Written by Kokoro Kuroiwa
Clalit > Clalit Innovation

How Clalit Innovation used design thinking to develop a COVID-19 onboarding kit

Focus on patient needs in an emergency situation: How Clalit Innovation used design thinking to develop a COVID-19 onboarding kit during the early days of the pandemic.
Written by Annie Kerguenne
R+V Versicherung AG > Motion+ team – a corporate innovation lab

Lost in Transformation? Three pragmatic and evidence-based leadership lessons

Follow a real-time case series about the design thinking-based transformation of an innovation process in the German insurance company R+V Versicherung AG - one step at a time!
Written by Kokoro Kuroiwa
Engineers without Borders Norway, Field Ready, The Polyfloss Factory > Waste For Warmth

Waste for Warmth: Upcycling Plastic Waste to Tackle the Harsh Winter Conditions in Turkey’s Refugee Camps

The Waste For Warmth project was formed to help displaced people deal with harsh winter conditions. The idea? To turn plastic waste into winterization solutions. The team used design thinking to gather further insights and improved the prototype with iterative user tests.
Written by Kyurie Shin and Tiago Cavagnaro
HOOKAH / L Airlines > In-Flight meal experience design

Curiosity and Freestyle: Redesigning the In-Flight Meal Experience

What could L Airlines have been doing wrong so that customers were dissatisfied with their in-flight meal experience - on a 90 minute flight? 
Written by Kokoro Kuroiwa
Japan Patent Office > Design-Driven Management

Japan Patent Office Strives to Bridge Invention and Innovation through Design-Driven Management

Is Japan really innovative or just advanced in invention? The Japan Patent Office (JPO) identified the gap between invention and innovation and strives to incorporate design mindsets and methods to bridge them in Japanese industry.
Written by Amy Buer, Kokoro Kuroiwa and Kyurie Shin
Umpqua Bank > Umpqua Bank Rebranding

Umpqua – Slow Banking: Building a Community Experience

Banks are boring. Community banks are getting globalized. Then, how did a small Oregon-based bank succeed into one of the best in the world?
Written by Marc-Alexander Winter and Nils Schekorr
HVAC Systems Manufacturer >

B2B Design Thinking: Product Innovation when the User is a Network

When B2B companies talk about user experience, they are really considering the aggregated needs of multiple people and roles in a large ecosystem. But what happens when those objectives are vastly different for every individual?
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
IBM > Enterprise Transformation by Design

IBM: Design Thinking Adaptation and Adoption at Scale

How IBM made sense of ‘generic design thinking’ for tens of thousands of people.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
Piller >

Building Trust with Prototypes: An IoT solution at Piller

An IoT solution in the German Mittelstand? Small and medium-sized enterprises are the powerhouse of Germany's economy, but they often shy away from embedded systems technology. During an innovation cooperation with SAP's German SME department, a team from Piller Blowers & Compressors paved the way for building trust in a bigger solution: a predictive maintenance service for their higher-performance machines.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
Bank of America > Keep the Change

Feeling in Control: Bank of America Helps Customers to “Keep the Change”

How do you encourage new customers to open bank accounts? In 2004, Bank of America assigned design agency IDEO to boost their enrollment numbers: a problem lacking any user perspective or problem (yet).
Written by Karen von Schmieden and Flavia Bleuel
Deutsche Bahn Operations > DB Infopoint 4.0

Taking Risks, Earning Trust and Including Co-Workers: User-Centred Design at Deutsche Bahn Operations

Start with a small thing, and it will grow bigger: Andreas Bürgler, Head of Deutsche Bahn Station&Service AG (Operations), talks about introducing user-centred design methods in his department – with a 200-participant design thinking sprint and a re-designed service counter as a lighthouse project.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
Innogy > Innovation Hub

Energy Solutions for the New Generation: Design Thinking at Innogy

In Innogy’s innovation hub, venture developers either cooperate with an existing start up – or pitch their own ideas for a viable business model. In 2015, Itai Ben-Jacob went for the latter and developed the idea for innogy’s eCarSharing project in a design thinking workshop.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
Vlisco > Innovation Team

