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Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

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How This Course Will Help Your Career

What you will learn

  • How to apply design thinking to your problems in order to generate innovative and user-centric solutions

  • How to make use of practical design thinking methods in every stage of your problem, with the help of method templates

  • How to initiate a new working culture based on a user-centric approach, empathy, ideation, prototyping, and playful testing

  • How to employ ethnographic and analysis methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys

  • How to prototype early and fast, as well as test your prototypes so as to reduce risks and accelerate organizational learning

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and General Electric, have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including Stanford d.school, Harvard, and MIT. What is design thinking, and why is it so popular and effective?

Design Thinking is not exclusive to designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? Well, that’s because design work processes help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, businesses, countries and lives. And that’s what makes it so special.

The overall goal of this design thinking course is to help you design better products, services, processes, strategies, spaces, architecture, and experiences. Design thinking helps you and your team develop practical and innovative solutions for your problems. It is a human-focused, prototype-driven, innovative design process. Through this course, you will develop a solid understanding of the fundamental phases and methods in design thinking, and you will learn how to implement your newfound knowledge in your professional work life. We will give you lots of examples; we will go into case studies, videos, and other useful material, all of which will help you dive further into design thinking. In fact, this course also includes exclusive video content that we've produced in partnership with design leaders like Alan Dix, William Hudson and Frank Spillers!

This course contains a series of practical exercises that build on one another to create a complete design thinking project. The exercises are optional, but you’ll get invaluable hands-on experience with the methods you encounter in this course if you complete them, because they will teach you to take your first steps as a design thinking practitioner. What’s equally important is you can use your work as a case study for your portfolio to showcase your abilities to future employers! A portfolio is essential if you want to step into or move ahead in a career in the world of human-centered design.

Design thinking methods and strategies belong at every level of the design process. However, design thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. What’s special about design thinking is that designers and designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques in solving problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, and in our lives.

That means that design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers, and business leaders. It’s for anyone who seeks to infuse an approach to innovation that is powerful, effective and broadly accessible, one that can be integrated into every level of an organization, product, or service so as to drive new alternatives for businesses and society.

You earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you complete the course. You can highlight them on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

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Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Who should take this course

This is a beginner-level course suitable for anyone interested in mastering the powerful and versatile design thinking approach:

  • UX, UI, and graphic designers interested in gaining a new approach to solving design problems and generating solutions that work
  • Project managers looking for a holistic process that integrates all stakeholders in order to create user-centric solutions
  • Software engineers interested in playing a part in idea generation and the design process
  • Entrepreneurs looking to empathize with users and build products that fit the market and users’ lives
  • Marketers who want to gain a deep understanding of customers
  • Stakeholders of a project/company who are keen to get involved in the process of building a product or service
  • Anyone who is interested in an innovative problem-solving approach that can be applied to all types of problems in work and in life

Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and work with a global team of designers

When you take part in this course, you will join a global multidisciplinary team working on the course and the exercises at the same time as you. You will work together to improve your skills and understanding. Your course group will be made up of an incredibly diverse group of professionals, all of whom have the same objective—to become successful designers. It’s your chance to learn, grow, and network with your peers across the planet.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 28 hours 12 mins spread over 9 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 45 mins.

Lesson 1: What Is Design Thinking?

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 19 mins.

Lesson 2: Stage 1: How to Build Empathy With the People You Design For

Available anytime after Apr 21, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 31 mins.

Lesson 3: Stage 2: How to Define the Problem

Available anytime after Apr 28, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 9 mins.

Lesson 4: Stage 3: How to Ideate for Solutions

Available anytime after May 05, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours 2 mins.

Lesson 5: Stage 4: Prototyping Your Ideas

Available anytime after May 12, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 43 mins.

Lesson 6: Stage 5: Testing Design Solutions

Available anytime after May 19, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 43 mins.

Lesson 7: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-Up

Available anytime after May 26, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 1 min.

How Others Have Benefited

Emma Brazil

Emma Brazil, Netherlands

“I love the diversity of approaches in teaching. Videos, images, graphs, handbooks, additional articles, multiple choice questions, and discussion topics. It kept me engaged and alert throughout the entire course. It was not just a 'walk in the park' course, and for that, I actually feel like I've learned many new valuable things - patting myself on the back with my completion.”

Mahar Nazir

Mahar Nazir, India

“The instructor's major strengths are her enthusiasm for the subject, her ability to make the material accessible to students of all levels, and her commitment to engaging students in an interactive learning experience. She is also flexible and accommodating when it comes to helping students work through challenging concepts. Her course is well-structured and organised, and she provides a variety of resources to support student learning. She takes the time to get to know her students and is available to answer any questions they may have.”

