10 Design Thinking Courses
We've compiled a list of the best design thinking courses to help you unlock your creativity and innovation skills and set yourself apart from the industry competition. Some courses will touch on the core concepts of design thinking, its process, challenges, and design thinking tools and techniques that you can adopt. Scroll down to learn more.
1. Design Thinking
Whether you're a new designer, a startup entrepreneur, or even a company CEO seeking to explore the world of design thinking, you can rely on this SC Training (formerly EdApp) free course to learn more about the ins and outs of this innovation methodology. The Design Thinking training course teaches the basics of design thinking and how it can be used in the development of products and services that address common human challenges. It will also go through each step of the design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. These phases, however, are not necessarily followed on a single linear path since new ideas may spark in between the processes. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to get a good understanding of each process to strike a balance between viability, desirability, and feasibility when innovating new products and solving specific problems.
This course will equip you with an in-depth understanding of design thinking through a series of short modules that include short clips, images, and fun gamified quizzes. The microlearning strategy also makes the entire learning experience easier since the topics are delivered in a concise, targeted approach. You can complete it anytime and anywhere using your desktop or laptops or even learn on the go through SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s microlearning app.
Cost: Free
Scope: Design thinking definition and design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
Created by SC Training (formerly EdApp)
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2. Design Thinking for Innovation
Coursera’s Design Thinking for Innovation is a 5-week online training program consisting of lectures and learning tools designed to help you better understand the idea and process behind design thinking. It will unpack the basics of design thinking, how it’s more effective than traditional innovation methods, and what kind of human challenges are best suited for design thinking. This course will also train you to think outside the box, making sure that you are mentally prepared to see and act on opportunities as they arise. As you reach the third week of this training, you’ll then get to dive deeper into the design thinking process, starting with idea generation to experimentation. It concludes with a final assignment, which you will have to complete and pass to get a design thinking certification from Coursera.
Cost: Free for 7 days
Scope: Basics of design thinking, effectivity over traditional methods, preparing mind for innovation, and design thinking process
Created by Coursera
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3. MicroMasters® Program in Design Thinking
This MicroMasters® Program in Design Thinking by edX offers learners a pathway to an advanced career in design thinking. For eight months, you will gain expertise in design thinking and learn how to apply its principles to solve problems creatively, collaboratively, and empathetically. This design thinking course will also equip you with ideation and visualization techniques to solve the most prevalent problems of today. The methods for evaluating and applying user feedback from testing models and prototypes will also be discussed, as well as their role in creating targeted and creative solutions.
Course takers are expected to devote at least 8-12 hours per week to finish the program. To earn a program certificate, you will need to complete all courses, including the assessments and projects.
Cost: $1,345.50 USD
Scope: Design thinking fundamentals, ideation and visualization techniques to solve problems, and prototyping and user testing
Created by edX
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4. Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate
This certification program by IDEO comes with two design thinking courses that can help you get a good grasp of the concepts of design thinking and level up your core skills and mindsets. The first course will provide you with some techniques to better understand the social, emotional, and physical needs of your customers, and from there, come up with human-centered solutions. The other course then focuses on rapid prototyping, experimenting, and iterating ideas, which are crucial in lowering the risk of your projects. After completing these courses, you will receive a certificate of completion, which you can upload and share on LinkedIn.
Cost: $999 USD
Scope: Insights to turn customer needs into human-centered solutions, and methods on how to generate, develop and test new ideas
Created by IDEO
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5. Design Thinking
The Design Thinking course by eCornell heavily relies on collaborative group work to help you master the concepts of design thinking and apply them to the design of products, experiences, and systems. In six months, you and your team will learn how to identify and frame a challenge, gather user emotions, and generate user-centered solutions. From there, you’ll proceed into idea generation and rapid prototyping, and then move into testing and refining your projects using the design thinking methodology. Working as a group, everyone in the team is expected to take an active role to complete projects and assignments.