Adding Value to Service Expansion: Vlisco’s Innovation Journey

The Dutch company Vlisco produces traditionally crafted ‘Dutch Wax Print’ fabrics for West African markets. Lately, the organization faces disrupted markets, competition, and Chinese counterfeit – and uses design thinking to come up with a new vision to secure its future.
Written by Melina Costa
Adalbert Raps Stiftung > Trüffeljagd

A Tough Crowd: Using Design Thinking to Help Traditional German Butchers

“If this were a good idea, someone would have done it already”: this is what a design thinking team heard, over and over again, when trying to develop new business concepts for traditional butcher shops in Germany. As design thinkers and fans of wild ideas, they were used to skepticism – but definitely not to the level they’ve encountered in this project with the butchers.
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
Rotterdam Eye Hospital > Patient Experience Transformation Program

How Design Thinking Turned One Hospital into a Bright and Comforting Place

Long dreary corridors, impersonal waiting rooms, the smell of disinfectant — hospitals tend to be anonymous and depressing places. Even if you’re just there as a visitor, you’re bound to wonder, “How can my friend recover in such an awful place? Will I get out of here without catching an infection?” The transformation of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital suggests that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
Swipe Sense >

How SwipeSense Makes Hand Cleaning In Hospitals As Easy As Wiping Them On Pants

We go to hospitals expecting to get better. But in many cases, they only make you sicker. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 2 million Americans contract Hospital Acquired Infections, resulting in 100,000 deaths and over $30 billion in costs to the health care system per year.
Written by Kevin Kajitani, Miikka Lehtonen and Markus Paukku
ANA > DDL

Be rebellious! How ANA is Utilizing Design Thinking to Connect its Past with its Future

Japan's largest airline faces the challenges of an inert industry and a risk-avoiding cultural context by establishing a Digital Design Lab: A case story about the spirit of yanchasa, the role of ambassadors in the organization and a new crowdfunding platform for Japan.
Written by David Hoyt and Robert Sutton
San Francisco Opera > Barely Opera

Comfortable with Feeling Uncomfortable: Innovation at the San Francisco Opera

On March 2, 2015, a line of people stretching around the block waited to get into the Rickshaw Stop on Fell Street in San Francisco. This was not like most nights at the funky music venue and bar; the people in line weren’t waiting to see an indie band, or dance to music spun by a DJ. This night the entertainment would be opera … of a sort.
Written by Jo'Anne Langham
Australian Taxation Office (ATO) > Enterprise Content Management System

Failure to Launch: Learning About Design the Hard Way

In 2004, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) decided to design and build an enterprise content management system to streamline its publishing process. The first attempt revealed the technology of the day was inadequate for the design of this complicated project. However, 12 years later the ATO now has a world class website which is shaped by daily user feedback and longitudinal unmoderated usability benchmarking.
Written by Caroline Szymanski
Plug In The World > Mobisol

Reinventing Solar Energy
 Supply for Rural Africa

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing and 1.6 billion people worldwide with no access to electricity: A fact that Mobisol set out to change.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
Lapeyre > Concept'Care

Extreme Bathroom Users: Lapeyre Embraces the Elderly

A major French furniture company challenges an international team of students to redesign the bathroom experience for the elderly – and receives a product that ends up changing the way their organization approaches senior customers.
Written by Jeanne Liedtka
Municipality of Holstebro, Denmark > The Good Kitchen

How an Improved Food Service Creates a Better Life Quality for Elderly People

In autumn 2007 the Danish innovation and design agency Hatch & Bloom was assigned to design a new meal service for The Municipality of Holstebro. Six month later the idea for The Good Kitchen was created. Thus the way was cleared for a new type of meal service in Denmark, a meal service with more quality, more flexibility and more freedom of choice.
Written by Sabine Junginger
US Tax Service >

Early Approaches: The US Tax Forms Simplification Project

This case concerns one of the earliest attempts by design thinkers at designing a large, complex system. It shows that design approaches in the public sector can look back at a long history. And it reveals how design thinking within the organization must include members of the whole organization in the design process.
Written by Karen von Schmieden
City of Sidney > Kings Cross

