Mobile App Design

I found this great infographic on Mobile App Design. Really interesting stats!

Courtesy of: zilliondesigns.com

Design Thinking

I recently attended a lecture on Design Thinking at my university. I had heard the term before and always considered it as a bit of a buzz word or trend.. I never realised how it could be applied to everyday problems and come up with workable solutions that positively impact the user experience. This doesn’t just apply to a web product, although that is mainly what I related to during the lecture.

The example that was given in the lecture was about a drink bottle. Many designers think to themselves “how can we make this bottle BETTER?” but the way Design Thinking teaches us is “what other ways can someone drink water?”. It is then, that people start innovating.

I followed this lecture up with a bit of independant research. It was then I could start to understand the process. According to Stanford University, Design thinking has 5 phases:

• Empathize: understanding the needs of those you are designing for.
• Define: framing problems as opportunities for creative solutions.
• Ideate: generating a range of possible solutions.
• Prototype: communicating the core elements of solutions to others.
• Test: learning what works and doesn’t work to improve solutions.

With this tool and frame of mind, we can start tackling problems in a more user focussed way, and when it comes to the web, our user is most important to us.

I have found this great little video on YouTube to help you get started!

Please comment below and start some discussion around this, I would love some insight into anyone who has experience with design thinking or is just interested in the topic!