1: Nike – Design Thinking Infuses Everything Nike Does (It All Starts with the CEO)
Nike is very concerned with the individual needs of those they design for. In the empathize stage, Nike says they take into account suggestions from their employees who live all over the world and in all different communities and cultures. Their next step of defining the needs of their customer really comes down to performance and style. Nike is typically making shoes for athletes s they take into consideration the functionality of the shoe, however, they are also aware that the general public wears sneakers as a fashion statement and need to make them stylish and on trend. Nike has worked with many designers in their ideate stage. They pick designers who will be able to bring innovative ideas, one of the most important things for them. In terms of prototyping, Nike experiments with different types of materials in order to make a product that is both functional and luxury to some standard. Nike is probably most involved in the testing stage. Since they are such a popular and high profile company, Nike receives plenty of feedback on their products. Star athletes and the general public alike all have plenty to say about Nike shoes.
My thoughts on Nike’s design process make me believe that they care a lot about the function as well as the quality of their shoes. They have to make sure athletes will feel comfortable competing in them as well as models wanting to wear them as a fashion statement. Nikes process must be a grueling one to meld those two worlds.
2: Uber Eats – Creating the Future of Food Delivery through Design Thinking
Uber Eats talks bout how in the empathize process they try to immerse themselves in the culture of the place they are looking into expanding towards in order to bring a customized service. Uber Eats has even opened up chat rooms so that while defining their service they can receive real-time feedback from their customers and will know what their needs are. Even the defining process is a group effort, and they hold conferences and talks to generate new ideas for their app. While developing prototypes, designers for the app go into the real world, like restaurants and delivery vehicles, in order to test and adapt while they create updates and new experiences within the app. Their team has tons of tests that they run which allows for a better end result. They test in controlled groups in order to determine the success of the project in the area and welcome feedback the entire time.
Uber Eat’s design process seemed very similar to the way Roger Whitehouse described building, “a set of approximate prototypes based on whatever information we could gather, test them with an appropriate group of users, then use that information to build another set,” in The Uniqueness of Individual Perception. Uber Eats recognizes how important it is to provide an experience that can be maneuvered and enjoyed by all, which requires a lot of trial and error. Whitehouse and Uber Eats both ran multiple prototype tests to put out the best product they could.