Design Thinking: The Beginner's Guide
How this course will help your career
Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung, and General Electric, have rapidly adopted the design thinking approach, and design thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including Stanford d.school, Harvard, and MIT. What is design thinking, and why is it so popular and effective?
The overall goal of this design thinking course is to help you design better products, services, processes, strategies, spaces, architecture, and experiences. Design thinking helps you and your team develop practical and innovative solutions for your problems. It is a human-focused, prototype-driven, innovative design process. Through this course, you will develop a solid understanding of the fundamental phases and methods in design thinking, and you will learn how to implement your newfound knowledge in your professional work life. We will give you lots of examples; we will go into case studies, videos, and other useful material, all of which will help you dive further into design thinking.
Design thinking methods and strategies belong at every level of the design process. However, design thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. What’s special about design thinking is that designers and designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques in solving problems in a creative and innovative way—in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, and in our lives.
That means that design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers, and business leaders. It’s for anyone who seeks to infuse an approach to innovation that is powerful, effective and broadly accessible, one that can be integrated into every level of an organization, product, or service so as to drive new alternatives for businesses and society.
What you will learn
- How to apply design thinking to your problems in order to generate innovative and user-centric solutions
- How to make use of practical design thinking methods in every stage of your problem, with the help of method templates
- How to initiate a new working culture based on a user-centric approach, empathy, ideation, prototyping, and playful testing
- How to employ ethnographic and analysis methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and surveys
- How to prototype early and fast, as well as test your prototypes so as to reduce risks and accelerate organizational learning
Who should take this course
This is a beginner-level course suitable for anyone interested in mastering the powerful and versatile design thinking approach:
- UX, UI, and graphic designers interested in gaining a new approach to solving design problems and generating solutions that work
- Project managers looking for a holistic process that integrates all stakeholders in order to create user-centric solutions
- Software engineers interested in playing a part in idea generation and the design process
- Entrepreneurs looking to empathize with users and build products that fit the market and users’ lives
- Marketers who want to gain a deep understanding of customers
- Stakeholders of a project/company who are keen to get involved in the process of building a product or service
- Anyone who is interested in an innovative problem-solving approach that can be applied to all types of problems in work and in life
Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.
Learn and work with a global team of designers
When you take part in this course, you will join a global multidisciplinary team working on the course and the exercises at the same time as you. You will work together to improve your skills and understanding. Your course group will be made up of an incredibly diverse group of professionals, all of whom have the same objective—to become successful designers. It’s your chance to learn, grow, and network with your peers across the planet.Gain an industry-trusted UX Course Certificate
You earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you complete the course. You can highlight them on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders, who have taken up company memberships with the IDF:
Lessons in this course
- Lessons become available at a schedule of one lesson per week.
- Lessons remain open for you forever and have no deadlines.
- There is no time limit to finish a course.
- You have permanent access to your course material, answers, and classmates for the entire duration of your membership.
- Estimated time to complete: 10 hours 1 min spread over 7 weeks.
Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 48 mins.
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0.1: Welcome (2 mins)
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0.2: An introduction to IDF courses (14 mins)
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0.3: Let our community help you (1 min)
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0.4: Meet your peers online in our discussion forums (6 mins)
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0.5: Meet and learn from design professionals in your area (1 min)
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0.6: Gain Timeless Knowledge Through IDF Courses (11 mins)
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0.7: How to earn your Course Certificate (4 mins)
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0.8: Mandatory lessons vs. Optional lessons (2 mins)
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0.9: A mix between video-based and text-based lesson content (2 mins)
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0.10: Breaking The Barriers to Innovation: Sharing Ideas (6 mins)
Lesson 1: Getting Started thinking Outside of the Box
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 57 mins.
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1.1: Breaking Thinking Patterns: Design Thinking (8 mins)
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1.2: An Introduction to a Design-Specific Approach: Design Thinking (9 mins)
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1.3: A Short & Incomplete History of Design Thinking (7 mins)
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1.4: The Problem is in our Thinking (17 mins)
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1.5: Design and Thinking Movie (3 mins)
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1.6: Share your Thoughts (5 mins)
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1.7: Discussion Forum (5 mins)
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1.8: Problem Solution Generation Activities: Design Thinking (1 min)
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1.9: Problem Solution Generation: Design Thinking (2 mins)
Lesson 2: The Fundamentals of Design Thinking
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 4 mins.
