Design Thinking

Chapter 5Design Thinking to Bridge Research and Concept Design

Lauren Weigel

Empire Level—Division of Milwaukee Tool

Introduction

This chapter includes the following objectives: It starts by outlining why people involved in new product development have challenges when coming up with new ideas. It then explains why there is a need for a systematic method, or approach, to connect the people responsible for coming up with new product solutions to the user. It goes on to describe a method based on design thinking principles, which can be used to help bridge user research findings to concept generation and concludes by explaining how this method can be applied in industry.

5.1 Challenges in Idea Generation

Coming up with new product ideas and innovations is not an easy task. The process of coming up with new ideas can sometimes feel challenging for a number of reasons. Sometimes the team coming up with a new product idea has been working on that particular product line for a long period of time. They may have years of experience working on one product, and for that reason they may consider themselves experts in that category. In this case, their experience with what the product can and can't do can actually create a barrier to their creativity when attempting to reinvent or even refresh a product. They may be very good at improving a product's performance or optimizing its technology, but they may struggle when it comes to effectively evaluating the relevance of the product to ...