JINTO KACHIRAYIL MANI

JINTO KACHIRAYIL MANI, Canada

“The instructors have a deep understanding of the course topic and possess expertise in the subject matter they are teaching. Their knowledge and experience contributed to the credibility and quality of the course.”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

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Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide
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Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

1.3 - The History of Design Thinking

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:31

    I talk a lot about complex socio-technical systems. And sometimes people ask me, "Well, why – is that different than a wicked problem?" We don't use the word "wicked problem", because it's used too much and it has too many different meanings. And so, that's why we avoid that term. And it kind of is the same thing. The term "wicked problems" was invented some time ago,

  2. 00:00:31 --> 00:01:00

    and it refers to problems of the nature that well, sometimes it's even hard to define the problem. And it's hard to define the solution. And when you work on a wicked problem like world peace, how do you even know when you've succeeded? Because you may succeed for... there's peace for two years, and then it breaks out again. So, was that a success or not? So, wicked problems are these really difficult issues that are difficult to define, that are indeed complex systems,

  3. 00:01:00 --> 00:01:31

    that are indeed complex socio-technical systems, difficult to define, difficult to know how to approach, difficult to even know whether you've been successful. And, yeah, the ones I'm looking at are wicked complex social-technical problems. So, but don't give up hope, because we can never solve some of these major problems, but, however, we can make things better. We can make improvements. And that's often all that we can do,

  4. 00:01:31 --> 00:01:47

    but if we're continually making improvements and enhancements and making people's lives better across all of the world, I consider that a success. It means we're never finished, but I consider that a success, and that's what you have to do with wicked problems.

Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

1.6 - Design Thinking: How to Solve Problems in an Innovative Way

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:32

    Hi. I'm Don Norman, and over the many, many decades that I've been alive, I've transformed myself from – well, in the beginning, a technology nerd; and all I cared about was the latest circuit design and the latest new device, the latest new technology. And I've changed to now where I'm worried more and more and more about the state of the world,

  2. 00:00:32 --> 00:01:01

    about the many societal issues that we are facing – some of them are political; some of them are economic; some of them have to do with education, hunger, food, pure water, sanitation – *major issues*. How do we address them? Design is a *mechanism* because designers *do* things. They go out and they change the world. But we have to move design from designing small simple things to designing *systems*,

  3. 00:01:01 --> 00:01:32

    to designing *political systems*, to designing *solutions* to clean water and education and health care. How do we do that? Well, over the years I've come to develop something which we now call *human-centered design*. But we're talking about these big problems. It goes beyond individual people. So, is it really *human-centered*? Well, I could argue that yeah, it's human-centered

  4. 00:01:32 --> 00:02:00

    because suppose we say we focus on the tasks or the activities or the community or the full needs – it's still all about people in the end, but it's bigger than human-centered. So, lately, I've been entertaining the idea of letting HCD stand not for "Human-Centered Design", but maybe *Humanity-Centered Design*. Now, some people even criticize that, saying, "Well, shouldn't you be designing for the environment?"

  5. 00:02:00 --> 00:02:32

    And that's not part of humanity. You could kind of argue it *is* because the reason we had to worry about the environment is because humanity – humans – have destroyed the environment. But... I don't know... We have to *find a way* that really tackles the *most important* problem, but it has to be *small enough* that we can manage to *do something*. There are other issues. One is, I'm concerned about the way that we *do* design where experts come in and study and send out the anthropologists, understand what's going on

  6. 00:02:32 --> 00:03:01

    and come back with proposals that we present to the people who live there. And I think that's the wrong way – that's a dictatorship. That's the privileged people coming in and helping the poor underprivileged people. On top of that, most of us live in a *monoculture*. We live in a highly educated, usually a Western technology, a Western-based philosophy. And the "Western" includes, though, the developing nations in the East – in Asia, for example.

  7. 00:03:01 --> 00:03:32

    But because we're all learning from the same universities and we're reading the same books and we're going to the same conferences and we're talking to each other, so we all tend to be a monoculture – and we all think the same way. And that can be a danger. *Any* monoculture is bad. Planting the same plants all over is very efficient ... until a disease comes and wipes them all out at once! Whereas if we had many, many different plants, one disease couldn't wipe them all out. Monocultures are dangerous.

