When General Electric (GE) first unveiled its MRI scanner into hospitals, who knew their cutting-edge technology would make a little girl cry? Their senior designer, Doug Dietz, was proud of the technical feats of their product but on the first day of its release, a little girl entered the hospital room with her father. The monster-looking MRI machine was waiting for her in the corner. She was terrified, tugging on her daddy’s pants with teary eyes and dad giving her words of encouragement.
Doug was disappointed to see that all his efforts had gone toward tears rolling down the child’s cheeks. Doug never anticipated this when his team was engineering the product. But Doug is a learner, and willing to challenge his own thinking.
The disappointment inspired him to ask questions and he was led to a Design Thinking program at Stanford. Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to solving meaty problems. At the D.School at Stanford, Doug learned to begin with empathy and understand the actual experience of people as they interact with products and services.
By putting the human first, he saw deeper into the emotional journey as people experienced things. As a result, he was able to glean crucial insights that radically transformed his vision for the MRI machine.
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Naturally, the terror of the machine was gone. It wasn’t magic, it was empathic.[/perfectpullquote]
After his user research, Doug came up with what he called the Adventure Series which simulates the MRI room with various themes such as a jungle, outer space, or underwater. By making the environment fun and enjoyable, kids bring their imagination for the ride, which is how kids primarily experience the world. Naturally, the terror of the machine was gone. It wasn’t magic, it was empathic.
The great satisfaction for Doug was when a child was leaving the room with joy, asking her parents, “can we come back tomorrow?!” Since then, Doug has trained other GE employees on the ways of Design Thinking. Other companies like IBM, AirBNB, and Proctor and Gamble also embrace this methodology in order to deliver differentiated outcomes in the market, by putting humans first.
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This is one of many stories where good design is good for business and good for the world. Creative Confidence is a great book that unpacks the idea of design thinking as applied to a multitude of industries and life situations. The authors David Kelley and Tom Kelley are the people behind IDEO, a global design firm based in Silicon Valley, they are also the originators of Design Thinking.