DT Tools
10_Emotional Response Cards
What you can do with the tool:
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Before redesigning existing products, test their attractiveness and compare them with new ideas.
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Learn more about competing products, brands and experiences.
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Collect statements on strategy, information architecture, interaction, aesthetics, and speed.
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Vision: Already at the kickoff, the client learns how he wants his product to be characterized by the user.
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For new products, e.g. after a usability test, learn what the user experienced, thought and felt.
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Compare prototypes across different iterations.
17_Trend analysis
What you can do with the tool:
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Explore megatrends, trends and their points of contact.
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Visualise the larger context of trends and discuss with the Design Thinking Team or clients whether and how the trends interact.
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Avoid a too simple, subjective and possibly monocausal view of a development and find holistic approaches.
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To identify and present overlaps and causal relationships between trends and to draw conclusions about the possible significance of a trend.
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Gain valuable contextual information about the problem or idea.
Define /Point of View
18_HMW-question
What you can do with the tool:
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Transforming a latent need into a design challenge.
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Write down the goal of the later idea generation and the intention with the Design Thinking Team in a concrete sentence.
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Define the scope and framework of the idea-finding process. ​
19_Storytelling
What you can do with the tool:
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Research, talk to people and create empathy to formulate profound stories.
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Summarize results from the Understanding and Observing phase and discuss them with the team.
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Highlight the unexpected and create new perspectives.
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Generally share knowledge, ideas, but also results (solutions) with others.
20_Context Mapping
What you can do with the tool:
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Learning from an "expert": the user who gives unexpected insights into what he is going through in his life.
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Make a bigger picture of a particular situation. How do others experience these experiences? When will they experience this? With whom and in what context?
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Follow the principle: "Knowledge is information with additional context." To create true knowledge, the context must be known and this tool helps to create this awareness.
21_Define Success
What you can do with the tool:
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A coordination and unity in the team to achieve which success should be achieved.
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Ensure that requirements of the organization/management/users and other stakeholders are understood so that it is easier later to get a buy-in from the decision makers.
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Simplify the selection and prioritization of options throughout the project.
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To create a basis for measuring via KPIs, if any are desired for the project.
22_Vision Cone
What you can do with the tool:
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Get a feel for changes over time.
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Think in periods and sections, for example, from the past to the future by mapping different results over time.
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Sketch a projected, plausible, possible, preferred or absurd future.
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Linking visions with concrete next steps.
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To show the potential of all possibilities, for example with regard to technological and sociological developments.
23_Critical Items Diagram
What you can do with the tool:
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To process the results from the phases of understanding and observing and to filter out the decisive elements.
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Prepare the phases "Finding ideas" and "Developing prototypes" and thus create a good starting point.
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Help the team to understand and agree on the things that are essential for the project.
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Derive various How-might-we questions.
24_Brainstorming
What you can do with the tool:
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Generate many ideas that spontaneously come to the team's mind.
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Utilize the full creative potential of the Design Thinking Team.
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Immediately have a large number of variants available.
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To obtain an interdisciplinary view of a problem that represents different competences.
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Collect ideas and perspectives from a heterogeneous group.
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Awaken enthusiasm and create momentum.
25_2x2 Matrix
What you can do with the tool:
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Quickly determine which ideas to pursue and which ideas to discard.
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Get a first overview of which ideas already have a certain maturity.
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Perform strategic innovations, market opportunities and many other categorizations and prioritization of ideas.
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Use it wherever decisions need to be made.
26_Dot Voting
What you can do with the tool:
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Make joint decisions within the team.
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Restrict the selection and thus simplify and prioritize.
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Make faster decisions and avoid lengthy "analysis paralyses".
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Resolve disagreements in teams and avoid power games.
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Include the views of all stakeholders in the decision-making process.
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Finally, focus on the best ideas and market opportunities.
27_6-3-5-Methode
What you can do with the tool:
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Either generate new ideas or further develop existing ideas and simply document them.
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To introduce inexperienced workshop participants to brainwriting and the rules of brainstorming in a structured way with an easy to learn approach.
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In quiet individual work, grasp the creative potential also of people who are rather reserved in open group situations.
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Promote the generation of fancy ideas through the explicit separation of idea generation and idea evaluation.
28_Special Brainstorming
What you can do with the tool:
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Generate a large number of ideas in a limited time,
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Encourage mutual exchange and active listening between group members to build on collected ideas.
