By Alexa Goins, Kenzie Academy

Designers hold the power to shape the way we interact with the modern world. As the Peter Parker principle reminds us, with great power comes great responsibility. How do we wield our “power” with thoughtfulness, flexibility, and responsibility to the greater good? Simple — we use design thinking.

Design thinking is a creative problem-solving process focused on understanding and meeting people’s needs. At Kenzie Academy, we aim to equip UX Design students with the design thinking skills needed to create real-world solutions and provide better user experiences. 

While designers live and breathe design thinking, it’s still a relatively new phenomenon to those outside the field. However, a quick Google search shows how other professions are beginning to follow design thinking methodology and why it’s especially crucial for the COVID era.  

Forbes writer Joe McKendrick put it beautifully when he wrote, “It’s about looking at problems in new ways, from new angles, and coming up with new ways to accomplish things.”

Designers have played an active role in helping us through the COVID era — quickly moving processes online, taking in user feedback, and iterating on our everyday tech to make it more useful to a newly remote audience. 

In a sense, we’ve all been engaging in design thinking in big and small ways over the past few months— learning what technologies and systems work for us in our professional, academic, and personal lives. And, we’ve been examining the ways those technologies and systems can be improved. We’re all design thinkers, even if we haven’t realized it yet. It’s encouraging to see so many individuals and organizations using design thinking as we explore this new normal together. 

As we come out of Midwest Design Week, all of us at Kenzie Academy have been reflecting on the potential designers have in making our world a better place through creative problem-solving. The thought is definitely one that inspires hope. 

A lot has changed this year, but we have and will continue to successfully adapt and navigate these shifts by accessing new perspectives and adding some design thinking to everything we do.

Ready to jumpstart your career as a UX Designer or Coder? Learn more about our  Software Engineering and  UX Design programs, or check out our free beginner’s coding program Kenzie Free.

Thanks to our Midwest Design Week sponsor Kenzie Academy.