I may know nothing about design thinking, but I know why it works
Greetings! Tash here, the newest member of the Tenaka team. You can find me behind the front desk, or buried in accounts.
Upon joining Tenaka, I knew literally nothing about design thinking, so I decided to embark on a design thinking crash course, and thought ‘why not document my findings and share them with others who may also be complete newbies to the term?’
Firstly, let’s address the elephant in the room: what the heck is design thinking?
According to everyone’s best friend, Google, design thinking is ‘an all-round method that is used to solve problems, create concepts of all kinds and above all to develop products, services, processes and business models. The ultimate goal is to meet the needs of customers, users and other stakeholders with inspiring solutions and experiences.’
What this means, in a nutshell, is that when you have a problem, you go to the people who face the problem everyday and find out about them to work out how to fix it.
Why use design thinking to help my business?
In any business, you are nothing without your users, clients and customers. If your users are experiencing a problem and nothing is done to help find a solution, your users won’t be users for much longer; that much is guaranteed.
Problem + No solution = No customers.
As harsh as the above sounds, it’s undeniably true.
So, if you know you have a problem, there is no time to waste in finding a solution. Instead of using a whole bunch of ‘theoreticals’ and getting remote experts in to try to solve the problem, take the problem back to the users.
These are the people who know your products and services from regular, on-the-ground experience with them; they are the people who are going to tell you what it’s like to interact with your brand every day.
Plus, something that is all too often overlooked in the world of business, is that your users are people too! By giving them a chance to voice their opinion and have it heard, considered and implemented… well, let’s just say that this will improve and maintain your relationship with your user.
How can Tenaka help?
Tenaka is a design thinking agency, which essentially means we specialise in coming up with creative solutions to your problem by using globally proven design thinking methods and by keeping the needs of your users front and centre at all times.
You bring us your problem, we learn about your users, and together, we come up with a solution. Keeping the user central to the process, we design a prototype of the solution and don’t leave your side until you and your customers alike are once again happy.
Our team consists of professional researchers, designers, developers, content creators, research facilitators and hosts, user recruiters, experience designers, strategists, analysts, a dedicated group of project managers and me (the office and accounts administrator!).
There is no problem too big or too small that we won’t generate a design thinking solution for.
This I say with certainty.
Even though I still know very little about design thinking, I am so ready to continue on my learning journey because, from what I have seen, it works!