Design Thinking

The actions taken in each of the four phases are: 

• DISCOVER. Understand that you are not your user. Empathize with them through observation, engagement, and immersion to truly understand what motivates them. Focus and clarify the need or opportunity. Popular techniques for this phase include Personas, Customer Journey Map, SWOT Analysis, and The 5 Whys.
• DEFINE. Reframe the question to “how might we…”. Review and narrow your insights to establish your project’s main challenge. This includes quantitative research on the what, who, where, when, and how, and qualitative research on why the problem or opportunity exists. Popular techniques for this phase include Focus Groups, Mystery Client, Stakeholders Maps, and Design Challenge. 
• DEVELOP. Ideate. Brainstorm to define a more complete idea and understand the prototype objective. Quickly test out what works and discard what doesn’t. Popular techniques for this phase include Brainstorming, What If, Storyboarding, and Infographics.
• DELIVER. Make and launch the product or service. Gather feedback about it. Popular techniques for this phase include Prototyping Roadmap, Feedback Matrix, and User Testing.

For an easy to follow guide on how to use these techniques and 65 others, we love “DESIGN-pedia” by Juan Gasca and Rafael Zaragoza.