Welcome to Design Thinking Fundamentals

Created for tourism professionals, this programme will help you gain all the necessary skills to use Design Thinking as an innovation method in your day-to-day work.

Programme Calendar

Modules

1. Identifying the Underlying Challenges

Available 10th October

‍2. Understanding User Needs

Available 3rd October

3. Designing Creative Solutions

Available 17th October

4. Developing Effective Prototypes

Available 24th October

1. Identifying the Underlying Challenges

This first module will be dedicated to understanding why empathy is key to adopting a user or visitor-centred approach to the challenges we face in any situation.

Main Lesson

Templates

5 Whys

This template helps you apply the 5 Whys technique, uncovering the root cause of a problem and fostering creative solutions.

Featured in this module:

A Holistic Approach to Omni-Channel Marketing

Fáilte Ireland

Fáilte Ireland explore the approach to omni-channel marketing and how they produce connected, consistent and contextually relevant content.

Copenhagen on Redefining Values in Tourism

Wonderful Copenhagen

Focuses and values have shifted from commercial to community, from destination to ‘localhood’, from tourism as a goal to tourism as a tool to develop.

Destination Transformation

Visit Copenhagen: Working as an Agile Team

Wonderful Copenhagen

We provide three examples of DMOs who we think successfully became ‘glass box brands’ and redefined their role as DxO.

Destination Transformation

Helsinki Marketing and Human Centred Design

Helsinki Marketing

With competition growing among destinations, Helsinki needed to set itself apart from other Nordic Capitals with a rather understated strategy.

Destination Transformation

Visit Oslo on Value Driven Storytelling

Oslo’s storytelling is based on the values that portray the city as a very inclusive place where pride is celebrated.

Destination Transformation

Visit San Francisco on Value Driven Marketing

Visit San Francisco

The recent promotional successes of San Francisco Travel, the official DMO of the city, demonstrate that the city’s shared values can be powerful.

Coming Soon

This module will be available on the 8th August.

2. Understanding User Needs

The second stage will focus on exploring different techniques which will help you to develop a clearer understanding of the people involved in your challenge.

Main Lesson

Templates

Empathising User Needs

This template helps you gain a deeper understanding of your target users and their needs.

Defining Hills

"Hills" act as powerful mission statements for specific user outcomes, guiding your project towards user-centred solutions.

Defining Outcomes

This template guides you through a two-part exploration to enhance your understanding of user needs and aspirations.

Featured in this module:

Sparking Innovation with Design Experiences

Tourism in Skåne

On day 3, Josefine and Tirsa discussed Design Thinking initiatives and projects for sustainability.

Dolomiti Paganella: Future Lab

Dolomiti Paganella

Future Lab was launched to develop a balanced vision for tourism development in the Trentino region that considers both visitors and residents.

Coming Soon

This module will be available on the 15th August.

‍3. Designing Creative Solutions

In this stage, we will work to ideate hundreds, if not thousands of ideas with different methods. This is one of the keys to successfully implementing Design Thinking, as it will help us narrow down the ideas that could work.

Main Lesson

Templates

Ideating & Absurd Ideation

This template helps you unleash creativity through two rounds of ideation – regular brainstorming followed by absurdity exploration.

Especially Absurd Ideation

This template helps you unleash your imagination and generate creative solutions to your challenges, with a focus on absurd ideation.

Featured in this module:

Estonian Tourist Board's Service Design Masterclass

Estonian Tourist Board & Guidio

Ave Pill and Küllike Tint talk about the Estonian Tourist Board's Service Design Masterclass and how it helps businesses, such as Guidio.

Design Thinking

Helsinki Marketing and Human Centred Design

Helsinki Marketing

With competition growing among destinations, Helsinki needed to set itself apart from other Nordic Capitals with a rather understated strategy.

Destination Transformation

Coming Soon

This module will be available on the 22nd August.

4. Developing Effective Prototypes

Once a solution is identified, assumptions pose a risk, as these are almost always based on bias. Learn how to take low-fidelity prototypes into the field, gather feedback from users and iterate as part of your systematic workflow.

Main Lesson

Templates

From Ideation to Action

This template helps you bridge the gap between brainstorming and implementation by translating shortlisted ideas into concrete action steps.

Pitching Your Idea

This template helps you present your design thinking solution in a clear, concise and compelling way.

