This five stage design thinking model is proposed by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (the d.school).
According to this model, the five stages of design thinking framework are:
- Empathize
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test
Empathize
Objective here is to gain real insight about users and their needs. Observation, interviews etc. are used here to get deeper understanding about the problems involved, experiences of the users and their motivations.
Define
The core problems are defined based on the observations and experience from the previous stage.
Ideate
Generate innovative solutions to the problem statement defined. There are multiple ideation techniques – brainstorm, brainwrite, worst possible idea, SCAMPER etc. are few of them.
Prototype
Selection of the best possible solution happens in this stage. Team will produce inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the potential solutions and are evaluated to identify the most appropriate solution.
Test
The identified solution are tested thoroughly in order to see if it solves the complete set of problems. Designers go back to previous stages if any iterations are required.
The five stage framework is a non-linear and iterative framework. The stages may be shuffled or repeated several times to gain more accurate insights and identify most appropriate solutions.
