1/1/24, 1:43 PM How to Do Design Thinking Better

Christine Rösch

O RG A N I Z AT I O N S JUL 1, 2020

How to Do Design Thinking Better

Experts from Kellogg and IDEO explain the psychology behind this creative
approach to problem solving.
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BASED ON THE RESEARCH OF

Leigh Thompson David Schonthal

Design thinking has become tremendously popular. Practice. He and Thompson recently
Businesses in every industry talk about ideating and
published
publishedaaapaper
published paper on
paperon this
onthis topic
topic and teach
thistopic
iterating, a linguistic nod to the creative process
a course together on using creativity as a
made famous by design and consulting firm IDEO.
business tool.
The design-thinking approach loosely
follows a four-step process that involves So why does design thinking work? And
observing a problem, reframing it, how can businesses effectively apply these
designing solutions, and testing them—all principles themselves? Thompson and
with the end goal of improving how Schonthal explain.
humans experience a product or service.

But being familiar with this process and

actually putting it into practice are very
different things. “Sometimes people think 1. Look for the gorilla.
they’re doing design thinking, but it’s
really not,” says Leigh
Leigh Thompson,
Thompson a
LeighThompson The first step in the design-thinking
professor of management and process is to observe a situation and notice
organizations at Kellogg. “When you get it what is actually happening. This sounds
right, it’s really powerful.” straightforward. But Thompson points out
that we are actually really bad at
Rather than blindly following the observing a situation and noticing what is
approach, she says, it can be helpful to actually happening—despite having a lot
understand the psychology behind it. And of confidence in our own abilities.
critically, social psychology also offers
insight into specific ways to get more out Twenty years ago, researchers Christopher
of each step in the process. Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted a
now-famous
now-famous experiment
now-famousexperiment
experimentin in psychology.
inpsychology
psychology
“The science is what explains the magic,” They showed participants a video of
says David
David Schonthal,
Schonthal a clinical professor
DavidSchonthal people playing basketball and instructed
of strategy at Kellogg and director of the
Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial
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them to count how many times the players packaging of its arthritis medication was
on a particular team passed the ball. too difficult for patients to open.

About 45 seconds into the video, a woman So the IDEO design team interviewed and
wearing a full-body gorilla costume —crucially—also observed patients who
walked across the screen. But a large used the medication going about their
number of participants didn’t notice this daily routine. One elderly woman with
oddity at all. They were too focused on arthritis said she had no trouble opening
counting passes—an illustration of a the packaging. But when the IDEO team
phenomenon psychologists call asked her to actually show them how she
inattentional blindness. did it, she took her pill bottle out of a
drawer and put it on a meat slicer, then
“People are very limited in what they’re used the meat slicer to cut open the top of
able to perceive in their visual world when
the container, because twisting the cap off
they’re focused on one thing,” Thompson
herself was too painful.
explains. “Coupled with the fact that
people believe themselves to be in the “One of the biggest takeaways from this
99th percentile with regard to their example is to never take what people say
perceptive abilities, that’s a dangerous they do at face value,” Schonthal says.
combination.” “Actually seeing with your own eyes what
is going on can immediately spark
So how can we get better at noticing
identification of unmet needs or better
things?
ways of solving a problem.”

As Thompson and Schonthal explain it,

noticing is a cognitive strategy that can be
broken down into three parts. First,
observers must identify and abandon their 2. Ask a question no
cognitive scripts—the preexisting
narratives that guide their understanding one else is asking.
of situations. Next, they must learn
inductively, making inferences based on The second step in design thinking is
limited information. And finally, they framing and reframing. In this step,
must find patterns in complex stimuli. design thinkers look at a problem from
multiple vantage points, trying on
This is why design thinkers must get out different lenses to determine the best
from behind their desks and observe a approach to finding a solution.
problem “in the wild,” as Schonthal puts
it. Relying on people to self-report their To better understand the importance of
habits is not enough. this process, Thompson and Schonthal
highlight the work of economist Daniel
He points to an example of when a Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for
pharmaceutical company tasked IDEO his research on cognitive framing.
with investigating its hypothesis that the Kahneman showed that people make very

