University Name: Design Thinking Skills in Social Work Report

This report explores the application of design thinking skills to address the issue of social isolation within social work contexts. The report utilizes the core design thinking tools: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The author emphasizes the 'define' tool's significance in structuring a systematic approach to the problem. The report discusses the process of understanding the user's needs through empathy, synthesizing observations, and defining the problem statement. It then details the ideation, prototyping, and testing phases to develop and refine potential solutions. The author reflects on the effectiveness of the 'define' stage in providing a clear direction for solving the problem and highlights the importance of analyzing the root causes of social isolation. The report concludes with a discussion of how design thinking can effectively address social challenges.

Running head: DESIGN THINKING SKILLS IN SOCIAL WORK ISSUES
Design Thinking Skills in Social Work Issues
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive summary
Design thinking takes numerous tools to ensure that a proper and systematic thought
process goes behind the solution of a problem. Using the basic design thinking tools, which are
empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test, the report describes how the problem of social
isolation among individuals could be put to a stopped or mitigated. Followed by that, the report
particularly focuses on the define tool, to emphasize on how it helped significantly in coming up
with a structured way of addressing the problem.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Empathize....................................................................................................................................3
Define..........................................................................................................................................4
Ideation........................................................................................................................................5
Prototype......................................................................................................................................6
Test..............................................................................................................................................7
Reflection on define.....................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The social problem that has been identified is that of social isolation. The social
isolation is the state of lack of contact between the individual and the society. It can be an
issue of temporary or involuntary lack of contact and the desire to remain isolated from
the other people can be an issue of any age. Recent studies has proved that in spite of
being more connected , people have become more lonely than ever and they abstain
themselves from the social gatherings and the social support. The social connection
through the technology and the social media though helps us to connect to the people
worldwide, they basically are the prime reason that contribute to this leading issue of
social isolation. The major problem that can be brought by the issue of social isolation is
that of depression. Design thinking is a process that helps to solve the problems, focusing
on the human-centered solution. Thus this report includes the solution of the issue of
social isolation with the help of design thinking tools.
Discussion
According to Wrigley & Straker (2017), the Design thinking process involves few tools
that help in the solving of the problems. These tools include to Empathize, to Define,
Ideate, Prototype and Test.
Empathize
As discussed by Koppen & Meinel (2015), the first stage of the Design thinking process
is to empathize with the users by collecting the information about them and
understanding the issue is the primary process of the decision making. While

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concentrating on the human qualities and understanding there must be strategies which
involve watching observing and connecting with the individuals. In order to have
empathy for the client’s one must watch the clients and observe them keenly. Thus in
order to have a clear vision, an individual must unload the empathy discoveries. This
could incorporate the need of the people associated with the issue. Once the information
is gathered about the individuals it is easy to identify the needs and the problems in this
stage because one can analyze and synthesize in order to find a real solution for the
problem (Gasparini, 2015).
The problem of social isolation can be solved once the problems are identified. The
problems can be summarized into one problem statement, where the reasons for which
the people desire to remain isolated is identified and the effective solutions can be sorted
out. The two examples of the decision making activities for the empathy can be asking
the three questions of what, how and why, and also conducting interviews. The What ,
Why and How questions help to move from assumptions to concrete observations. The
one on one interview can help to connect with the real people. The structured interviews
can offer personal intimacy with the socially isolated people, allowing the design team to
target the specific areas of information to direct the Design Thinking Process.
Define
In the second stage of Decision Making Thinking, the tool Define helps the individual to
synthesize the observations about the other users from the stage of Empathize. During
this stage of the Decision Making, the problem is synthesized (Liedtka, 2015). The
problems are organized and interpreted so that there is a proper defining of the problem,
along with the collection of useful data. In order to understand problems better, it is

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useful to create personas and define roles so you can attach needs and problems to
different set of users.
Regarding the problem of social isolation when the people tend to abstain from the
society, this stage of decision making helps to define and establish a clear idea of the
exact problem that should be solved for the user. In the empathize phase, we use the
method of analyzing to break down the social problem to observe and discover. However
in the define phase, we find a meaningful and actionable problem statement which can be
worked upon so that we can steer in the right direction (Gasparini, 2015).
The examples of the practice of this phase of decision making process involves the
unpacking of the stories of the isolated people and m, in order to allow the functional
team to dissect the stories into four different categories which include quotes and
defining words, thoughts and beliefs, the actions and behaviors of the person, along with
the feelings and emotions (Denning, 2013). The space saturation and the group is a
popular method that is used by the decision makers to define a problem statement, by
collecting and visually presenting all the observations. Literally the method involves
saturation of the white board with the notes from the post interview session, resulting in
the formation of collage and images of the artifacts from the user research.
Ideation
According to Denning (2013), this is stage is the third tool in the decision making
process. This stage involves coming up with the solution for the problem statement that
had been identified in the Define stage. The primary aim of this stage is to use the
creativity and the innovative methods to develop effective solutions. This phase helps the

