Design Thinking: The right method to identify your potential customers
In a product development process, there must be a problem. Of course, we don’t want the problem to interfere with the team’s performance by allowing it to drag on. Thus, design thinking is present as a method to solve problems.
In general, design thinking is defined as a method of solving problems that is done creatively and practically. Design thinking enables teams to integrate human needs with technology to achieve business success. In its implementation, namely a development team, they will find and understand customer problems and define suitable and effective solutions to solve these problems. With this design thinking, the benefits obtained are:
1. Make it easier for companies to understand consumer needs
2. Creating new innovations
3. Reduce the risk of product failure
4. Save cost
5. Reduce time for design process
In design thinking, we need to pay attention to several elements, including:
1. Hands on. That is, design thinking requires us to act and test products directly, not just theories or sketches.
2. Highly creative. Because in design thinking there are no fixed and fixed rules, then use your creativity as widely as possible so that we will be familiar with solving problems with various solutions.
3. Iterative. The design thinking process is an iterative process to get satisfactory results. It is impossible for the product to be successful only through one try. The principle of this element is to accept the trial and error process.
4. Customer-centered. Having a creative spirit is really needed in the design thinking process, but keep in mind that creativity in solving problems must remain focused on the customer.
The name alone is a method, it must have stages that you have to go through, here are the steps:
Empathize
Understand the needs of potential customers. The thing that must be considered is to be able to understand and understand the customer’s wishes. To do this stage, we can collect as much information as possible so that the product we make is not only based on personal assumptions, but a concrete solution. There are several methods of collecting data that you can do, including market research, keyword research, and product research which can be in the form of interviews, questionnaires, or the use of tools such as Google Trends.
Define
Identification of problems to the needs of potential customers. In defining the problem, we still have to focus on the customer, meaning that it remains customer-centered.
Idea
Gather solutions and ideas. After the stage of collecting and identifying problems is complete, the next stage is the collection of ideas. This is where one’s creativity is tested whether the idea is indeed desired by the customer, technically feasible, or economically viable.
Prototype
Modeling solutions or ideas from the ideate process. The prototyping process aims to clarify product ideas and make them more real, not just ideas or designs in documents or thoughts. The prototype does not have to be perfect, the important point is that what is created represents the basic function of the design.
If the product being developed is a physical product, then the manufacture is done using simple materials, and if the product being developed is digital, it can be done by making a mockup (a design plan that is equipped with elements and typography). You can use figma or whimsical software to make mockups easily through tutorials that have been scattered on the internet. Good luck!
Test
Testing of the selected solution. Prototype testing is done to see the response and find out whether the product made meets customer needs or not. We can create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which is a product with basic features with a high level of usability.
Of course, we can’t satisfy all customers, because everyone’s needs and problems are different. So, focus on a problem but provide an in-depth solution.
