Design Thinking Online Course
Impactful Innovation Through Design
The main characteristic of design thinking, as an approach to innovation, is its deep understanding of the stakeholders. It focuses on research into the customer, citizen, or user and their context, needs, goals, and aspirations. Design thinking can be employed in developing products, services, processes, business models, and strategies. It involves early prototyping and iterative testing of potential solutions using a practical methodology and process. In this way, important decisions are made early in the development process, saving resources towards the end of the process when changes are more expensive.
The Design Thinking online course gives a concise overview of this human-centric process and tools for all of its phases.
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By completing the course, you will get an Aalto EE Design Thinking certificate worth 2 ECTS. |
Benefits
Design thinking can be employed to innovate products, services, processes, business models, and strategies. By employing a human-centric approach to innovation and development, important decisions can be made early in the development process. This will save you a significant amount of time and resources towards the end of the process when making changes is more complicated and expensive. By validating or co-creating your designs with stakeholders, your pursuits are more likely to succeed.
For
This course is for anyone who wants to understand design thinking as an approach, a process, and a set of practical tools.
Whether you are accountable for obtaining measurable results through a systematic process or working in developing products or services, marketing, business models, sales, customer relations, or human resources, you will benefit from this course.
The Course Workbook
As practice is more likely to result in learning than just listening, in this online course we offer hands-on activities through which you can tackle a challenge in your personal or professional environment. Maybe you would like to work in a small team to leverage different perspectives in discussions? You will have the opportunity to work individually or in a small team of up to about five participants.
While going through this course, it is important to stay focused on personal growth. Learning how to apply a design process and using these methods for the first time can take you out of your comfort zone. Take time to reflect. Consider what works, what resonates, and what you could do differently next time as you adapt the tools to your context and preferences.
The course will provide you with a workbook, which can be accessed as a PDF, as well as a Mural template that you can copy to your personal workspace.
Contents and Schedule
The course covers topics from creating value with design thinking through to the process and different tools and templates for applying the methodology in practice. The course also addresses the question of how to scale up design thinking and obtain buy-in for development pursuits in your organization.
The course videos are subtitled in English.
The estimated study time for the course is 54 hours. The recommended study schedule for the course is 8–9 hours per week over 6–7 weeks. However, the course allows flexible study patterns; you can decide on your own schedule and the speed of your progress.
Structure
Seven online modules
26 videos of approximately 5 minutes each
Workbook
Apply it to a business challenge in your organization
Curated list of reading
Expand your knowledge with the help of a list of recommended readings
Modules
Module 1: Preparing
- Theory. Introducing Design Thinking: A Human-Centered Approach to Innovation
- Inspiration. How Design Thinking Saved IBM Millions and Boosted Employee Morale
- Inspiration. How Fairphone Redefined Success by Focusing on Unmet Stakeholder Needs
- Application. Mapping Stakeholders
Module 2: Understanding the Issue Context and Stakeholders
- Theory. Why Deep User Understanding to Challenge Predispositions is Key
- Inspiration. How General Electric Empathised with Extreme Users to Create a Child-Friendly MRI Experience
- Inspiration. How Golden Gate Regional Center’s User Journeys Supported Improving Siloed Systems and Fractured Support
- Application. Engaging Stakeholders and Making Sense of Their Stories
Module 3: Framing Design Challenges
- Theory. Why Problem Framing Matters to Challenge Assumed Universal Clarity and Understanding
- Inspiration. How Rethinking the Underlying Motivation Led to Safer Accident and Emergency Experiences
- Inspiration. How Reframing the Challenge Led to a Secure and Authentic Sydney Opera House
- Application. Crafting Design Challenges Incorporating Underlying Motivations
Module 4: Ideating an Abundance of Solution Directions
- Theory. Unleashing Creativity by Challenging Normative Constraints and Pushing Boundaries
- Inspiration. How Jalo Helsinki Reimagined the Smoke Alarm by Challenging a Stubborn Assumption
- Inspiration. How Reframing the Challenge Led to a Secure and Authentic Sydney Opera House
- Application. Crafting Design Challenges Incorporating Underlying Motivations
Module 5: Prototyping for a Solution Idea Direction
- Focused Learning on Desirability through Prototyping
- Inspiration. How an IDEO Designer’s Rough Prototype Created Immediate Clarity
- Inspiration. Exploring Several Forms of Prototypes
- Application. Uncovering Hidden Assumptions to Prototype through Storyboarding
Module 6: Testing Form, Function, or Use Context
- Theory. Testing Assumptions to Inform Next Iterations
- Inspiration. How James Dyson kept Prototyping and Iterating
- Application. Conducting Meaningful Prototype Testing and Iterating
Module 7: Proceeding
- Theory. Building Buy-In for Solution Ideas and Taking Action in Organizations
- Theory. Cultivating Creativity in Organisations
- Application. Engaging Stakeholders in Design Thinking Initiatives through Storytelling
Instructor
Floris van der Marel
Floris van der Marel is a design educator and researcher at Aalto University Design Factory, a multidisciplinary experimentation platform in over 40 institutions worldwide. His research and facilitation work focuses on democratizing workplaces by amplifying unheard voices in design and organizational development.
Passionate about exploring tensions and meeting people who think and do things differently, he has amassed considerable experience in designing, facilitating, and researching Participatory Design practice in several contexts, e.g., for the European Union in Vietnam, for MIT’s International Design Centre in Singapore, for Future Design Factory in the Netherlands and Swinburne University Design Factory Melbourne in Australia. Floris van der Marel holds DSc and DA degrees from Aalto and Swinburne University, respectively, with a thesis exploring social dynamics influencing employee voice in various organizational contexts. He also holds MSc and MS degrees from Delft University of Technology and Middle East Technical University, where he studied Design Research for Interaction.
