The Process of Design Thinking

* (Ball, 2022)

Design thinking is rarely a simple exercise when approached from a standing start. The creative process often emerges gradually: in response to a problem, an opportunity, or a need for re-framing and renewed perspective. For this reason, effective design thinking often requires a period of cognitive preparation before meaningful insight can occur.

A useful way to begin is by considering how a problem or opportunity might be approached in structured stages.

The first stage is to frame the situation as a problem, an opportunity, or ideally both. At this point, the situation is best explored divergently in order to surface possibilities, tensions, and alternative interpretations. Once sufficient breadth of understanding has been achieved, the focus can shift toward convergent thinking, where the situation is clarified, narrowed, and defined with precision. Techniques such as mind mapping, collaborative brainstorming, diagramming, and concise problem statements can all support this movement between divergence and convergence.

This process may be understood as involving several interconnected activities:

• Identification — recognising and acknowledging the situation.

• Abstraction — developing a broader and more holistic understanding.

• Decomposition — breaking the situation into its constituent parts.

• Analysis — examining those parts, the wider situation, and possible design implications.

• Aggregation — bringing insights back together in order to shape a coherent response or solution.

The second stage is research. This includes investigating not only the immediate problem or opportunity, but also examining what has been done in comparable situations. Existing methods, precedents, and patterns of practice can serve as valuable starting points. Rather than reinventing solutions unnecessarily, design thinking can benefit from adapting established approaches, including those drawn from unrelated disciplines. Often, innovation emerges through the reinterpretation or reapplication of ideas from one context to another.

The third stage is immersion. This involves sustained engagement with both the problem and the relevant research. Immersion allows ideas to develop depth and texture through repeated exposure, analysis, and reflection. Intensive focus can generate momentum and produce significant progress, particularly in the early stages. However, prolonged effort without pause may eventually produce diminishing returns, fatigue, or conceptual stagnation.

This leads to a fourth stage: cognitive saturation. At the tail end of immersion, effort may begin to feel strained and less productive. This is not necessarily a sign of failure, but often an indicator that the mind has reached a temporary threshold. In creative and analytical work alike, periods of strain are frequently followed by adaptation. However, that adaptation usually requires a shift in mode rather than continued force.

The fifth stage is deliberate disengagement. Stepping away from the problem can be an essential part of the design process rather than a departure from it. Temporary distance allows tension to dissipate and enables subconscious processing to continue without direct effort. In many cases, clarity emerges not during concentrated struggle, but after that struggle has been released.

From this point, insight often begins to surface. The sixth stage may therefore be described as revelation or illumination. During relaxation, reflection, or even routine activity, a previously unresolved problem may suddenly present a clearer path forward. These moments of insight can feel spontaneous, yet they are typically the result of prior immersion, pattern recognition, and subconscious synthesis.

The seventh stage is experimentation. Ideas that emerge through insight must still be tested, refined, and sometimes discarded. Early concepts may improve through iteration, or they may give way to more promising alternatives once explored in practice. Through experimentation, one or more viable ideas begin to take shape as candidates for further development.

This sequence illustrates an important principle of design thinking: creativity is not merely a moment of inspiration, but a disciplined process of framing, exploring, researching, immersing, reflecting, and testing.

A practical example of this process can be drawn from a simple design challenge: creating a safe way to provide food and water for wild birds using readily available materials. With access to items such as postal twine, old pot-plant trays, and bamboo, a two-tiered feeding and watering station could be designed for suspension from a tree. Even in such a modest scenario, the stages of design thinking remain visible. The situation is identified, options are explored, existing materials are assessed, and a potential solution begins to emerge through synthesis and experimentation.

This example demonstrates that design thinking is not limited to formal business, product, or architectural contexts. It also operates in everyday acts of problem-solving, where constraints, needs, materials, and intent must be brought into alignment. Whether applied to strategic transformation or practical making, the same underlying process remains relevant.

Situation

A need exists to create a safe and practical feeding and hydration station for wild birds using materials already available.

Consequence

Without an intentional design response, feeding wildlife may be inefficient, unstable, unsafe, or unsuited to the environment in which it is placed.

Objective

To design a functional, low-cost, and environmentally appropriate bird feeding and watering station using accessible materials and a simple construction method.

Proposed Design

A suspended, two-tier structure using bamboo as the supporting frame, pot-plant trays as the feeding and watering platforms, and postal twine as the hanging mechanism.

Conclusion

Design thinking provides a structured yet flexible approach to moving from vague awareness to practical resolution. By combining divergent exploration with convergent definition, and by allowing room for both immersion and reflection, it supports more thoughtful, effective, and adaptable solutions. Even simple design tasks reveal the value of this process when approached with deliberate attention and disciplined creativity.

• Ball, B. J. (2022, June 6). The Double Diamond: A universally accepted depiction of the design process. Design Council. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-resources/archive/articles/double-diamond-universally-accepted-depiction-design-process