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2.1: What is Design? (11 mins)
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2.2: The Design Process (19 mins)
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2.3: Design Types (15 mins)
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2.4: Wicked and Not so Wicked Problems (18 mins)
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2.5: Obstacles to Problem Solving and Innovation (13 mins)
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2.6: Shape (13 mins)
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2.7: A Quick Overview (23 mins)
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2.8: Design Thinking Concepts (6 mins)
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2.9: Discussion Forum (5 mins)
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2.10: The Power of Thinking Outside the Box: Design Thinking (1 min)
Lesson 3: Define The Challenge
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 15 mins.
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3.1: All roads lead to Rome (8 mins)
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3.2: Mapping the Stakeholders (10 mins)
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3.3: Take a Team Along (13 mins)
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3.4: Shaping Space D-School (5 mins)
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3.5: Creating Some Space (8 mins)
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3.6: Question Everything (8 mins)
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3.7: Frame the Challenge (18 mins)
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3.8: Define your Challenge (5 mins)
Lesson 4: Empathize with the People
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 16 mins.
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4.1: RSA Shorts - The Power of Empathy (4 mins)
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4.2: Getting Started with Empathy (16 mins)
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4.3: Developing an Empathic Approach (8 mins)
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4.4: Barriers to Communication and Empathy (12 mins)
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4.5: Ethnographic Research Methods (8 mins)
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4.6: Shadowing (14 mins)
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4.7: Making Sense of the Research (9 mins)
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4.8: Design Process Communication (5 mins)
Lesson 5: The Typical Design Thinking Process
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 1 min.
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5.1: A Typical Design Thinking Process (11 mins)
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5.2: Step Two: Observation: Design Thinking (5 mins)
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5.3: Step Three: Define the Problem/Interpret the Results: Design Thinking (8 mins)
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5.4: Step Four: Ideation: Design Thinking (6 mins)
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5.5: Step Five: Prototyping: Design Thinking (10 mins)
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5.6: Step Six: Testing: Design Thinking (14 mins)
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5.7: The Art of Creative Problem Solving (1 min)
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5.8: Humanising the design process: Design Thinking (2 mins)
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5.9: Design Thinking Process Stages (5 mins)
Lesson 6: Analyze findings & Ideate
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 24 mins.
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6.1: Getting Started (12 mins)
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6.2: Elements that influence Ideation (15 mins)
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6.3: Barriers to Ideation (11 mins)
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6.4: Ideation Methods 1 (13 mins)
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6.5: Ideation Methods 2 (8 mins)
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6.6: Ideation Methods 3 (12 mins)
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6.7: Final Methods and Idea Selection (10 mins)
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6.8: Brainstorming: Needless Activity or Generating Solution Method? (5 mins)
Lesson 7: Prototyping
To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 15 mins.
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7.1: Design Thinking - Empathy Based Prototyping (4 mins)
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7.2: Getting Started with Prototyping (13 mins)
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7.3: Success through failure (12 mins)
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7.4: Types of Prototyping (8 mins)
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7.5: Materials and Tools (12 mins)
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7.6: Prototyping Methods (13 mins)
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7.7: Testing Prototypes (8 mins)
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7.8: Prototyping Process (5 mins)
Lesson 8: Course Certificate and Final Networking
To be scheduled.
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8.1: Course Evaluation (1 min)
How to advance your career with IDF courses
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Attend lessons at your own pace
Each week throughout the course, you get access to a new lesson, but you can move through the lessons at your own pace. This means you can learn before you leave for work, or in between breaks — in as little as 15 minutes per day.
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Network online and offline
Network with your fellow course-takers online, through discussion forums inside lessons. You can also connect with your peers offline via IDF’s Local Groups. Local Groups connect you with other designers around your city who share the same passion in UX design as you.
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Advance your career
Get a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you’ve scored at least 70% on a course. Highlight your Course Certificates on your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, or your website to showcase your newly mastered skills.
Start advancing your career now
Become a member to take “Design Thinking: The Beginner's Guide”. Take any other IDF UX courses at no additional cost. Take a concrete step forward in your career path today.