Design thinking can be defined as a philosophical or conceptual approach or principle that underpins a design process and guides design. Design thinking is concerned with the concepts, values, goals, and perspectives in the designer’s mind and provides a basis for how design is handled, managed, and accomplished.
Design thinking includes a number of elements that shape the design process and influence the designer’s decisions. These may include factors such as understanding user needs, problem identification, innovation, functionality, aesthetic values, sustainability, usability, accessibility. Design thinking can also focus on processes such as teamwork, prototyping, testing and continuous improvement.
Design thinking often includes principles such as design being people-oriented, focusing on user experience and satisfaction, encouraging creativity, and tackling problems with an innovative and solution-oriented approach. This way of thinking encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and can be applied in various design fields (product design, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, user interface design, etc.).
The main purpose of design thinking is to understand the needs and expectations of users, analyze problems and produce effective, user-oriented and innovative solutions. Therefore, design thinking provides an important conceptual framework in the design process and helps design professionals and students produce creative and effective solutions.

Why Is Design Thinking Important?

Design thinking is important for several reasons:
User-Centered Approach: Design thinking focuses on understanding and empathizing with users or customers. It helps uncover their needs, motivations, and pain points. By placing the user at the center of the design process, it ensures that solutions are relevant, meaningful, and effective.
Problem Solving: Design thinking is a systematic and iterative approach to problem-solving. It encourages a multidisciplinary team to collaborate, brainstorm ideas, prototype, and test solutions. This iterative process allows for continuous improvement and innovation.
Innovation and Creativity: Design thinking encourages a mindset of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. It promotes the exploration of different perspectives, encourages experimentation, and embraces failure as a learning opportunity. This mindset fosters innovation and helps generate unique and groundbreaking solutions.
Adaptability: Design thinking is adaptable and can be applied to a wide range of industries and contexts. It can be used to tackle complex problems in business, healthcare, education, social issues, and more. Its flexibility makes it a valuable approach for addressing various challenges and finding relevant solutions.
Human-Centered Design: Design thinking puts people and their experiences at the forefront. It considers the emotional, cognitive, and physical aspects of human interactions with products, services, and systems. By prioritizing human needs and experiences, design thinking can lead to more user-friendly, intuitive, and satisfying solutions.
Collaboration and Communication: Design thinking promotes collaboration among diverse team members, including designers, engineers, marketers, and users. It encourages effective communication, active listening, and the exchange of ideas. This collaborative environment fosters collective intelligence and leads to better outcomes.
Customer Satisfaction and Business Success: By focusing on user needs and delivering meaningful experiences, design thinking can enhance customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal customers, leading to increased business success. Design thinking also helps identify new opportunities, improve products and services, and gain a competitive edge in the market.
Overall, design thinking is important because it provides a structured approach to problem-solving, encourages innovation, and puts the user at the center of the design process. It leads to solutions that are more relevant, creative, and satisfying, ultimately driving business success and societal impact.

What Is the Purpose of Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a methodology that seeks to find individual-oriented solutions to its problems, not specific to any unit or group. The subject to be discussed may be the subject of marketing, as well as R&D, human resources, finance, etc. may occur in the fields. The resulting solutions do not belong to a single individual or group, but to the entire company. Companies are affected by the use of design thinking method in business life. At the same time, with the use of this concept in business life, it is possible to communicate with individuals who are the target groups of the subject, and to catch insights by hearing the needs and problems of individuals at first hand.
At the same time, with the use of the concept of design thinking in business life, it can be integrated into idea pools in companies. Ideas collected in idea pools used in companies are separated according to the problems and opportunities they deal with. With this categorization, prioritization is made by considering the focus areas of the company. With the use of this concept in business life, these categories, which are selected as priority, are turned into opportunities thanks to design-oriented thinking.
With the use of this concept in business life, companies are asked two questions before the project. These are the “What” and “Why” questions. The use of this concept in business life and the solution for the needs ensure that it can be put into practice in line with the company’s principles. The basic needs of companies or companies that need the concept of design-oriented thinking in business life can be grouped into 3 groups. The first group that wants to use this concept in business life is those who need a result-oriented approach in the field of innovation. The second group is those who are customer-oriented and in cultural transformation. The third group is the companies that want to do it effectively by producing special solutions for their customers in the field of digitalization. Workshop events are organized with the use of this concept in business life.
It also reveals many effects with its use in business life. For example, in a workshop held in the field of digitalization, sales and marketing units are not invited. In addition to these, teams from human resources, corporate communication, purchasing and many more units participate. In this way, innovative business and technology solutions are developed together. With the use of this concept in business life, there are organized structures such as creativity, empathy and emotional intelligence that solve each other’s problems together.

What Are The Five Stages of Design Thinking?

After getting to know the concept of design thinking or design thinking, let’s examine what are the stages of design thinking. There are different approaches to the design thinking method. Design thinking stages are generally considered to be 5 stages. There are also those who consider the stages of design thinking as 4 or 6 stages. We will introduce the 5 most mentioned stages among the design thinking stages. Design thinking stages;

Establishing Empathy: Empathy is included in the design thinking stages. Empathy is very important for a human-oriented design. This allows you to set aside your own assumptions about the world and gain insight into users and their needs. With empathy, you will get to know the individuals you have communicated with better and you will be able to produce easier solutions to problems.

Identification: It is mentioned about defining the areas of opportunity and problems. In this phase, you collect the information you gathered in the empathy phase. By collecting and analyzing information, the underlying problem is defined. The important point in the definition phase is to define according to the individual’s needs.

Generating Ideas: Generating ideas is among the stages of design-oriented thinking. According to the information obtained from the other stages, an idea is generated for the solution of the defined problem by understanding the needs of the users.

Prototyping: Prototyping is also included among the stages of design thinking. This stage aims to find the best solution against the identified problem. It is also called the experimental stage. It aims to produce the best solution for each of the problems as soon as possible.

Testing: It constitutes the last stage among the design thinking stages. It is the stage where the solutions found are tested and tested. The best solutions are tested first. The results are then discussed with the terms of use and the user. Ideas are evaluated during the interview. After the evaluation phase, a new modeling can be made or improvements can be made on the existing modeling.