We surround ourselves with solutions that were supposed to make life easier, yet often do the opposite. From customer service chatbots and smart remote controls to car functions hidden behind touchscreens. Design thinking was developed to counter exactly this problem by helping us understand people before trying to improve the world around them. Perhaps it is less a methodology and more a reminder of something we have always known: before we try to solve something, we should probably take the time to understand it.
What Is Design Thinking?
As humans, we have a tendency to repeat ourselves, especially when we get stuck. Design thinking was created to break that habit: to help us see things with fresh eyes, ask questions we usually overlook, and discover solutions we might never have considered otherwise.
Although it sounds like another buzzword from the consulting world, it is really just common sense organized into a structured process. In much the same way that I once wrote that psychology is often just experience wrapped in academic terminology.
The design thinking process is often described as consisting of five phases:
- Empathize – understand the people you are trying to help.
- Define – agree on what the actual problem is.
- Ideate – generate as many potential solutions as possible without self-censorship.
- Prototype – create a simple version of the solution.
- Test – gather feedback, learn, adjust, and often start over.
The important thing is not the order itself, but the mindset behind it: you need to be open-minded, curious, and willing to learn throughout the process.
Why Do We Need Design Thinking?
Psychology offers several concepts that explain why we often become blind to solutions that are right in front of us.
- Inattentional blindness: We stop noticing things we see every day because our brains filter them out.
- Functional fixedness: We become locked into established patterns and forget that things can be used in new ways.
In many ways, design thinking acts as a vaccine against these mental shortcuts. The methodology forces us to pause, observe, ask questions, and view situations from perspectives other than our own. That is why people outside a system often notice things that those working within it no longer see.
- Airbnb started with a simple idea: renting out air mattresses in an apartment. Through testing, feedback, and continuous iteration, it evolved into a global platform that transformed the travel industry.
- Apple has applied many of the same principles throughout its products and user experiences, maintaining a constant focus on how technology feels to the people who use it.
But design thinking is not only for global companies. I have personally discovered how valuable this mindset can be through a concept I call AdventureDrama.
How I Used Design Thinking to Develop an Idea for Local Tourism
Over many visits to Greece, I grew fond of the Drama region. Not because it is packed with tour buses and souvenir shops, but precisely because it is not. Here you will find small wineries, local guides, mountain landscapes, traditions, and experiences that many visitors never even discover.
Over time, I began to wonder why so much of what the region has to offer is so difficult to find if you do not already know the area. Many of the small businesses and individuals creating these experiences operate on their own, with limited opportunities to reach new visitors.
These observations gradually evolved into what I later called AdventureDrama. When I first started exploring the idea, it was not about launching a tourism initiative or building another travel portal. The goal was simply to investigate whether there might be a better way to showcase everything that already existed.
Looking back, it was actually a fairly classic design thinking process, even though I did not think of it that way at the time. I quickly realized that the challenge was not a lack of attractions, resources, or initiatives. The challenge was that the pieces were not connected.
From there, the idea of AdventureDrama emerged as a potential bridge. A place where visitors could more easily discover the region, while local businesses could gain greater visibility than they could achieve on their own.
The first prototype was nothing more than a simple website containing links, descriptions, and ideas. The point was not to build a finished product but to test the concept. Something interesting happened when activities, attractions, and businesses were brought together in one place. Suddenly, it became clear just how much the region had to offer, and how many opportunities emerge when you start seeing the whole picture rather than the individual parts.
Since then, the project has evolved through conversations, observations, and new insights. Every time I speak with a guide, a farmer, a local business owner, or a visitor to the area, I learn something new. Some ideas are confirmed, while others turn out to work better in theory than in reality.
The original website has long since been taken down for practical reasons, and the project has changed direction several times along the way. The fact that others have since built similar solutions, and in many ways better ones than my original version, actually feels positive to me. It suggests that the idea itself was not a bad one.
Why Design Thinking Is More About People Than Technology
Design thinking certainly sounds academic, as though it requires a master’s degree to understand. In reality, however, it is simply a formal way of describing how creative and practical people have always approached challenges. It is as if we felt compelled to give a name, a process, and a PowerPoint template to what used to be called “using your head.”
In large organizations and educational systems, where procedures and silos can easily take over, the concept provides a shared language. It reminds us to ask questions, explore possibilities, and keep people at the center of the process.
And academia tends to give names to things. You cannot simply say, “Use your head.” So design thinking became a framework for the elements we need to consider when trying to understand and improve the world around us.
Although the term may sound complicated, it really comes down to something simple: being curious enough to understand before attempting to solve. The concept emerged during the 1960s and 1970s, but it has experienced a renaissance in recent years. Ironically, there are now thousands, perhaps millions, of examples of simple things that have become more complicated in the pursuit of making them simpler.
- Tesla and the turn signal.
In an effort to reinvent the driving experience, Tesla removed the traditional turn signal stalk and moved the function to steering wheel buttons and touchscreen controls. Elegant, perhaps, but also an example of how “simplification” can sacrifice intuition. Using a turn signal in the middle of a turn should be instinctive, not something that requires thought.
- Customer service chatbots.
They were supposed to revolutionize customer interactions but quickly became known as digital obstacle courses. Instead of helping people, they often help companies avoid talking to them. Ironically, many businesses have had to reintroduce human support because customers simply gave up.
- Remote controls that became too smart.
In the pursuit of minimalist design, functionality disappeared. Fewer buttons looked cleaner in advertisements, but now you have to navigate multiple menus just to change a channel. It may look tidy on the coffee table, but in practice it often feels like a test of patience.
- Apple and the keyboard that could not handle crumbs.
When Apple introduced its butterfly keyboard on the MacBook, the goal was to make it thinner, lighter, and more precise. The result was a keyboard so sensitive that a tiny speck of dust could cause a key to fail. After lawsuits and a costly repair program, Apple quietly returned to a more traditional design.
There are countless examples, but they all share the same theme: in the pursuit of simplification, we often lose sight of the human being in the middle. That is precisely why we need approaches that remind us to start with reality rather than the drawing board.
The simplest reminder of what design thinking is really about might be this:
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Design Thinking in the Workplace
One of the great strengths of design thinking is that it is not limited to technology, tourism, or product development. It is just as relevant to the way we collaborate, lead, and learn.
In the workplace, it is easy to lose sight of why we do what we do. We solve tasks the way they have always been solved, write reports because someone expects them, and improve systems that perhaps never needed to exist in the first place. Design thinking encourages us to pause and ask a simple question: Does this actually make sense?
- A new employee sees processes with fresh eyes and should be encouraged to ask questions before becoming fully absorbed into the company culture.
- A business can test a new service with a small group of customers instead of spending millions on a full-scale launch.
- A team can use the method to solve internal challenges, not by looking inward, but by focusing on the people who actually experience the problem.
Perhaps this is where design thinking delivers its greatest value: it brings us back to people. Not to systems, not to processes, but to the real needs hidden behind the numbers, routines, and KPIs.
A Thought to Take With You
Design thinking is not really about methods, process maps, or workshops. It is about being curious enough to question what we take for granted and humble enough to accept that the first solution is rarely the best one.
For me, it has been about exploring an idea for local tourism in the Drama region, one step at a time. For others, it may be about a workplace, a product, a service, or something as ordinary as a routine that has never been questioned.
Perhaps that is why design thinking has gained so much traction. Not because people have stopped being creative, but because we occasionally need a reminder to slow down and look at the world with fresh eyes.
Because sometimes the challenge is not that we lack solutions. The challenge is that we have become so accustomed to the way things are that we stop seeing other possibilities.
