Design Thinking 101: A Practical Course with Exercises

1. Why draw it: visual models before theory

A good diagram lets you reason by looking instead of remembering. The relationships are on the page, so your memory doesn’t have to hold them. This course gives you one diagram, then puts you to work inside it.

Evidence (📈) sits apart from the row. It is anything you can measure in reality, not something you hold.

Do. Draw your last project from memory as a row of boxes. At each moment, what did you have in hand: a question, an insight, a list of ideas, a decision, a prototype, some evidence?

2. Design thinking is an algorithm

The input is a question. The output is evidence about a solution. In between, there are five transformations:

1. Understand: question → insight
2. Ideate: insight → ideas
3. Decide: ideas → decision
4. Prototype: decision → prototype
5. Test: prototype → evidence

Converging means making a decision. A prototype is a decision made tangible. The order is flexible: you can enter anywhere and jump anywhere. Skipping a step is not allowed. Testing is understanding again: it closes the loop and opens the next question.

Picture each step as an environment. You enter holding one interface (in a quick exercise, a sticky note with a question) and you leave holding another (a sticky note with an insight). The output of one environment is the input of the next. The work travels through them like a vehicle, one transition at a time.

Because the algorithm names artifacts and not a medium, it works in any design discipline: a service, an object, a space, a policy, a digital product.

Do. Label each box with an artifact from a real project. Which box is empty?

3. The algorithm is recursive: one model, every scale

Any step can be solved by running the five steps inside it. Deciding which idea to prototype has its own question, insight, ideas, decision, prototype and evidence. So does designing one screen, one product, or the way a whole organization designs. The model stays the same; only the scale changes.

That is where its power lies. You learn one clear, simple model and apply it with flexibility: to structure the screen you need to design today, and to structure the end-to-end design process of an organization.

Do. Take one step of your case (for example, Prototype) and write the five steps inside it. What are its question, insight, ideas, decision, prototype and evidence?

4. Inside each step: the blackboard

Every step is a controlled environment. In the middle sits a shared surface: a wall, a board, a Figma file. Around it, people with different expertise contribute to that surface when they have something to add. One person facilitates: they decide who contributes when, keep the surface readable, and close the step when its output is ready.

The model comes from classical AI blackboard systems. In those systems, independent knowledge sources write to a shared blackboard, and a control component decides which one acts next. It is practical: “one board, many experts, one facilitator” is easy to explain, and it works in a workshop right away.

Facilitation is a core skill in every design role. In design leadership it becomes central, because much of the work is getting a group to a good decision.

Do. Run the co-creation round of section 6 as a blackboard: one board, three contributors, one facilitator. Rotate the facilitator role. Each facilitator names one moment when the group was hard to steer, and what they did about it.

5. Understand: question → insight

Turn a vague question into an insight. The chain has four links:

1. Observations: what you saw or heard.
2. Findings: patterns across observations.
3. Insight: a finding plus its implication.
4. “How might we…?”: a question that opens the next step, Ideate.

Observations that can be measured or verified carry evidence.

Do. Run three short interviews, in pairs if you can. Make an affinity map of your observations, name two or three findings, write one insight, then turn it into one “How might we…?” question.

6. Ideate: insight → ideas

Diverge. One insight must produce several distinct options. Quantity first; judge later.

Ideate alone first, then with others. Co-creation brings the people you design for (and with) into the room, so they build on, combine and add ideas instead of only reacting to yours.

Do. Crazy 8s: eight ideas in eight minutes, alone. Then run a 15-minute co-creation round with two or three people playing users or stakeholders: they add, combine or sketch their own ideas. Optional: turn your two strongest ideas into quick visuals with a free AI tool (see UX Design 101, “Fidelity and tools”).

7. Decide and prototype: ideas → decision → prototype

Converge. Converging is deciding: compare the options against explicit criteria, pick one, and assemble the argument that justifies it. A sound argument has three parts: a claim (what you chose), the evidence behind it, and the warrant (why that evidence supports that claim).

A prototype is that decision made tangible — just enough to ask the specific question it exists to answer. Fidelity is a choice, not a goal.

Do. Score your ideas in a prioritization matrix, write a five-line argument for the winner, then make a paper prototype of that decision in 20 minutes.

8. Test: prototype → evidence

Put the prototype in front of real people and observe. What you can measure is evidence, and evidence becomes the next question. Testing is understanding again, this time with something in people’s hands.

Do. Test someone else’s prototype (or your own) with five people and report three findings. If you can only find one person, test with one: one is better than none.