How Remote Work Changes Design Thinking

Replacing onsite design-thinking sessions with virtual ones fundamentally changes the innovation process and outcomes.

- By Daniel Wentzel, Alice Minet, Stefan Raff-Heinen, and Janina Garbas

Design thinking is a powerful method for understanding customer needs and developing new solutions to meet them.¹ It has been used by innovators to invent consumer products like electric toothbrushes and to develop business-to-business services such as customer relationship management software. A key advantage of the design-thinking process over other innovation methods is its emphasis on the user experience. Whether a team is imagining a car dashboard, a tax declaration app, or an electric lawnmower, each step relies on repeated, personal interactions among team members, end users, and other stakeholders.

To facilitate such interactions, observational workshops are typically conducted onsite in end users' familiar environments or in carefully arranged design studios. In recent years, however, with the rise in hybrid work, we have seen some innovation processes shift to the digital realm.² Design-thinking practitioners now frequently watch consumers use products through videoconferencing and discuss their observations on digital conference boards and in group chats. Using these kinds of digital tools is certainly more convenient than getting people into the same room. But by shifting away from in-person interactions, are companies sacrificing the essence of what makes design thinking so powerful in the first place?