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team of the Design thinkers to look beyond the usual and the traditional methods of
solving processes and work towards more elegant and the best solutions to the problems,
that would eventually affect the user or his experience. However the goal of the tool of
Ideation is not to find the best suitable solution, but to generate a large number of ideas
and solutions that would potentially inspire the team of the decision makers to find better
ideas or to decide the most practical, best and the innovative one from the lot of the ideas.
The problem of social isolation can be solved with the help of this phase which includes a
lot of methods such as the Brainstorm, the Brainwalk, the Mindmap, the Sketch,
Analogies, the Challenge Assumptions as well as the Bodystorm (Gasparini, 2015).
Asking the people to write down their ideas on a sheet of paper or asking them to shout
out their ideas often result in failure. This to have effective ideation process in the solving
the ideas of the social issue the people who feel socially isolated and desire loneliness
might be asked to sit in a room with adequate space and design their ideas. There can be a
person designated for taking down the ideas. Also targets can be set and the people can
be asked to fill up brainstorming sheets within a specific time limit (Bradner, lorio &
Davis, 2014). At the end of the ideation phase, the selection of the best idea can be made
through the activities such as the Voting, or the Bingo Selection, as well as the Four
categories selection method.
Prototype
This is the fourth tool in the decision making process. The tool of prototyping is basically
the opportunity for the design making thinkers to bring their ideas to life and test their
practicality. They are supposed to potentially investigate how the users or the victims feel
about the decision or the idea and whether it is useful for them or not. The main purpose

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of this stage is to check whether the solution that needs to be implemented or have
already been implemented have been successful (Brenner, Uebernickel & Abrell, 2016).
The designers are supposed to lay down the simple solutions which can be used in order
to observe, record or judge the performance levels of the solutions based on the reaction
of the users. It’s not necessary that these versions of the solutions are the finalized
products. They can be subjected to change and the designers are allowed to think about
the solutions in a different way, so that less time and money are used in an idea. The
benefit of this stage is that by taking time to prototype the ideas, the costly mistakes can
be avoided.
According to Serrat (2017), the two categories in which the Prototyping can be
categorized include the low-fi or the high-fi prototyping. These activities can be
performed to ensure effective solutions to the social problem of isolation and loneliness.
In the low-fi prototyping activity, the simple versions are produced which involve easy
changes and can be tested immediately. On the contrary the high-fi prototyping are
generally closer to the final solution and the idea looks almost similar to the end result.
For example there can be arrangements of workshops where the people might be asked
start building an implementation plan. There should not be much time spending on one
particular idea in order to make sure that there is no emotional attachment with one
particular one.
Test
This is the final stage of the Design Making process which involves a part if the iterative
procedure that invites criticism. the reason for this tool is to realize that what is useful,
which solution works and which does not, in the solution process. The main aim of this

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process us to test out the solutions implemented, within the current design. The feedback
from the users and the victims is extremely essential, without understanding of which
there will be a failure of the process. Testing, in Design Thinking process, involves the
generation of user feedback as related to the prototypes that have been developed earlier,
as well as obtaining a better understanding of the socially isolated people (Shapira,
Ketchie & Nehe, 2017). When undertaken correctly, the testing stage of the entire design
thinking process can often feed into most stages of the process. It will eventually allow
to empathize and gain a better understanding of users. It may lead to insights that change
the way the problem statement is interpreted. It may generate new ideas in
the Ideation stage; and finally, it might lead to an iteration of the Prototype.
Reflection on define
According to me the most effective way to find a solution to the problem of the social
isolation through the design making process is through the process of defining. This is the
process which would enable me to find the exact reason of the problem and eventually
help me find out the best suitable and the best solution to the problem. As discussed by
Ingle (2013), the main reason for the isolation is the growing modernization, which has
indeed increased the connectivity between the individuals and the society but only
through the online media. In reality the people have become more aloof and desire to
abstain from the social gathering. The define stage of the design making process will help
me to find out the main cause behind the problem, and design the problem statement.
Once the problem statement is identified, the solution can be searched for that could help
to eradicate the problem ,and make people socially available. I feel that the analyzing of
the problem is more important than searching for the appropriate solution. The synthesis

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of the observations from the group of people who remain isolated will help me to know
about the users more effectively. The proper definition of the problem statement will
eventually help me to start the design team work and start the ideation process which
would involve generation of the ideas and deciding upon the most suitable idea.
Conclusion
Thus from the above report it can be concluded that the social problem of isolation and
the tendency to remain in loneliness can be solved with the five different stages of the
design making. The five stages which include Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and
Test, involves the strategic design thinking process to identify the problem and problem
statement, so that there could be generation of a lot number of ideas. Selection of the best
possible idea and its implementation would help to solve the problem. The solution to the
social isolation problem can be that the people should be asked to abstain from their
mobile phones and must be encouraged to dine with others and participate in social
gatherings. They should be heard, and must be asked to speak about their problems and
depression. They should be provided with care and attention and extra support. They
must be asked to build more social connections. Technology for connecting the socially
isolated people can also be adopted.

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References:
Bradner, E., Iorio, F., & Davis, M. (2014, April). Parameters tell the design story: ideation and
abstraction in design optimization. In Proceedings of the symposium on simulation for
architecture & urban design (p. 26). Society for Computer Simulation International.
Brenner, W., Uebernickel, F., & Abrell, T. (2016). Design thinking as mindset, process, and
toolbox. In Design thinking for innovation (pp. 3-21). Springer, Cham.
Denning, P. J. (2013). Design thinking. Communications of the ACM, 56(12), 29-31.
Gasparini, A. (2015, February). Perspective and use of empathy in design thinking. In ACHI, the
eight international conference on advances in computer-human interactions (pp. 49-54).
Ingle, B. R. (2013). Introduction to Design Thinking. In Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and
Small Businesses (pp. 1-15). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Köppen, E., & Meinel, C. (2015). Empathy via design thinking: creation of sense and
knowledge. In Design thinking research (pp. 15-28). Springer, Cham.
Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with innovation outcomes through
cognitive bias reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-938.
Serrat, O. (2017). Design thinking. In Knowledge Solutions (pp. 129-134). Springer, Singapore.
Shapira, H., Ketchie, A., & Nehe, M. (2017). The integration of design thinking and strategic
sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 277-287.

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Wrigley, C., & Straker, K. (2017). Design thinking pedagogy: The educational design
ladder. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 54(4), 374-385.