Thomas Wendt
Design Strategy and Research Consultant,
Surrounding Signifiers
About This Workshop
Design Thinking is a framework for understanding design processes, the relationship between design and business, and how designers think. It emphasizes empathy building, problem framing, ideation, and validating potential solutions. Through these four phases (and the significant overlap between them), teams are able to learn about users, discover opportunities, solve problems or meet needs, and test their assumptions.
This workshop moves through each of these steps, explaining them through examples and in-class activities. You will perform customer interviews to gather observations, exercise problem framing techniques to find opportunities, sketch potential solutions, and test hypotheses to mitigate risk.
Design thinking stresses the involvement of entire organizations; participants will gain insight on how to spread design-centric ideas throughout their company regardless of the industry. And you don't have to be a designer: all disciplines are encouraged to participate.
Prereqs & Preparation
None.
Please note there is some content overlap with the User Research Methods workshop. If you have already taken that workshop, please contact us to find out more.
Takeaways
- Obtain a thorough understanding of Design Thinking and its benefits for your organization.
- Work on empathy mapping and lean persona development as ways to explore and communicate hypotheses and research data.
- Learn methods for breaking down problems into their component parts to better understand them.
- Map product stories to better understand their strategic vision.
- Create two different types of rapid prototypes for the purpose of quickly testing ideas and hypotheses.
- Learn how design thinking applies to other industries.
About the Instructor
Thomas Wendt
Design Strategy and Research Consultant,
Surrounding Signifiers
Thomas Wendt is a design strategy and research consultant based in New York City, specializing in user research, experience strategy, product strategy, and innovation.
Thomas frequently speaks, teaches, and writes on topics related to design thinking, philosophy, and research methods. He has presented at conferences worldwide, his articles have been featured in user experience publications and academic journals, and he holds an adjunct instructor position at NYU.
In addition to client work, Thomas is currently writing a book entitled Design for Dasein, which is concerned with the relationship between phenomenology and design.