Testing

This template helps you gather valuable feedback on your design ideas through multiple "feedback loops".

Featured in this module:

Transforming Urban Areas

Gideon Maasland, Studio Director at MVRDV brought an 'outside of the industry' perspective to X. Festival by discussing architecture and planning.

Going Beyond Design in Solving Today's Challenges

IBM iX, SNCB & Kantify

These three unique partners came together to think about how they could create a seamless experience driven by big data, AI and innovation.

Coming Soon

This module will be available on the 29th August.

Resource Hub

In this resource hub, you’ll find a range of templates to provide inspiration and help structure your human-centered design process, alongside user guides sharing additional tips for following this process. You’ll also find prompt cards to stimulate discussions and a range of case studies and best practice examples of design thinking methods being implemented in practice.

Case Studies

Estonian Tourist Board's Service Design Masterclass

Estonian Tourist Board & Guidio

Ave Pill and Küllike Tint talk about the Estonian Tourist Board's Service Design Masterclass and how it helps businesses, such as Guidio.

Design Thinking

Sparking Innovation with Design Experiences

Tourism in Skåne

On day 3, Josefine and Tirsa discussed Design Thinking initiatives and projects for sustainability.

Digital Tools to Support a Sustainable Strategy

Bordeaux Tourism

In this session, together with Julie Benisty, from Bordeaux Tourism, we discovered digital tools to support a sustainable strategy.

Transforming Urban Areas

Gideon Maasland, Studio Director at MVRDV brought an 'outside of the industry' perspective to X. Festival by discussing architecture and planning.

Dolomiti Paganella: Future Lab

Dolomiti Paganella

Future Lab was launched to develop a balanced vision for tourism development in the Trentino region that considers both visitors and residents.

Involving the Whole Community in Shaping a Sustainable Destination

Îles de la Madeleine & UQAM

Currently, Jason and his team at the DMO work under a marketing strategy focusing on nature, culture and food.

Going Beyond Design in Solving Today's Challenges

IBM iX, SNCB & Kantify

These three unique partners came together to think about how they could create a seamless experience driven by big data, AI and innovation.

Championing Design Thinking & Transformation with MURAL

'Design Thinking', a creative and highly collaborative process used to visualise ideas, identify challenges, craft solutions & ultimately drive growth

Austurland's Scenario Mapping using Mural

Visit Austurland

We caught up with Maria who was kind enough to share her experience of starting to work together with industry to look at the various scenarios.

Accelerating Innovation through Hacks and Challenges

Learn how to create a powerful platform to put innovation at the heart of your destination's activities.

Destination Transformation

Unconventional Ideas X Collaboration = Energy

Eindhoven brought together a team from all different industries within the city to create a truly dynamic identity.

Destination Transformation

Visit Copenhagen: Working as an Agile Team

Wonderful Copenhagen

We provide three examples of DMOs who we think successfully became ‘glass box brands’ and redefined their role as DxO.

Destination Transformation

Helsinki Marketing and Human Centred Design

Helsinki Marketing

With competition growing among destinations, Helsinki needed to set itself apart from other Nordic Capitals with a rather understated strategy.

Destination Transformation

Les Îles de la Madeleine on Design Thinking

Tourisme Îles de la Madeleine

Les Îles de la Madeleine is working extensively with Design Thinking techniques helping the destination to create projects and promote tourism.

Design Thinking

Reports & Strategies

The Definitive Guide to Facilitating Remote Workshops

Everything we know about work is changing: where it's done, how it's done and who does it.

The Field Guide to Human-Centred Design

Embracing human-centred design means believing that all problems, even the seemingly intractable ones are solvable.

Exploring the Impact of Design Thinking in Action

University of Virginia

Design thinking is a methodology of growing interest to both management scholars and organisations.

Developing Design Sensibilities

Effective design thinking entails more than applying design methods. To produce the best outcomes, organisations need to develop.

Prototypes as (Design) Tools for Behavioral and Organisational Change

Increasingly, it is apparent that healthy organisations are those that can continually respond to a world full of change.

Library of Ambiguity

Stanford D School

The core ability that allows students to solve and discover problems is Navigating Ambiguity.

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Final Exam

You'll need to get 70% marks to pass. You can submit as many times as needed until you pass, but you will need to allow 7 days between attempts for them to be valid.

Can't see the exam? Refresh the page.

Coming Soon