Best Design Thinking Activities to Inspire Creativity

Design thinking is a creative problem-solving process centred around understanding users and iteratively generating solutions. By adopting a hands-on, collaborative approach, design thinking activities can unlock innovation for all challenges.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the top design thinking exercises to inspire creativity within your team.

Empathize with Users

The first step of design thinking is developing empathy for who you’re designing for. Walk in your users’ shoes to uncover insights through:

User Interviews

Conduct 1-on-1 interviews to learn about your users’ behaviours, motivations, frustrations and needs. Prepare open-ended questions that uncover stories rather than one-word answers—document key insights.

Observation

Observe users interacting with products/services in their natural environment. Note emotional reactions and pain points. Look for unconscious behaviours.

Empathy Mapping

Create an empathy map collaboratively to capture what users think, feel, see, hear, say and do. Identify insights to address.

Thinks	Feels	Sees	Hears	Says	Does
Wants to learn coding	Frustrated by complexity	Lines of code	Friends talking about coding	“This is so hard”	Tries online tutorial

Define the Challenge

Leverage your user research to frame the right challenge statement.

• Host a How Might We session to craft “How might we…” questions capturing user needs.
• Use techniques like 5 Whys to drill down to the root problem.
• Create Point-of-View Madlibs – “[User] needs [need] because [insight].”

Clearly defining the challenge is crucial for ideating solutions.

Ideate Solutions

With the challenge defined, start generating ideas:

Brainstorming

Traditional brainstorming is where all ideas are captured and no criticism is allowed. Set a time limit and go for volume.

Worst Possible Idea

Purposefully suggest extreme bad ideas to spark creativity. It frees thinking from constraints.

SCAMPER

Use SCAMPER prompts to produce variations on solutions:

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Modify
• Put to other uses
• Eliminate
• Rearrange

Bodystorming

Act out ideas through role play and improvisation. Bodystorm concepts for experiences.

Prototype Concepts

Build rough prototypes to make ideas tangible and testable:

• Sketch concepts with paper and pen.
• Create storyboards to visualize experiences.
• Make physical prototypes with craft supplies.
• Use tools like Figma and Sketch to build digital prototypes.

Prototyping early and often saves time and money. Fail fast and improve.

Test with Users

Put prototypes in front of actual users to gather feedback:

• Run usability tests for digital prototypes.
• Set up hallway testing to get quick impressions.
• Facilitate focus groups for feedback on concepts.
• Send out surveys to quantify reactions.

Testing reveals flaws to fix and insights to integrate.

Repeat the Process

Design thinking is iterative. Build, test, learn, refine, repeat. Each cycle leads to better solutions tuned to user needs.

Integrating hands-on, creative activities throughout the process results in meaningful innovation. Try out a mix of techniques to find what works best for your team.

What are your favourite design thinking methods? Share your experiences in the comments below!