How Design Thinking Helps Meet User Expectations

If you take the time and resources to create a mobile app for your business, you want to make sure it lives up to user's expectation. If you’ve decided that your business needs an app, the next important step is designing an app that your customers will want to use. There are certain expectations about the appearance and functionality that need to be met from the very first moment.

Design thinking is one of the best ways to meet those expectations. Over the course of the development process, design thinking constantly considers what the end user will experience. This is important because it is easy to move further from those expectations as people get caught up in the details.

Defining Design Thinking

Design thinking focuses on identifying problems from the end user's experience and determines the best way to resolve those problems from the user’s perspective. The process has six steps.

1. Empathize with the end user to find problems, particularly issues that don’t appear to be a problem to developers. This step usually requires doing research to be able to approach the design from the end user’s perspective. There is usually a wealth of information about similar apps, so you can find a lot of details about what users want and what they don’t like about those apps.
2. Define those problems based on your research and any input you have from your existing customers.
3. Brainstorm the best ways to resolve problems from the findings. This will probably include solutions that are known and in use for other apps, but you want to try to come up with new solutions as well. You should have a number of solutions before moving to the next part of the process.
4. Develop the prototype based on between one and three of the solutions from the brainstorming session.
5. Test the prototype, potentially using some of your end users in alpha and beta testing. They will provide the best feedback as they won’t know about the previous steps, so they will be coming from a new user's perspective. You may need to go through several iterations to get the best results.
6. Implement your final product – which for your app will mean launching it out to all of your customers.

How This Process Applies to Your App

Design thinking is not just for technology, but it is a way of thinking of solutions for customers. It is far easier to see how it works with apps because most people understand them from an end user's perspective. You also have the added benefit of knowing the business. This can help you come up with some unique ways to resolve issues your customers could face.

Making a Real Impression

With so many available apps, it can be difficult to stand out from the competition. Using your knowledge of the business, you can help to come up with new ways to present information that may be easier for your customers to use in an app. Knowing what problems customers have with other similar apps gives you a significant advantage as you can launch an app that already addresses their concerns.

Design thinking ensures that you keep the end user in mind throughout the development process. The easier an app is to use and the more benefits users feel an app offers, the more likely they are to keep using that app. It is a good reminder not to get too caught up in the development or business side of your app, and that is something that will give you a distinct advantage.