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Take different perspectives through different approaches and look at a problem from different angles.
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Increase creativity in different ways, e.g. through negative brainstorming, figuring storming or body storming.
29_Analogies & Benchmarking
What you can do with the tool:
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Generate ideas that lead to a WOW effect.
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Explain ideas and complex facts through analogies in an understandable way.
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Find inspiration by comparing problems and their solutions from another area with our problem.
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Integrate supportive cognitive thought processes that are necessary for open and poorly structured problems (so-called ill-defined and wicked problems).
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Unleash your full creativity in combination with Sketch Notes.
30_NABC
What you can do with the tool:
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Quickly grasp the core of an idea, concept or prototype.
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Ensuring that the user/customer is in the focus by starting with the question about the customer problem and then intensively addressing the customer's needs.
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Consider an idea under the four different aspects Need (problem/need), Approach (solution/performance promise), Benefit (benefit) and Competition (alternative/competition).
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Present an idea at an early stage and obtain important feedback.
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Compare different ideas/concepts with each other.
31_Blue Ocean & Buyer Utility Map
What you can do with the tool:
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Explore new untapped market opportunities.
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Provide differentiated and new services based on user needs.
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Adapt a strategy to new market needs by understanding the competitive advantage.
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Establish the appropriate vision for the Design Challenge or a roadmap for the step-by-step implementation and control mechanisms.
35_MVP
What you can do with the tool
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Find out at an early stage whether the basic need is satisfied and the product is of interest to the market.
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Iterative testing to determine whether the user's needs can be satisfied with a minimally functional product and how this can best be expanded.
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Find out through user feedback how much the product is in demand before further details and features are developed.
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Minimize the risk of investing in a solution for which there is too little market demand, saving time, money and energy.
01_Problem Statement
What you can do with the tool:
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Develop a common understanding of a problem with the client and in the team.
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Formulate collected findings from the problem analysis into a Design Challenge.
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Define the direction and framework for generating ideas.
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Form the basis for the formulation of a target-oriented How-might-we question (so-called HMW questions).
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Develop a reference for later performance measurement.
02_Design Principles
What you can do with the tool:
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At the beginning of the project, we focus clearly on a specific mindset or requirements for the product or service.
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Obtain a common understanding in the team concerning the assignment.
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Provide guidance so that decisions can be made more quickly within the design team.
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Define overarching characteristics which should be treated with higher priority.
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Develop a guideline that ensures that future design challenges are created on the same overarching principles.
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03_Interview for Empathy
What you can do with the tool:
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Gain a good understanding of a user's needs, emotions, motivations and ways of thinking.
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Gain insights that are not visible in a superficial view, such as frustration and deeper motivations of a user.
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In the context of use, find out which task sequence the user has to perform and which mental model he bases this on.
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Validate information already gained and gain new insights.
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Establish a good basis for discussions with the Design Thinking Team.
04_Explorative Interview
What you can do with the tool:
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Explore the everyday life of people.
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Gain a deep understanding of the user and his unspoken needs.
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Get a view of the basic values, beliefs, motivations and aspirations that influence behavior.
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Create a mindset that does not focus on the product, but on people and their needs.
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Explore cultural and social aspects that may influence the satisfaction of needs.
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Minimize risks at an early stage, identify opportunities and examine initial concept ideas.
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Explore the everyday life of people
05_Question 5x Why
What you can do with this great guy:
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Discover the root cause of a problem.
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Develop a sustainable solution.
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Go deep and experience more than just superficially exploring the symptoms that are obvious.
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Dig deeper and deeper to gain new surprising insights
06_5Wh questions
What you can do with the tool:
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Obtain new knowledge and information and grasp the problem or situation in a structured way.
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Draw conclusions from concrete observations of a specific situation to more abstract, potential emotions and motives.
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During the observation phase, use "W-Questions" to observe more closely and dig deeper for new insights.
07_JTBD
What you can do with the tool:
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Structured recording of customer tasks (jobs to be done) and gaining new insights.
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To find hidden tasks of the customer that have not yet been pronounced, in order to derive or sharpen customer needs later.
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Also optimize the entire customer experience, for example to give a service a clear purpose.
08_Extreme & Lead User
What you can do with the tool:
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Explore the needs of users who are average users unable to articulate.
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Finding new innovative ideas.
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Identify early trends in user behavior or needs.
