Plated
Innovation Through Design Thinking Coursework
DIS Copenhagen Study Abroad Course
Leveraging the Design Thinking process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—I collaborated with a team of four entrepreneurs to develop an innovative application designed to help DIS students navigate food exploration while managing their budgets effectively.
Empathize
When tackling a problem , the first and most crucial step is empathy. It’s essential to put yourself in the user’s shoes to truly understand the core of the issue. As a designer, assuming you fully grasp the problem without firsthand insights can lead to misguided solutions. The empathy phase ensures that you uncover what users genuinely need. To achieve this, my team conducted surveys, observations, and cultural probe interviews, gathering valuable insights directly from the users.
Define
The next step in the process is defining the core problem. To do this, we created an empathy map to synthesize our findings and gain a deeper understanding of the users' experiences. From there, we developed a clear and actionable "How Might We" statement to guide our solution.
Ideate
Once the problem was defined, we utilized brainstorming techniques to generate a variety of creative ideas for an innovative solution.
Prototype
After exploring various ideas during ideation, we selected a clear and focused direction. We began the prototyping phase by creating a storyboard to visualize the solution. This was followed by developing low-fidelity prototypes, wireframes, and finally, high-fidelity prototypes to bring the concept to life.