  8. 00:03:32 --> 00:04:02

    We all tend to think the same way. It's not working well. Or, it's not very robust and resilient when something happens. Now, there are other problems, too. The economic systems of the world I think are in bad shape. Adam Smith wrote this wonderful book called "The Wealth of Nations" in which he talked about *the invisible hand of the market* that can lead to wonderful results – just like when ants are all doing their little things,

  9. 00:04:02 --> 00:04:31

    no ant is intelligent, but the combination of millions of ants are incredibly intelligent. And that's what Smith was talking about. *Except*, that gets corrupted. And – in fact – in his book, he talked about the different ways that this could be corrupted by people *colluding*, trying to work the system to their own private benefit. And that's happened in the world now; too much of our economic system is being diverted from the rich and wealthy

  10. 00:04:31 --> 00:05:01

    *to* the rich and wealthy as opposed to everybody else. And so, we have huge discrepancies in availability of resources between the very wealthy and the very deprived. The political systems are also damaged. And, you know, the internet today has become *the internet of lies*. How do we know what's true and what's not true? How do we do *evidence-based thinking*, *evidence-based decision-making?

  11. 00:05:01 --> 00:05:30

    Too much of what we do is based on hearsay, anecdotes, folktales, rumors and downright lies where people deliberately try to misinform us so we might do something that is harmful for us and perhaps good for them. So, there are many, many different issues in this world and I am concerned about all of them, but I obviously can't address all of them. But what I *can* do is to try to band together with other people who might be addressing these similar issues, because I believe that

  12. 00:05:30 --> 00:06:01

    we must change *many* things in this world; we must change the economic model we're following; we must change the dependence upon a monoculture where we all tend to think similar ways and similar thoughts and we're ignoring a lot of the cultures that come from the non-Western technological traditions – cultures that are very valuable and could teach us a tremendous amount of things. So, that's what I worry about; that's what I lose sleep over, and that's what I hope to work on for the

  13. 00:06:01 --> 00:06:04

    few decades remaining in my life.

Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide

2.2 - What Is Empathy and Why Is It So Important in Design Thinking?

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  1. 00:00:00 --> 00:00:31

    Do you know this feeling? You have a plane to catch. You arrive at the airport. Well in advance. But you still get stressed. Why is that? Designed with empathy. Bad design versus good design. Let's look into an example of bad design. We can learn from one small screen.

  2. 00:00:31 --> 00:01:00

    Yes, it's easy to get an overview of one screen, but look close. The screen only shows one out of three schools. That means that the passengers have to wait for up to 4 minutes to find out where to check in. The airport has many small screenings, but they all show the same small bits of information. This is all because of a lack of empathy. Now, let's empathize with all users airport passengers,

  3. 00:01:00 --> 00:01:32

    their overall need to reach their destination. Their goal? Catch their plane in time. Do they have lots of time when they have a plane to catch? Can they get a quick overview of their flights? Do they feel calm and relaxed while waiting for the information which is relevant to them? And by the way, do they all speak Italian? You guessed it, No. Okay. This may sound hilarious to you, but some designers

  4. 00:01:32 --> 00:02:01

    actually designed it. Galileo Galilei, because it is the main airport in Tuscany, Italy. They designed an airport where it's difficult to achieve the goal to catch your planes. And it's a stressful experience, isn't it? By default. Stressful to board a plane? No. As a designer, you can empathize with your users needs and the context they're in.

  5. 00:02:01 --> 00:02:33

    Empathize to understand which goals they want to achieve. Help them achieve them in the best way by using the insights you've gained through empathy. That means that you can help your users airport passengers fulfill their need to travel to their desired destination, obtain their goal to catch their plane on time. They have a lot of steps to go through in order to catch that plane. Design the experience so each step is as quick and smooth as possible

  6. 00:02:33 --> 00:03:03

    so the passengers stay all become calm and relaxed. The well, the designers did their job in Dubai International Airport, despite being the world's busiest airport. The passenger experience here is miles better than in Galileo Galilei. One big screen gives the passengers instant access to the information they need. Passengers can continue to check in right away. This process is fast and creates a calm experience,

  7. 00:03:03 --> 00:03:31

    well-organized queues help passengers stay calm and once. Let's see how poorly they designed queues. It's. Dubai airport is efficient and stress free. But can you, as a designer, make it fun and relaxing as well? Yes.

  8. 00:03:31 --> 00:04:02

    In cheerful airport in Amsterdam, the designers turned parts of the airport into a relaxing living room with sofas and big piano chairs. The designers help passengers attain a calm and happy feeling by adding elements from nature. They give kids the opportunity to play. Adults can get some revitalizing massage. You can go outside to enjoy a bit of real nature.

  9. 00:04:02 --> 00:04:30

    You can help create green energy while you walk out the door. Charge your mobile, buy your own human power while getting some exercise. Use empathy in your design process to see the world through other people's eyes. To see what they see, feel what they feel and experience things as they do. This is not only about airport design. You can use these insights when you design

  10. 00:04:30 --> 00:04:39

    apps, websites, services, household machines, or whatever you're designing. Interaction Design Foundation.

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