judged.

Encourage wild questions and celebrate messy, early-stage experiments.

Here's how to create a collaborative design thinking environment:

• Create “no-judgment zones”: During brainstorming, make it a rule that every idea is welcome, no matter how unconventional it seems.
  
  

• Think visually: Use whiteboards, sticky notes, and quick sketches to make abstract thoughts tangible and collaborative.
  
  

• Protect your time: Guard your team’s calendar fiercely. They need focused, uninterrupted time for each phase, from deep user research to building prototypes.

As you implement this, a solid grasp of core user experience design principles is essential. It helps ensure the solutions you create are not just innovative but also usable and enjoyable.

3. Use journey maps and empathy maps

Image source: NN Group

Empathy maps capture a user's thoughts, feelings, actions, and words at specific moments, divided into four quadrants that create a snapshot of their experience. These visual representations help teams stay user-focused and avoid building on assumptions.

Alternately, journey maps chart the user's entire experience across multiple touchpoints, revealing critical moments that make or break the user experience.

Using both tools together gives you a complete picture of specific user needs and their broader experience context.

4. Balance generative & evaluative research

Effective design thinking means exploring new ideas while testing what already exists.

Generative research uncovers user needs through interviews and field studies, while evaluative research validates solutions with real feedback.

Together, they create a cycle of discovery and refinement — helping teams build products that are both innovative and easy to use.

Conclusion

Design thinking changes how UX teams solve problems, and when done right - it can drive actual business growth. The five-phase process works because it grounds decisions in user needs before anything.

Teams that embrace it reap benefits like faster design cycles, better collaborations & products users actually love.

At Bricx, we live & breathe design thinking in our UX design process. If you're seeking a UX design agency that can create products which "actually" stand out, book a call with us now!

FAQs

Is design thinking only for designers?

Not at all. We've worked with business leaders who use it to reimagine customer experiences, product managers who apply it to feature prioritization, and even marketing teams who use it to create more resonant campaigns.

The methodology works because it focuses on understanding real human needs, which applies to any role that serves customers.

What is the main difference between design thinking and traditional problem-solving?

Traditional problem-solving often starts with a clearly defined problem and jumps straight into finding a single, optimal solution. Design thinking, on the other hand, excels with ambiguous or "wicked" problems.

It invests significant time in the "Empathize" and "Define" phases to ensure the team is solving the right problem before exploring a wide range of potential solutions through ideation and prototyping.

Can design thinking be used in non-digital products?

Absolutely. The human-centered principles work equally well for physical products, healthcare systems, environmental solutions, and social justice initiatives.

We've applied similar approaches when consulting on service design projects and process improvements outside the digital space.

What tools help with design thinking in UX?

For user research, we recommend empathy maps and journey maps. For wireframing and prototyping, Balsamiq, Adobe XD, and Figma work well, along with Overflow for creating flowcharts.

Collaboration platforms like Miro or Mural help facilitate remote design thinking workshops, especially when your team is distributed.