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Find ideas for a more integrative design.
09_Stakeholder Map
What you can do with the tool:
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Receive valuable information for strategic and communicative planning and future activities.
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Make assumptions about the influence of certain actors on the project.
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Identify indications of missing information on actors, e.g. which actors have not yet been sufficiently considered (white spots).
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Identify initial conclusions about alliances or power relations as well as potential conflicts between different stakeholders.
Understand
Observe
11_Empathy Map
What you can do with the tool:
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Document findings from observations or tests with users and capture the user from different perspectives in order to build empathy.
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Better understand where the user has problems (Pains) or possible advantages (Gains), and derive his tasks (so-called Jobs to be done).
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Gather insights to create a persona.
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Summarize observations more easily and capture unexpected insights.
12_Persona & User Profile
What you can do with the tool:
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Create a fictitious character that is a potential user/customer of a solution.
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Create a common image of the user/customer in the team
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Visualize the goals, wishes and needs of a typical user/customer and share them with the design team.
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Gain a consistent understanding of a target group.
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Document stories and images that a typical user/customer experiences.
13_Customer Journey Map
What you can do with the tool:
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Establish a common understanding in the team about the experiences of customers with a company, product or service.
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"Moments of misery that affect the customer experience.
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Get a good understanding of all the customer's touchpoints.
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Close issues and gaps in customer interaction and realize a unique experience.
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Create a new and improved customer experience.
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Develop new products and services in a customer-oriented manner.
14_AEIOU
What you can do with the tool:
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Bring structure into observation and ask the right W questions, which are decisive for gaining knowledge.
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Facilitate the evaluation of many findings by larger design teams performing parallel observations.
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To relate the user to the activity, to the space and to an object.
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Gather knowledge that is not public.
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Insights can also be collected by inexperienced design teams, because the AEIOU tool provides structure and guidance.
15_Analysis-Question-Builder
What you can do with the tool:
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Identify relevant influencing factors which form the basis for a new or improved product or service and then analyse them in a targeted manner.
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Prevent not being creative enough in the analysis process because the focus is on technical "details".
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Increase efficiency in the analysis process by avoiding idle times.
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Use a standardized procedure to re-examine the problem and solution space with the help of data.
16_Peers Observing Peers
What you can do with the tool:
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To explore the behaviour and needs of a user in a "natural" and inconspicuous way.
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Gain a better understanding of the problem or design challenge that has been defined.
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New insights are gained into how the problem is solved today, which workarounds are applied and how the process is lived in the real world.
Find ideas
Prototype
32_Exploration Map
What you can do with the tool:
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Make visible what kind of experiments were carried out and what prototypes were realized.
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Get a quick overview of which experiments or prototypes can still be performed.
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Record the delta between an expected and actual result of an experiment.
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Gain a common understanding of the experiments carried out so far in the team.​
33_Prototype to Test
What you can do with the tool:
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Let the user experience the idea and observe how he interacts with the prototype.
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Deepen the understanding of the potential user.
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Validate needs and verify assumptions.
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Get feedback on different dimensions of desirability, feasibility and feasibility.
34_Service Blueprint
What you can do with the tool:
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Extend the Customer Journey Map by including supporting technologies, data and customer interactions for each phase of the journey.
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Address key issues in the development of new products or services, such as whether a service covers all customer needs and all pains have been removed.
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Visualize the interactions with a customer on different levels (e.g. frontstage, backstage, supporting processes).
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Define key performance indicators (KPIs) in terms of quality and time of interactions
Test
36_Testing Sheet
What you can do with the tool:
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Systematically plan a test and define the roles.
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Document the test and results so that they can be easily used for the next activities.
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Consider in advance which are the test criteria and in which cases the hypotheses are considered verified in order to validate the needs and test assumptions.
37_Feedback-Capture-Grid
What you can do with the tool:
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Test the first prototypes quickly and easily using four defined questions.
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Record, collect and cluster test results in writing.
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Sharpen theses on problems as well as solutions, personas and ideas and further develop prototypes on the basis of the findings.
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In general, write down feedback on ideas, presentations, etc. quickly and easily in a structured way.
38_Experience Testing
What you can do with the tool:
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Leave the fantasy world and conquer the real world by exploring the prototype with real customers.
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Find out if it really works as intended for the users/customers.
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Learn whether the idea will lead to success or not.
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Get feedback: "love it", "change it" or "leave it".
