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A lot of people say "duh" but when was the last time they actually prototyped anything in the work or personal lives before doing it? A lot of people may be "a

A lot of people say "duh" but when was the last time they actually prototyped anything in the work or personal lives before doing it? A lot of people may be "aspiring" to do it but few people actually do it. I worked at a relatively progressive, design-centric company and even there "design thinking" tended to be relegated to a handful of projects and wasn't the norm/default.

rorykoehler 8y ago
I do this for everything I do. Always did. Sometimes the prototype evolves into the product/service to save time but everything starts as a prototype. I don't know how else you could successfully deliver anything?
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  I never really understand the goal of comments like this. Since we don't have access to your entire work history, it is impossible for us to judge a claim that, literally, every single feature you've ever built in your entire career -- even that one about allowing people to export to CSV -- involved you following the steps of: "[On immersion] identify hidden needs by having the innovator live the customer’s experience." "The final stage in the discovery process is a series of workshops and seminar discussions" "In the next step, articulation, innovators surface and question their implicit assumptions." And so on. Design thinking isn't "building a prototype". That is but one small part among many. You have workshops for everything you build? You do contextual inquiries, sitting in a customer office all day to see what their interactions are like, for every feature you build? You sit down with paper prototypes (not even code yet) with actual customers? For every single feature you build? Even when a customer just wants a button to sort Column X? I guess I'm dubious but if you've managed to create a work environment where that's the expectation, then more power to you. Design thinking is time consuming and expensive. That is why it is rarely used.
  - rorykoehler 8y ago
    That's not what design thinking is for. Design thinking is one level up. You are creating a new product or large feature not some small aspect of a feature of said product (ie CSV export).
- munchbunny 8y ago
  I'm sure that if you tried, you could come up with good faith exceptions. The parable of Chesterton's fence comes to mind.

rorykoehler 8y ago

I do this for everything I do. Always did. Sometimes the prototype evolves into the product/service to save time but everything starts as a prototype. I don't know how else you could successfully deliver anything?

freddie_mercury 8y ago
I never really understand the goal of comments like this. Since we don't have access to your entire work history, it is impossible for us to judge a claim that, literally, every single feature you've ever built in your entire career -- even that one about allowing people to export to CSV -- involved you following the steps of: "[On immersion] identify hidden needs by having the innovator live the customer’s experience." "The final stage in the discovery process is a series of workshops and seminar discussions" "In the next step, articulation, innovators surface and question their implicit assumptions." And so on. Design thinking isn't "building a prototype". That is but one small part among many. You have workshops for everything you build? You do contextual inquiries, sitting in a customer office all day to see what their interactions are like, for every feature you build? You sit down with paper prototypes (not even code yet) with actual customers? For every single feature you build? Even when a customer just wants a button to sort Column X? I guess I'm dubious but if you've managed to create a work environment where that's the expectation, then more power to you. Design thinking is time consuming and expensive. That is why it is rarely used.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  That's not what design thinking is for. Design thinking is one level up. You are creating a new product or large feature not some small aspect of a feature of said product (ie CSV export).
munchbunny 8y ago
I'm sure that if you tried, you could come up with good faith exceptions. The parable of Chesterton's fence comes to mind.