Design Thinking

DESMA X 481.55

This course will introduce the concepts of design thinking and help you strengthen your insights, thinking skills, and ability to innovate as a designer.

View Course Options

What you can learn.

Prototyping and testing, interviewing for empathy, and persona mapping
Launch innovative design solutions across the spectrum of media
Complete a series of hands-on exercises and learn by doing
How to see solutions that would otherwise be invisible

About this course:

Design thinking is one of the most effective ways to strengthen your insights, thinking skills, and ability to innovate as a designer. Informed by Stanford's d.school, this multi-disciplinary process strengthens familiar skills that are often undervalued. You learn to launch successful and innovative design solutions across the spectrum of media, including web, print, and packaging. Class topics include prototyping and testing, rapid iteration, radical collaboration, empathetic observation, interviewing for empathy, persona mapping, assuming a beginner's mindset, introduction of complex problems, and testing and observation. Weekly assignments encourage you to learn by doing, and take you through a series of hands-on exercises. The goal of design thinking is not simply to innovate but also to create innovators. By the end of the class, you will see solutions that would otherwise be invisible, which become what we call "innovation."