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©2025 Alex Woo

Making it Easy to Try Design Thinking

Client : SK C&C
Keyword : Design Thinking, UX Writing
Timeline : Sep — Nov 2020 (3 months)
My Role : Product Designer

From 2019 to 2021, UX Labs ran regular design thinking courses at the Tech Training Center, helping stakeholders tackle business problems. Leveraging years of workshop experience, the goal was to create a tool that simplifies and captures the design thinking process.

1. Empathize

As the first original content of UX Labs, a longer-term vision was needed rather than collecting only the core of the know-how accumulated so far. We were able to establish a vision by sharing the overall situation and experiences surrounding the environment, including the difficulties we felt in the coaching field and effective tools.

Vision workshop

User Voice 💬Through in-depth interviews with students who completed the Design Thinking course and prospective users serving as facilitators, I gathered insights into their challenges and needs.

BenchmarkingBy exploring various domestic and international design thinking frameworks, I identified key categories, assessed their pros and cons, and shaped the direction. A common theme emerged: reducing entry barriers to make the methodology easily accessible to users.

1. Design Sprints
Google

✅ Activity icons aid understanding.
⚠️ Overlapping steps make the structure complex.
⚠️ Tool descriptions lack contextual clarity.

2. Enterprise Design Thinking Toolkit
IBM

✅ Brand identity reflected in symbol icons
✅ Optimized for enterprise users
✅ Intuitive navigation with purpose-based labels
✅ Lists include descriptions for better understanding
✅ Moderator slides available for real workshops
⛔ Dropdown-based category browsing

3. Design Kit
IDEO

✅ Icons representing Collaborate, Innovate, and Accelerate
✅ Friendly illustration-based approach
✅ Provides preparation details like materials, time, and participants
✅ Concise card-type tool makes it easy for non-professionals to try
⚠️ Step descriptions are limited to short text only

4. Luma Workplace
Luma Institute

✅ Clear and simple UX writing
✅ Professional tools categorized into easy steps (Looking, Understanding, Making)
✅ Guides user actions by asking questions that highlight desired benefits

2. Define

Key findings 🔑

1️⃣ Connect the User’s Situation with the Problem

Understand the user’s situation and align it with the tool as a solution.
Focus on solving relatable problems with the tool.

2️⃣ Simplify and Symbolize Steps

Make each step and tool easy to remember.
Enhance cognition through symbols, as the process itself is invisible.

3️⃣ Moderator Convenience

Convenience is key for moderators and facilitators, who have clear goals.
Features that support their tasks can directly appeal to users.

3. Ideate 💡

1. Simplified Korean Menu

To reduce entry barriers, the tool’s names and menus were translated into Korean with easy-to-understand UX writing.
Some complex terms like POV and HMW were difficult to translate concisely, so improvements were made.

(Please note that the original text was not translated in order to effectively convey the message to Korean readers, as this part is crucial for easy communication with them.)

2. Engage Users with Questions

Simple questions, like a psychological test, encourage participation and help users find tools based on their context.

Help users make tool choices with three key questions.

3. Moderator-Centered Features

Essential tools, templates, and preparation items are easily accessible at the top.
A preview with helpful comments guides users through templates.
Procedures are ordered with basic settings for ease of use.

4. Develop 📈

In the wireframe, I moved to detailed and visual design based on shared team ideas. Key findings were symbolized in 4 colors for each stage, enhancing text readability. Achromatic colors were used to increase focus on the content.

1. Tool Symbol Expression
Inspired by an IDEO workshop, I used a toolbox emoticon with colored pieces to represent the four design thinking processes, emphasizing its physical nature.

2. Connect with Users' Concerns
I identified users' main difficulties, like the 'Find' menu in the Ideation phase, and directly addressed these issues to lower entry barriers.

3. Simplified Process
The five steps of the design thinking process were traditionally explained repeatedly in Korean workshops. I improved this by presenting it in Korean, making it easier to understand without additional explanation.

4. Inspire a Goal Before the Activity
As a coach, I’ve observed that participants lose focus over time, so reminding them of their goals at the start is key I included a section titled ‘Things to be drawn from this activity’ to help participants refocus.

5. Expand to ‘Things to Prepare’
Incorporating icebreaking activities and encouraging participation before the main session is essential. This section includes preparation items with an emphasis on sharing, making it easy to copy for team members.

Others
Hover interactions provide brief descriptions, helping users understand content quickly.

A timer is provided above each activity for workshop convenience.

A CTA encourages users to download the template and provides direct links to related activities.

Sum up

📍 Next Steps

Implement ideas that couldn’t be developed due to website builder limitations.
Complete unfinished tools in the ‘create and verify’ stage.
Continuously update tools and past workshop cases as content to assist users.

📓 Retrospective
Design Thinking enables problem-solving from diverse perspectives, fostering collaboration toward a shared goal. It’s an effective method for large-scale environments where multiple participants contribute to the solution.
My experience shifted from focusing solely on design to coaching and collaborating with others, which provided valuable insights. I hope the Accu Design Kit helps more people apply Design Thinking in real-world problem-solving.