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different decisions depending on how

those decisions are framed: specifically,
whether they are focused on the
possibility of gaining something—what 3. Approach
design thinkers call a “promotion
frame”—or by the possibility of not losing brainstorming with
something—a “prevention frame.”
rigor.
Understanding a customer’s motivations
for using a product or service are The third step is to imagine and design—
important for developing something that what Thompson and Schonthal describe
works for the customer. Take, for example, as “the heart and soul” of the design-
a project IDEO conducted on diabetes thinking process. Which is why, even more
management for a healthcare company. than the other steps, it’s crucial to
IDEO’s team found that more traditional understand the science behind successful
goals like losing weight and controlling ideation.
blood sugar in order to avoid health
problems (which activate a prevention At its core, brainstorming
brainstorming
brainstorming is about
frame) weren’t successful in actually focusing on quantity over quality, building
motivating patients to make healthy on one another’s ideas, and encouraging
changes. But setting social and emotional the most outlandish suggestions, all while
goals—like gaining the ability to walk a 5K avoiding criticism. And studies show that
or dance with your daughter at her these principles, devised in the 1950s,
wedding—activated a promotion mindset remain effective today.
and actually motivated people to change.
Yet people regularly violate those rules,
Armed with this knowledge and new
other studies show. They suggest too few
frame, IDEO was able to help the company
ideas or criticize individuals rather than
move beyond creating a new medical
ideas. And criticizing the person who
device. Rather, IDEO helped them build a
comes up with an idea can hurt further
customizable app that instead solved for a
ideation.
different challenge: How do we help
people with diabetes live their best lives?
Thankfully, science also suggests some
best practices.
“With any really well-thought-out
product, chances are the designers started
First, consider a smaller ideation group.
by asking a different question or solving a
As the number of people on a team
different problem than all of their
increases, the
the productivity
theproductivity of
productivityof ideas
ofideas per
ideasper
per
competitors,” Schonthal says.
person
person decreases.
decreases That’s because when
persondecreases
people work in groups—like the
traditional brainstorming session—they’re
often
often inhibited
inhibited by social demands like
ofteninhibited
being polite and waiting their turn.

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the belief that ability and skill come

Or consider
consider using
considerusing the
usingthe brainwriting
thebrainwriting
brainwriting through practice, not through innate
technique.
technique In a brainwriting session,
technique talent. With this frame, failure becomes a
participants spend a set amount of time way to learn, not proof of incompetency.
writing down as many ideas as they can, For example, one
one study
study showed that
onestudy
before a facilitator collects them all. This participants who were prompted to have a
allows individuals to generate lots of ideas growth mindset accomplished a complex
freely and without concern for criticism. task better and more enjoyably than
One widely
widely cited
widelycited meta-analysis
meta-analysis shows that
citedmeta-analysis participants who were prompted to have a
brainwriting groups generated about two “fixed” mindset.
and a half times the volume of ideas
generated by brainstorming groups—and One way to foster a growth mindset,
a significantly greater percentage of their Thompson and Schonthal explain, is to
ideas were judged to be of higher quality. use “How Might We” (HMW) questions
that get design thinkers to push past
“Most people don’t want to believe that constraints. “Groups that adopt a HMW
group brainstorming is inferior to focus are more likely to persist and be
individual ideation, at least for a finite creative than those who don’t think about
amount of time, because we feel good in possibilities,” they write.
groups. Groups are stimulating. They
make us feel all warm and fuzzy,” Another way to reinforce the idea that you
Thompson explains. “But it isn’t
are simply experimenting—and thus that
necessarily the best way to have a you are open to honest feedback—is to use
creativity and innovation meeting.” low-fidelity materials to create prototypes.

For example, to test different ways to

redesign the long-haul flight experience,

4. Fail faster. Learn IDEO used materials found around the

office. For one concept, the designers
sooner. literally stacked office chairs to test the
idea of “bunkbeds” on a plane. Airline
When it comes to actually building and executives who tried to lie in the chairs
testing solutions—the final step in design quickly rejected the concept—and IDEO
thinking—a successful designer must moved on to the next idea.
understand that failure is simply an
expected part of the process and will “Prototypes are embodied questions,”
ultimately make the work better. Schonthal says. “It’s not building
something that you hope people will fall in
“The idea is to fail faster and learn love with as the final product.”
sooner,” Thompson says.
At the end of the process, designers
One key to this is ensuring that your group ultimately want to create something that
has aaagrowth
growth mindset.
mindset The term refers to
growthmindset people do fall in love with. A successful

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final product often seems intuitive—as if

the idea sprang fully formed from the
designer’s brain. But as Schonthal and
Thompson’s research shows, a science-
backed approach is critical to innovation.

“Once you see a beautiful design, it seems

obvious,” Thompson says. “But it’s really,
really hard to figure out, ‘Now how does
this get created to begin with?’”

FEATURED FACULTY

Leigh David
Thompson Schonthal
J. Jay Gerber Professor Clinical Professor of
of Dispute Resolution & Strategy; Director of
Organizations; Entrepreneurship
Professor of Programs at Kellogg;
Management & Faculty Director of the
Organizations; Director Zell Fellows Program;
of Kellogg Team and Director of the Levy
Group Research Center; Institute for
Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice
Psychology, Weinberg
College of Arts &
Sciences (Courtesy)

ABOUT THE WRITER

Jennifer Fisher is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

Thompson, Leigh, and David Schonthal. 2020. “The Social
Psychology of Design Thinking.” California Management
Review. 62(2): 84–99.
Read the original

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