Design thinking is a user-centered rapid prototyping approach to innovation. It focuses on creating empathy for users in order to define a design problem, proposing multiple solutions that can address the situation, and rapidly prototyping and testing solutions among users for further improvement.

The defining characteristic of UX design is it's focus on the user and on an iterative, user-centered, approach to creating solutions. But what if we applied the user-centered design process to ourselves, our lives, and our careers.

Running a requirements workshop or design lab is an essential tool used to gain insight from both stakeholders and users. Blah blah blah. But shouldn't it be fun as well as fruitful? Behold! Iron Unicorn—a requirements session workshop combined with a little bit of Who’s Line is it Anyway and Iron Chef—to demonstrate behavioral tools, rhetorical tricks, and creative ways to elicit rather than gather requirements to get the best results. But in a game show format. Because, why not?

Got a new idea, a functional prototype, or a product already in the market? Good thing it’s never to late to bring in some design! The design process—including user research, design, and usability testing—can benefit developers and entrepreneurs at any stage of the product development lifecycle. Let’s show you how 

Most design books and talks and conferences take an internal-team, product approach. An artifact approach. We have so much time and so much money and so many people and all that leadership committed to design thinking and customer experience. Let’s do all the things! Yay!

It’s bullshit.