Designer Nights Out: Good Urban Planning Can Reduce Drunken Violence

Violent crime and the loss of young lives in assaults pose a frightening problem in many urban city districts. This case from Australia shows how the 'Designing Out Crime Research Center' aimed to devise solutions for Sydney’s Kings Cross area, recently renowned for its alcohol-fuelled violence.
Written by Birga Schlottmann
MLP > Finanz-WG

How Design Thinking Enabled MLP to Speak the Customer’s Language

Design thinking is known for its user-centered approach in order to find new solutions or improve services or products best adapted to users' need. In the case of MLP it has been applied to a branch in which the financial crisis has caused distrust on side of the user. Design thinking helped guiding the way to new forms of approximation.
Written by Axel Menning
Ericsson > Innova

Ericsson’s Innova System

How to evoke employee’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Written by Eva Köppen
CERN >

From Universe to Society

One would not expect to find design thinking in a place where physicists and engineers use some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators and complex scientific instruments to probe the fundamental structure of the universe. Yet at CERN a design thinking initiative was started. Why?
Written by June Gwee
Work Pass Division > Redesign of Public Service

Redesigning Employment Pass Application in Singapore

The Ministry of Manpower’s Work Pass Division (WPD) used design thinking as a tool to develop better ways to support foreigners who choose Singapore as a destination to live, work and set up businesses. The case reveals: Design thinking can potentially transform the perception and meaning of public service.
Written by Eva Köppen
Oticon >

The Rise & Fall of Design Thinking at Oticon

In 2007, top management of hearing aid manufacturer Oticon boldly established a working group dedicated to a rather new and odd thing called design thinking. Three years later, the group was dissolved. This is the story of a tragic misunderstanding and untapped potential.
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
AirBnB >

The Link between Data Triangulation and Brainstorming Facilitation: Design Thinking at AirBnB

AirBnB is kind of a role model for »designpreneurship«: Entrepreneurs with backgrounds in design professions who start companies, which increasingly set the tone in an environment of digitalization. We visited Sasha Lubomirsky, the Head of User Research of AirBnB’s »Insights« team, to learn more about design thinking’s role for their current business development.
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
Intuit >

From Stories and Metrics

How Intuit communicates and measures the impact of its design thinking program.
Written by Eva Köppen
Autodesk >

Autodesk: A Design-Driven Company

Design thinking's pledge is that everyone is able to learn certain creative skills and that companies can train to be innovative. Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, disagrees: “Not everybody can be a Michael Jordan."
Written by Jan Schmiedgen
AirBnB > The »Host Rejection Taxonomy«

How AirBnB uses Design Thinking in Projects – An Example

Design thinking and design research inform strategic decision-making on many levels. This is an example of how AirBnB's Insights team uses data to address current user experience challenges on the platform.
Written by Eva Köppen
Siemens >

Design Thinking in China: How Siemens CT Copes with Cultural Issues

Many authors and practitioners see design thinking as an attempt to change a company's culture. But in every firm the initial situation that design thinking encounters is different. Siemens' approach “industrial Design Thinking in China” (i.DT) is an example of the crucial role of cultural challenges – and of how flexible design thinking needs to be.
Written by Eva Köppen
GE Healthcare > Adenture Series

Changing Experiences through Empathy – The Adventure Series

Design thinking has often-times been described as an empathic approach. Leonards and Rayports classic "Empathic Design" is a close relative of this thought: How might we find out what people themselves do not know? At GE Healthcare empathy was needed to understand how children experience CT, X-Ray and MRI scanning procedures.
Written by Timon Schinke
Derdack >

One Project Changes the Organization: The Case of Derdack

Derdack was looking for ways to address their users’ needs in a more structured and systemic way. They had no idea that starting their first design thinking project would not only change their customer's “wake up experience” but also their corporate culture as a whole.
Written by Eva Köppen
Everest >

Design Thinking as an Entrepreneurs’ Mindset?

The story of the start-up "Everest" shows how design thinking is applied in the search for a viable business model.