How to improve an application with a design thinking workshop

In the life of every product, there comes a moment when the number of active users, previously in constant growth, slowly begins to decline. One of the most common causes is a non-optimal user experience, which drives previously active users away and discourages new ones from using it.

But if the UX is poor, why didn’t users mention it before? Why didn’t they leave reviews, clearly indicating what was troubling them? Often, it is because the problem does not appear in the early stages, assuming a competent team was involved.

When a design thinking workshop is necessary

The problem is often that products do not evolve consciously. This happens for several reasons:

• Work that achieves the minimum objective is considered sufficient, but does not stand the test of time.
• Features not planned in the initial work are added, perhaps because they were requested by individual users with specific use cases.
• Technical compromises are adopted, which accumulate over time without ever being corrected.

Often, at the root of the problem is the fact that major interventions, such as planning a redesign or defining a new roadmap, are rarely carried out. Instead, progress is rushed through small changes made over time, which are poorly aligned with each other and with the original plan.

The result? A product that grows in a fragmented way, with all the consequences that follow:

• Metrics do not improve even with new developments.
• Some key flows do not work as expected.
• The team is no longer aligned on priorities and objectives.

Although the application continues to function, it becomes increasingly difficult to update and maintain, and increasingly confusing for users, especially new ones.

Why design thinking is the solution

How should you intervene in this case? It is necessary to restore a shared vision of the direction the application intends to take. It is the right moment to pause, discuss with all stakeholders, and establish which features are core and which are secondary.

This type of reasoning will consequently result in an understanding of which parts of the product should evolve and be treated as central, but also an awareness of the features that are not worth further investment.

Of course, easier said than done. Getting many minds to agree, each with different points of view, from the technical perspectives of design and development, to the business logic of marketing, and even the financial perspective of the founder and any investors, is never a trivial task. And this is precisely why a design thinking workshop can help.

What a workshop is (and isn’t)

But isn’t “workshop” just a fancy, polished way to describe the good old meeting? Absolutely not! A workshop is a structured work session, meaning it involves guided activities, practical exercises, and tasks specifically designed to achieve a predetermined goal.

Each phase of the workshop has a precise purpose and a limited duration, aimed at keeping attention and motivation levels high. One of the main characteristics of a workshop is, in fact, the intentionality with which each activity is carried out: no action is random or driven by individual sparks of inspiration, but everything is designed to follow a collaborative process.

It is therefore not the classic frontal meeting, with a single speaker presenting data and facts and at most leaving time for questions. The workshop is often guided by a facilitator, who knows in advance the phases the workshop will include and ensures that they are followed.

A workshop can sometimes also be confused with a simple brainstorming session. While brainstorming is a group activity and can be included in a workshop, it is not a workshop in itself, because it lacks the structured activities that constitute its most important part.

Understanding design thinking: what it is

Why can design thinking help solve problems in the design of a digital product? Because it is a human-centered design method, meaning it focuses on people. It seeks to understand their needs and behaviors, to identify the right problems and, consequently, the most suitable solutions.

Design thinking adopts a collaborative approach, which makes the most of different skill sets. For this reason, it is the best way to reconcile the needs of all parties, without forgetting the most important one: the end user.

Using this method, however, is not like having a magic wand: it is an iterative process, proceeding through trial and error. Solutions are explored, tested, and improved by learning from mistakes.

How a design thinking workshop is carried out

At Mabiloft, we have held many workshops over the years, both internally and with our clients. Design thinking workshops are one of our favorite methods for regaining clarity when we feel a product is slipping out of control, when teams are no longer aligned on the ultimate purpose of the product, or simply as preparation before developing a new feature.

The steps we follow when conducting this type of workshop are five.

The first is understanding the context and the users. This means analyzing the product’s usage context: in what situation is the user, usually, when using the app? Are they perhaps stuck in traffic, exercising, or relaxing in a home environment? Of course, the answer depends on the type of digital product in question.

In this phase, we analyze user behaviors, focusing especially on their difficulties, as these constitute the starting point for improving the product.

But how can we empathize with the user without “guessing”? In this phase, it is essential to have data to base our understanding on, which we can obtain from:

• Product analytics, such as the analyses provided by PostHog
• User reviews on app stores, in the case of a mobile product
• Bug reports and feature requests received via support contacts or collected with software like Userback

This way, we can reconstruct the user’s actual journey and identify points where they get stuck, confused, frustrated, or abandon the product.

The second phase is perhaps the most important. It consists of correctly defining the problem. In practice, by synthesizing the data collected in the previous phase, the problem is reformulated in a user-centered way.

Correctly defining the problems allows us to give proper priority to subsequent developments. Often in this phase, it emerges that the problem was never the lack of features, but that what is already present is unclear to the user, who feels lost in certain flows or interactions.

From the third phase, we get down to business: it’s time to propose solutions. The exercise most often used is the aforementioned brainstorming, which is aimed at generating a large number of ideas free from judgment. One idea sparks another, like cherries, and soon a substantial set of proposals emerges.

The ideas produced are then evaluated by participants, who represent different points of view, and the group selects the proposals considered most effective.

From the collection of ideas, we move on to prototyping solutions. This allows us to have something tangible to interact with.

The solution prototype can be made in various ways, depending on the problem to be solved:

• If the identified problem is structural, in the UI of a single page, a wireframe may be sufficient to show a new layout
• If, instead, user flows are not functional, it may be useful to draw the flows

A concrete example could be a six-step purchase flow redesigned into three steps, to see if it becomes more intuitive for the user.

The final phase is testing and validation. Sometimes this is underestimated: one might fall into the error of thinking that if the solution is deemed good by the team, it will necessarily work.

In reality, without testing the solutions identified, nothing guarantees that the problem is solved. Therefore, it is important to gather feedback, if possible directly from users, for example through a usage simulation, or internally from teams not involved in the work.

The goal is for the user, or someone able to put themselves in their shoes, to determine whether the friction points are resolved and whether the new arrangement can work, ideally before proceeding with development.

In this step, it is necessary to be open to criticism and ready to go back and start over if the solution proves ineffective.

Have you ever considered organizing a design thinking workshop for your product? Do you want more suggestions or need a facilitator? Write to us without obligation to ask for more information, or simply to share your experience!