Design Thinking for the Writer

Design Thinking for the Writer

A good writer is constantly on the lookout for new article ideas and knows how to tie random facts together to turn them into compelling reading. How to learn to think creatively and generate topics for publications?

The principles of design thinking are used not only in creative professions. Developers, startups, consultants and managers successfully practice “thinking outside the box” to solve business problems and increase the profitability of projects.

In the creative environment, the concept of design thinking became popular a couple of years ago, but the methodology itself appeared back in 1969. Its author is Herbert Simon, author of The Sciences of the Artificial. Later, design thinking methods began to be promoted at the Stanford Design Institute.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a problem solving method that involves going beyond stereotypes and rethinking habitual actions.

Design thinking evangelists suggest putting the interests of the user, consumer, or reader at the forefront. Think about the pains, fears, and challenges your target audience is facing. Determine how you can use the resources and tools you have to solve reader problems and benefit from it.

Design thinking is one way to act on a win/win strategy.

Stages of design thinking

According to the principles of design thinking, the process of creating and bringing a product to market consists of six stages. Writing an article can also be viewed as a project, but instead of commercializing the product, the author publishes the finished text. The stages of design thinking are divided into convergent and divergent.

Divergent stages involve the maximum expansion of the angle of view: turn off the internal censor and collect any, even the most absurd ideas. Screening and filtering occur at convergent stages.

Stage 1: Empathy. Describe the target audience of the project and build a portrait of a typical reader of a future article. Think about what is important to him, what worries him and motivates him. Determine what drives your target audience. The more you get used to the role of a potential reader, the more useful and practical the text of the future article will turn out to be. Empathy will help you go beyond your own interests and write about anything, be it finance or the theory of state and law.

Stage 2: Focus. Systematize the information that you received in the first stage. Mind mapping or using the MECE principle will help with this. At the second stage, you must formulate problems that you can solve with your article and select one specific problem that will become the basis of the publication. In the future, you will be able to return directly to the second stage and use those problems that were discarded.

Stage 3: Generation of ideas. Come up with as many ways to solve the problem as you can. Do not put yourself in limits and try to discard the most obvious answers. Combine proven solutions with creative theories, use foreign experience or the power of innovative technologies.

Stage 4: Choosing an idea. When you have at least 5-10 ideas, discard the craziest ones and move on to the next step.

Stage 5: Prototyping. Test ideas in practice. To do this, prepare to conduct an experiment or create a budget version of the product. For example, if you are studying the impact of an interface on user behavior, create multiple designs.

Stage 6: Testing. Test the prototype created in the previous step. Conduct an experiment, survey, or focus group. Learn from the experience of other researchers and entrepreneurs. At this stage, you should test the idea. If the testing was successful, you can publish the results of the study or launch the project. Otherwise, return to the fourth step and try to test an alternative idea.

Use design thinking to learn how to generate practical and innovative solutions. This skill will come in handy in any situation: from writing articles to solving a case at an interview in a dream company. For a better understanding of the principles of the methodology, read Rice Storm by Michael Mikalko or Design Thinking in Business by Tim Brown.

Author's Note

Not everyone can constantly generate topics and articles, even with a broad mindset, so writers who can essay help can always come to the rescue and find the right content for you. 

Reviews

[Spamalott]

So, once again, a spammer tries to convince people to cheat in school. But...

The author has no skill at formatting for HTML. And that will turn the reader away before they hit the second paragraph. And on seeing it posted, they made no effort to fix it. So their competence at the task is called into question before the first line is read.
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"A good writer is constantly on the lookout for new article ideas and knows how to tie random facts together to turn them into compelling reading.
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Under that definition, this is not a "good writer." Pedantic is a more appropriate term.
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"How to learn to think creatively and generate topics for publications?"
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Awkward.
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"The principles of design thinking are used not only in creative professions."
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"Design Thinking" is a term coined by Tim Brown. It's an attempt to codify what creative people do naturally. But while creativity can be nurtured and amplified, it cannot be taught. And there are no "creative professions," only creative people. A doctor who is a creative person is known as a diagnostician, or works in medical research. A plumber who is creative, becomes known as "the guy who can solve any problem."

And that ignores the fact that this sentence is awkwardly stated. Another demo that the author proably isn't a native speaker, and so, is just another spammer trying to use a small site with small traffic for SEO purpose. So on top of everything else, thay're not all that smart. But that's a defining characteristic of a spammer.

But all else aside, this person lied and called this a "story,"and, is offering to help people cheat in school. So in response, I posted a truthful and accurate review of their "Let me help you cheat" service on SiteJabber. And with each spam here I will post an additional review of it on another site.