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With the right questions, collect qualitative and quantitative data to identify whether problems arise during experience or use.
39_Solution Interview
What you can do with the tool:
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Understand whether an intended solution is valued by users, i.e. whether it is convincing in terms of functionality, user-friendliness and user experience.
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To question the task on which the project is based, i.e. to check whether the project concentrates on the decisive questions.
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Understand the needs, behaviours and motivations of users/customers more deeply.
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To measure the value of the solution for the user.
40_Structured Usability Testing
What you can do with the tool:
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Using defined test scenarios (tasks), observe the interaction between user and system (prototype).
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Check and compare the correctness of the assumptions, solutions and concepts made with the user.
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Get new inputs for improvement or completely new ideas.
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Gain deeper insight into the problem by testing existing products.
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Improve usability iteratively through testing and subsequent optimization
41_A/B Testing
What you can do with the tool:
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Perform a real A/B test or several variants of a prototype in the form of multi-variant test / split testing.
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Make a quantitative evaluation.
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Conduct a qualitative survey and evaluate the number and content of feedback.
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Compare individual variants of a function or a prototype (e.g. button, visuals, arrangement) with each other.
Reflect
42_I like, I wish, I wonder
What you can do with the too:
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Anchor it firmly in the team as a feedback ritual in which only "I like, I wish" or supplemented with "I wonder" is permitted as feedback (IL/IW/IW for short).
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Small successes, which were achieved by an iteration, a prototype or in a test, celebrate with it.
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Make a part of the reflection and the brainstorming, e.g. extended by "What if..." and an idea parking.
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Giving and receiving feedback in written and spoken form.
43_Retrospective
What you can do with the tool:
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Improve team interaction and collaboration - in a fast, focused, respectful and structured way.
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Take a "RETRO-SPECTIVE", i.e. look back at what went well and what could be improved.
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Reflect which factors are changeable and which are to be accepted.
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Foster a positive atmosphere, as all team members are heard and can get involved, which in turn promotes the mindset of self-organized teams.
44_Create a pitch
What you can do with the tool:
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Show the team and stakeholders the current status of the prototype, a project or the final solution.
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Structuring ideas and highlighting the essential statements.
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Get feedback on the solution and key features, customer needs or value proposition.
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Convince the audience or decision-makers of the project in order to obtain approval and resources for further action or implementation.
45_Lean Canvas
What you can do with the tool:
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Summarize the results of the Design Thinking iterations and give everyone a clear picture of the innovation project.
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Visualize and structure the hypotheses in order to then test them and record the findings in an overview.
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Consider implementation or the business model to identify the risks associated with implementation.
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Compare different variants and business models.
46_Lessons Learned
What you can do with the tool:
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Gather experience in the project in a structured way and process it.
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Learning from experience and using it for the next project.
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Enable a positive handling of mistakes and appreciate good progress.
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Identifying, documenting, applying and finally making use of the findings.
47_Roadmap Implementation
What you can do with the tool:
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Use the Roadmap for Implementation as a guide to determine the current position (A) and the destination "Where to go" (B).
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Maintain an overview and determine whether the right destination area and target group will be considered during the trip.
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Sharing the path to the goal with others.
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Develop the basis for a checklist with the most important success factors.
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Make clear an undefined path from A to B through iterations in the course of the journey.
48_Growth & Scale Funnel
What you can do with the tool:
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Document a portfolio of existing customer requirements (today's markets) and future customer requirements (tomorrow's markets).
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Focus on the contribution margin and sales of existing customers and technologies through extrapolation.
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Track opportunities in new ecosystems, technologies and market roles through retropolation.
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Demonstrate the market validation of prototypes, proof of concepts and finished solutions over time.
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Replace existing innovation funnels with modern terminologies and approaches
49_Agenda Planer
What you can do with the tool:
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The preparation of a 1-5 day workshop.
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Plan and keep an eye on the most important steps of the preparation.
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Record an overview of the workshop participants.
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Plan different tools and methods over the duration of the event.
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Plan the follow-up and documentation.
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Reflect retrospectively on what went well and what went less well. .
50_Digital Transformation
What you can do with the tool:
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Transform a business model based on new technological requirements.
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Better meet customer needs, increase efficiency and reduce costs.
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Redefine physical and digital channels and provide customers with a unique experience.
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Initialize a realignment of the business to remain sustainable.