Breakdown the Program Curriculum for Design Thinking
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The Design Thinking Executive Program meets the same high academic standards as all UCR Extension programs, with a challenging interdisciplinary curriculum designed to prepare you to analyze, create, and deliver unique customer experiences. Roll up your sleeves to solve real-world challenges and use innovative practices developed by top companies. Once you've completed this 8-module program, you’ll receive a record of completion from UCR Extension suitable for framing.
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Module 1: Introduction to Design Thinking
Start with a practical definition of Design Thinking and its many uses for solving business, technology, and social problems across many
industries and needs.
industries and needs.
- Define Design Thinking as an effective approach to creative problem-solving.
- Understand how Human-Centered Design and methodology influence Design Thinking.
- Review practices and case studies of Design Thinking in the real-world.
Module 2: Designing for Empathy
Evaluate cases for understanding and applying empathy in business environments and the value of empathy-based research and elicitation.
- Identify effective approaches and tools for research.
- Explore conversations and interviews that honor stakeholders.
- Frame problem statements that facilitate problem-solving.
Module 3: Introduction to Visualization
Identify the most common visualization tools in Design Thinking and the best methods for collaborating to understand, explore, and discover ideas.
- Align the right visualizations to the right Design Thinking tools.
- Discover the visualization tools that best fit specific challenges.
- Explore the use of visualization tools in real-life scenarios.
Module 4: Persona & Journey Map Design
Evaluate the importance of customer experienced-based visualizations that help define customer attributes and their experiences with your products, services, and stakeholders.
- Create personas that describe stakeholder characteristics.
- Build journey maps that help define critical moments of truth.
- Identify the right tools for success measurement in Customer Experience.
Module 5: Ideation in the Design Thinking Process
Explore the concept of ideation as a process for developing, communicating, and synthesizing prescriptive ideas to others in order to solve the right problem.
- Develop creative processes for developing new ideas.
- Understand mind-mapping and brainstorming approaches.
- Learn best practices for ideation workshops.
Module 6: Prototyping
Discover potential approaches for prototyping concepts, products, and services that solve human problems in collaboration with the people experiencing the problem.
- Understand low and high-fidelity prototyping.
- Design approaches for bringing ideas to life.
- Discuss prototyping approaches and tools.
Module 7: Validation
Leverage previous module knowledge of ideation and prototype design to help design thinkers properly test and validate ideas and prototypes.
- Identify methods for researching and validating outcomes.
- Evaluate recommendations for stakeholder collaboration and participation.
- Develop considerations for design validation.
Module 8: Implementation & Application
Create a plan for implementing Design Thinking principles and tools at your organization while aligning with the ROI of internal projects and stakeholders.
- Develop processes for deployment and launch.
- Explore collaboration methods with stakeholders and success partners.
- Design plans for applying Design Thinking at your organization.