--- title: "Design Thinking" url: "https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/design-thinking" language: "en" description: "What is design thinking? A plain-language guide to the five d.school phases, with an example and practical tips. Learn how to use the approach well." published: "2026-10-14T15:19:31+02:00" updated: "2026-10-14T15:19:31+02:00" --- # Design Thinking Design thinking is an approach that helps teams understand a problem from the perspective of the people affected and then develop, try out and improve solutions in quick loops. - **Buchstabe:** D - **Englischer Begriff:** Design Thinking UX glossary · engl. Design Thinking # Design Thinking Design thinking is an approach that helps teams understand a problem from the perspective of the people affected and then develop, try out and improve solutions in quick loops. Imagine a public library that has been losing members for years. Management wants to commission an app because “everyone has an app now.” One team suggests finding out first why people stay away. After a few conversations, a pattern appears: many visitors never came for the books. They were looking for a quiet place to work, and there are hardly any. That shift in perspective is the heart of design thinking. ## Explained simply Design thinking is a way of solving problems where, at the start, nobody really knows what the problem is. Instead of building a solution right away, you first look at the people affected, reframe the actual problem and then try out several ideas quickly and cheaply. Think of a good doctor. She doesn’t prescribe medication the moment you say “headache.” She asks questions, observes, forms a hypothesis and checks whether the treatment works. Design thinking applies the same pattern to products, services and processes. The approach was shaped mainly by the design firm IDEO and the d.school at Stanford University, which officially opened in 2005 under IDEO founder David Kelley. Tim Brown, then CEO of IDEO, helped popularize it with his 2008 Harvard Business Review article “Design Thinking.” In Germany, the HPI School of Design Thinking in Potsdam has offered courses since 2007. ## The five phases The d.school describes five phases, which it calls “modes”: 1. **Empathize:** Observe people, talk to them and learn about their daily lives, for example through [user research](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/user-research). 2. **Define:** Condense what you learned into a clear problem statement, often with the help of a [persona](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/persona). 3. **Ideate:** Collect lots of ideas without judging them right away. 4. **Prototype:** Make the best ideas tangible quickly, for instance as a paper [prototype](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/prototype). 5. **Test:** Try the prototypes with real people and learn from what happens. Keep in mind that the phases are not an assembly line. Nielsen Norman Group stresses that teams keep jumping back, for example from testing to empathizing. It also adds a sixth phase: implementation. A related model with a similar logic is the [Double Diamond](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/double-diamond). ## An example Back to the library. Before: management plans an app with catalog search and loan renewals. The budget and the agency are already lined up. After: the team holds ten short interviews, defines the problem as “people can’t find a quiet place to work in town” and spends two weeks testing a simple reservation system for reading room seats using a notice board and a form. The seats book up fast. Only then does management decide where digital development is actually worth the money. ## Common misconceptions Design thinking isn’t a two-day workshop full of colorful sticky notes. Without real conversations with the people affected and without testing, it’s just theater. It also isn’t reserved for designers. Mixed teams from engineering, business and design benefit the most. To see how it fits with agile workflows, read [How to Easily Use Agile UX in Your Project](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/blog/how-to-use-agile-ux-in-your-project). ## In practice - **Talk to real people.** Even five to ten conversations often bring surprises that no office meeting ever will. - **Frame the problem before collecting solutions.** A good problem statement describes who wants to achieve what and where they get stuck. - **Test cheaply and early.** Paper, a notice board or a clickable draft is enough to check an idea before money goes into building it. ## Related terms [Double Diamond](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/double-diamond), [Human-Centered Design](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/human-centered-design), [Prototype](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/prototype), [User Research](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/user-research) ## Sources - [Stanford d.school: Design Thinking Bootleg. Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, 2018](https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg) - [Sarah Gibbons: Design Thinking 101. Nielsen Norman Group, 2016](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/design-thinking/) - [Tim Brown: Design Thinking. Harvard Business Review, 2008](https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking) - [Hasso Plattner Institute: Five years of HPI School of Design Thinking. HPI, 2012](https://hpi.de/pressemitteilungen/2012/five-years-of-hpi-school-of-design-thinking-a-success-story.html) ## More terms [ ### A/B Testing An A/B test is an experiment that shows two versions of a page or element at the same time to randomly split groups of visitors. It lets you decide with real data which version works better. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/a-b-testing) [ ### ARIA ARIA is a W3C standard that adds roles, states and properties to HTML. It tells screen readers what an element is and how it currently behaves. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/aria) [ ### Accessibility Accessibility means designing websites, apps and digital documents so that everyone can use them, including people with visual, hearing, motor or cognitive disabilities. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/accessibility) [ ### Affordance An affordance describes what action an object makes possible and whether people can recognize it: a button invites you to press it, a handle invites you to pull. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/affordance) [ ### Alt Text Alt text is a short text version of an image, stored in the HTML alt attribute. Screen readers read it aloud so people who can’t see the image get the same information. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/alt-text) [ ### Atomic Design Atomic Design is a method for building user interfaces from small, reusable building blocks, from single elements like buttons all the way up to complete pages. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/atomic-design) [ ### BFSG The BFSG, Germany’s Accessibility Strengthening Act, has required many companies since 28 June 2025 to make certain products and digital services, such as online shops, accessible. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/bfsg) [ ### Card Sorting Card sorting is a research method in which people sort terms written on cards into groups. It shows you how they mentally organize content, so you can plan navigation that makes sense to them. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/card-sorting) [ ### Cognitive Load Cognitive load is the mental effort it takes to understand and use an interface. The less unnecessary thinking a design demands, the easier the actual task becomes. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/cognitive-load) [ ### Color Vision Deficiency A color vision deficiency means someone has a harder time telling certain colors apart than most people. The most common type is red-green deficiency. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/color-vision-deficiency) [ ### Contextual Inquiry Contextual inquiry is a research method where you observe and interview people in their real work environment. It shows you how they actually get tasks done, not just how they describe it. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/contextual-inquiry) [ ### Contrast Ratio The contrast ratio describes how much two colors differ in brightness, such as text and background. WCAG requires at least 4.5:1 for normal text. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/contrast-ratio)