Page 14 - MICROHUB Handbook - ENGLISH

Researching the literature, you can find many different steps, stages
and/or processes of the Design thinking process. Here is the most used

one:

1.Empathise: As was mentioned before, the design-thinking process is all
about people. Try to imagine that you are the one in need of the product

or the service. What would it feel like? Where are the obstacles? During
this stage you should try to understand your clients. So go out and talk to

them, ask questions, and notice their emotions. Are they thrilled when
hearing about your product, or on the contrary they don't seem to be
engaged? This phase provides you with the inputs you need for the next

stage.

2. Define: You have a lot of information based on the findings from the
Empathise stage. Now you need to piece it together. What are the

common topics here? What came up? Once you have that you should
define a problem statement, an issue you would like to address. Let's say

people are lacking home-made cookies for their dogs which are organic
and without artificial additives and colours. Your problem statement then
could be: “Pet owners can't find organic and healthy treats in their

neighbourhood.”

3. Ideate: This is the time for brainstorming and generating
ideas to address the problem statement. You know your
target group (pet owners) and the problem (lack of healthy

treats). In this stage try to come up with as many ideas
as possible, and it doesn't matter whether they are

feasible, crazy, or totally undoable. This is the
creative process. Slowly towards the end of this

stage, narrow it down to only a few
well-developed ideas.

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