Design Thinking Barcelona

A talk with Eva del Hoyo about her experience in engaging teams with high technical expertise in Design Thinking.

8 Apps to Turn Your Pipe Dreams Into Prototypes

These tools will allow you to create everything from a clickable version of your sketches to a more fully featured, proper prototype which can be used to raise funding, gauge interest or validate a potential market. They're all things that anyone can download or load up and start using in minutes - no technical or design skills are necessary

Board of Innovation has a great selection of paper prototyping tools: 

Paper prototyping is a commonly used method for testing and evaluating ideas in a very early stage of development. Mostly known for prototyping user interfaces, paper prototyping can also be used to make customer journeys, visualize ideas or just to have some fun. People say a picture is worth a thousand words.

The lean startup methodology, and its Minimal Viable Products strategy have grown hugely popular, but what are the challenges of applying lean startup and how can it be applied when working with external companies?

Inspired by both the scientific method and business optimization practices, the lean startup builds on three fundamental concepts:

Build: Drastically shorten each phase of the product development cycle, allowing the product to gain more feedback from customers and the market, and gain it more often. 

Measure: Gain feedback from customers in each product development cycle using both qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Learn: Derive learning from each product development cycle through actionable metrics. 

Read the full article at Frog's Designmind.

The guys of Design Staff, and Google Ventures Startup Lab did it again, an awesome workshop and guide to user research; the quick and dirty way. 

Complete worksheets and slides from the workshop

At Google Ventures Design Studio they use an approach to product development named: Design Sprint. Based on the principles of design thinking, design sprint is a five-day recipe for startups aimed to accelerate projects that are already in motion. This series of post provide a DIY guide to the process, including:

Before the sprint: Prepare 

Day 1: Understand 

Day 2: Diverge 

Day 3: Decide 

Day 4: Prototype 

Day 5: Validate 

We are very happy for the launch of Design Thinking, Business Innovation, a book by Brazilian firm MJV, written together with a group of internationally trained consultants. The book presents stages, techniques and tools illustrated through genuinely Brazilian cases to inspire and help in the work towards innovation. 

“Our book is addressed to professionals in all areas of business. Through it, we intend to cover both the genesis of innovation, as well methods and practices for its implementation.”

The Human-Centered Design Toolkit is a free innovation guide for social entreprises and NGO's.

In 2008 IDEO designed a toolkit of human-centered design so that the process of design thinking could be used by grassroots non-governmental organizations in the developing world. The guide walks you through the design process and gives practical guidance for the different phases.

POP is a free iPhone app that helps you make interactive prototype with ease. If you can draw, you can design apps. The workflow is ridiculously simple:

Design on Paper

Take Pictures

Link & Play

Complicated wireframing tools slow us down. Why not use the most efficient tools, pen & paper, to create prototypes? You simply take pictures of your wireframe, link these pictures, and it'll work on iPhone! 

Online learning gives the chance to access top-class learning material from the confort of our house. Now, you can join a Design Thinking Crash Course by the guys at d.school: 

We know not everyone can make a trip the d.school to experience how we teach design thinking. So, we created this online version of one of our most frequently sought after learning tools. Using the video, handouts, and facilitation tips below, we will take you step by step through the process of hosting or participating in a 90 minute design challenge.

Frog's Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) is a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. The toolkit provides a dynamic framework that integrates knowledge and action to solve challenges. Designed to harness the benefits of group action and the power of open sharing, the activities draw on each participant’s strengths and perspectives as the group works to accomplish a common goal.