Learn to use design thinking, a strategic approach to problem-solving, to develop better mobile applications with better user experience and agile methodology.
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At Betty Blocks, we value design thinking in combination with no-code application development. It allows for both faster and more effective innovation, while always keeping the customer or end user as the focus. In our previous blog post, we shared how implementing a design thinking strategy using no-code software can make application development faster, but how does it enable you to build apps more effectively?
To recap, design thinking is a strategic 6-step approach to problem-solving. You begin by empathizing with potential users by doing as much research as possible to understand your audience, their needs, and how your app fits in with a specific market. Step two is to define a problem using the information you gathered about customer needs. Next is to ideate, or brainstorm solutions. When you have generated a number of possibilities, you can choose the best one, two, or even three to develop a prototype. By testing the prototype with potential users, you can gain a sense of how well it is working, and where it may need improvements. Finally, after improving the prototype based on testing, you can implement by launching your app to the market.
Design thinking follows 3 central principles: The need to empathize with your users in order to understand the problem, to explore solutions, and to materialize your ideas through continuous testing and implementation. These ideas are also important guidelines in application development.
Customer centricity is increasingly the driving force moving industry trends forward. This certainly extends to application development, where success depends on user satisfaction. Investing time up front to understand your users and identify their needs pays off big time because it keeps the user at the center of every part of your development process moving forward. This paves the way for success by guaranteeing your app will rate high on usability, and placing the customer at the core of your strategy.
Ideation allows you the freedom to think big and unleash the wildest and most ambitious ideas you have for your application. Of course, when developing your actual prototype(s) the goal is to start small, keep it simple, and take it one step at a time, but one of the benefits of design thinking is that it gives you a space to reach your long-term dreams or future ambitions. By starting with adaptable prototypes that have room to grow, you can proceed to testing and implementation with flexibility.
Iteration leads to improvement. Once you begin to test the viability of your prototypes, you will see the areas that still need polishing. With design thinking, the idea is that you never have to throw out a prototype entirely, but rather focus on keeping the aspects that do work and only make adjustments to the features that need improvement. With continuous user testing, you can also gain insight into how to achieve success with your app once you reach the launch phase.
By starting with a design thinking approach from the beginning of your app development process, you can ensure not only a faster but also a more effective delivery. Following the steps of design thinking opens the door for better innovation, more flexibility, and facilitates each of our 5 tips for building a successful app without becoming a coding wizard.
One of the greatest strengths of a design thinking approach is that it is cyclical: You can always revisit previous steps and make changes as you go along. In this way, it is not necessary to get stuck trying to achieve perfection before progressing to the next stage, because you can always assess what works and use that as a point to build from. This supports faster iteration and will support you along the path to developing the most successful app possible, by allowing you to maintain a customer focus at all times, and operate within your strategy with agility by thinking simply and scaling up step-by-step.
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Angela Tramontelli
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