Design Thinking: An innovative approach to problem solving - A Real Life example
Introduction
Every human being will have a creative thought somewhere along his life to come up with a solution for a simple problem in their day to day life. Like creating a pen holder with an unused pet bottle, using a toothbrush to clean the comb and so on. Here, in this article I am going to explain one such solution I had come up with when I was young
The Problem statement
We lived in an independent house, We stayed in the first floor and rented out the ground floor. We usually keep the compound gate closed, so that street cattle cannot enter the premise. However, when a guest or a stranger comes to our house, they used to call us loud from outside (since we were in first floor), which was embarrassing for them. So, to make their life easy, we decided to keep doorbells in the compound wall as well. Now the real problem comes in, there are two doorbell switches in the wall (one for us and other one is for my tenant at GF). Every time when a person comes, the probability of them pressing the right switch was very low. It became annoying for both of us when the visitor pressed the wrong bell, sometimes during late nights, causing much discomfort for both families.
Solution approach: Innovative Idea
What I made was a very simple and cost effective solution to the problem. I identified that there is a problem in people identifying the correct switch. I took a red insulation tape and cut it like an arrow. I made two arrows of same kind and pasted them on the switches, one facing upwards “representing first floor” and the other “pointing to the ground floor”. That solved our problem. There were no false alarms anymore. I was 19 years old at that time and I was so happy that my parents and tenant appreciated me for the simple idea I have come up with.
Conclusion
It is very key to identify and define the root cause of the problem. We can do that only when we empathize with the users who are facing it. In the above example I witnessed the annoyance that my family and the tenants went through. Design thinking revolves around the five different stages- Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype & Validate. I didn’t realize that I followed those steps when I was 19 yr old.
Empathize – get to understand the user,
Define – Define a problem statement,
Ideate – Come up with creative and handful of ideas,
Prototype – Mock it up,
Validate – collect the feedback /analyze and feed them back to the process to refine the solution.
Design is not ONLY about aesthetics and meant only for digital space, it can be applied anywhere in our life like the simple red arrows which let us sleep undisturbed :)
