Phase 1: Empathy

When you begin with empathy, what you think is challenged by what you learn.
This alone is what makes design thinking so unique and is the first phase. During
the empathy stage, you observe, engage and immerse yourself in the experience
of those you are designing for. Continuously asking, “why” to understand why
things are the way they are. 

This phase is where we see the most challenges, yet this phase is the most
critical. An empathy map is probably the most common exercise. Yet there are
others such as, “Heard, Seen, Respected.” Another challenge in this area is not
speaking directly to the user. For example, I’ve sat in many “design thinking”
experiences where the group will speculate on behalf of the users. For example,
educators speculating about parents, administrators speculating about teachers. 

The purpose behind an empathy exercise is that when we begin with empathy,
what we think is challenged by what we learn. While you can practice with each
other, ultimately you must speak directly to who you are designing for.

Phase 2: Define
During the define stage you unpack the empathy findings and create an
actionable problem statement often starting with, “how might we…” This
statement not only emphasizes an optimistic outlook, it invites the designer to
think about how this can be a collaborative approach.

Empathize
Begin by listening. And looking. And asking questions.  Trust the users of any system to
know their stuff.  Collect evidence, anecdotes, testimonials.  What do these users want? 
What slows them down or trips them up during a particular process, activity or assignment.
 Define
Hopefully, you took some notes, made some outlines, snapped some pics.  Gather all of
these stories, post-its and images together and work on defining a key challenge or problem
for your users.  It can be a big problem or a little problem — but however you frame it, your
problem should be defined in such a way as to allow multiple (sometimes seemingly
contradictory) solutions.

The first stage of the design thinking process focuses on user-centric research. You
want to gain an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve.
Consult experts to find out more about the area of concern and conduct observations
to engage and empathize with your users. You may also want to immerse yourself in
your users’ physical environment to gain a deeper, personal understanding of the
issues involved—as well as their experiences and motivations. Empathy is crucial to
problem solving and a human-centered design process as it allows design thinkers to
set aside their own assumptions about the world and gain real insight into users and
their needs.

Depending on time constraints, you will gather a substantial amount of information to

use during the next stage. The main aim of the Empathize stage is to develop the best
possible understanding of your users, their needs and the problems that underlie the
development of the product or service you want to create.

In the Define stage, you will organize the information you have gathered during the
Empathize stage. You’ll analyze your observations to define the core problems you
and your team have identified up to this point. Defining the problem and problem
statement must be done in a human-centered manner.

For example, you should not define the problem as your own wish or need of the
company: “We need to increase our food-product market share among young teenage
girls by 5%.”
You should pitch the problem statement from your perception of the users’ needs:
“Teenage girls need to eat nutritious food in order to thrive, be healthy and grow.”

The Define stage will help the design team collect great ideas to establish features,
functions and other elements to solve the problem at hand—or, at the very least, allow
real users to resolve issues themselves with minimal difficulty. In this stage, you will
start to progress to the third stage, the ideation phase, where you ask questions to help
you look for solutions: “How might we encourage teenage girls to perform an action
that benefits them and also involves your company’s food-related product or service?”
for instance.

Phase 1: Empathise

Empathy provides the critical starting point for Design Thinking. The first
stage of the process is spent getting to know the user and understanding their
wants, needs and objectives.

This means observing and engaging with people in order to understand them
on a psychological and emotional level. During this phase, the designer seeks
to set aside their assumptions and gather real insights about the user. Learn
all about key empathy-building methods in our guide.

The second stage in the Design Thinking process is dedicated to defining

the problem. You’ll gather all of your findings from the empathise phase and
start to make sense of them: what difficulties and barriers are your users
coming up against? What patterns do you observe? What is the big user
problem that your team needs to solve?

By the end of the define phase, you will have a clear problem statement. The
key here is to frame the problem in a user-centered way; rather than saying
“We need to…”, frame it in terms of your user: “Retirees in the Bay area
need…”
Once you’ve formulated the problem into words, you can start to come up with
solutions and ideas — which brings us onto stage three.