Cost: Available upon request
Scope: Design thinking process, identify and frame a challenge, gather user emotions, generate user-centered solutions, design prototyping, testing and iteration
Created by eCornell
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6. Mastering Design Thinking
In this design thinking course by MIT, you’ll get to learn the step-by-step design thinking process through a series of interactive videos, presentations, and discussion forums. It will guide you on how to carry out a customer needs analysis, and then use the data to create and establish a robust product architecture. You will also learn how to apply a proven 4-step method for planning and executing a prototype. Apart from a class discussion, you will also benefit from a successful adviser who will help manage any administrative and technical queries you might have. A certificate of completion will be given after you complete your lessons and successfully pass your quizzes and assignments.
Cost: $3,300 USD
Scope: Design thinking process, customer needs analysis, product generation and evaluation, planning and executing a prototype
Created by MIT
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7. Creativity and Design Thinking
This course by Stanford will help you unleash your inner creativity and come up with innovative ideas and solutions to overcome big and small problems that you regularly face. Here, expect combined coaching lessons, lectures, daily application exercises, and habit-forming routines showing you the principles of design thinking. As you progress through it, you will learn more about its process, and crucial tools essential in unlocking your innovative capacity and producing breakthrough ideas. You will also master the synthesis process to prototyping and testing, and put them into practice through a series of hands-on exercises. This technical training course is 100% online, which you can take at your most convenient time and complete at your own pace.
Cost: $3,495.00 USD
Scope: Principles of design thinking and its process, key tools of design thinking, and the process of synthesis to prototyping and testing
Created by Stanford Online
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8. Design Thinking Certification Training Course
If you’re interested in improving the efficiency of your businesses and industrial processes, the Design Thinking Certification Training Course by Simplilearn is also a good option. This course will walk you through the 5D design thinking framework – discover, define, dream, design, and dry-run – to help boost your grasp of business strategy and innovation. It will also help you master some design thinking techniques for determining market fit and expanding your product and business. For higher knowledge retention, this course prioritizes hands-on learning through capstone projects, which involve real-world data sets and virtual labs. You will need to complete all five projects of this course plus attend one batch of its live virtual class to obtain your certificate.
Cost: Available upon request
Scope: 5D design thinking framework, design thinking techniques for determining market fit and expanding your product and business
Created by Simplilearn
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9. Design Thinking and Innovation
In this Design Thinking and Innovation course, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of the design thinking process directly from the world-class faculty of Harvard Business School. It features five weeks of discussions plus two weeks of project work, which will provide you with structured methods of gathering observations and analysis, breaking cognitive fixedness, and generating creative ideas to solve problems. You’ll also learn how to apply design thinking and innovative problem-solving tools when building and enhancing products and services, ensuring optimal use and benefits to users and customers. The best thing about this course is that you will have the opportunity to work with peers and strengthen your collaboration skills to heighten your approach to innovation. You can complete your training at your own pace, although you will still have to comply with regular deadlines.
Cost: $1,750 USD
Scope: Gathering observations and analysis, generating creative ideas to solve problems, and design thinking and innovative problem-solving tools
Created by Harvard Business School Online
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10. Online Design Thinking meets Lean Start-up & Agile Course
You can also turn to the Online Design Thinking meets Lean Start-up & Agile Course by DesignThinkers Academy to start your design thinking journey and kick-start a bold innovation. This course has been divided into five sessions, each taking one week to complete. Among the many things that you will learn here include the core elements of design thinking, lean start-up, and agile cycle, and the application of these processes in creating and implementing human-centered solutions. You will also learn how to ideate new solutions and update prototypes in a quicker, more effective, and fun way. There will be classroom sessions, group assignments, and homeworks in this online course platform, ensuring that you will not only learn but also know how to apply the design thinking principles into practice.
Cost: € 1.395,00
Scope: Core elements of design thinking, lean start-up, and agile cycle, design thinking process, creating and implementing projects, and ideation and prototyping
Created by DesignThinkers Academy
Explore the courseDevelop and nurture your design thinking skills with design thinking courses
Design thinking is a working methodology that prioritizes technology and user needs when developing new products, services, and processes. It revolves around continuous experimentation and innovation to tackle the most common problems that are prevalent today and put forward superior solutions with lower risks and cost of change. Beyond just helping companies boost their revenue, this approach has also played a vital role in helping them engage and connect with their customers on an emotional level, securing long-term customer loyalty and a healthy bottom line. With this in mind, it's not hard to see why design thinking is rapidly gaining traction in the global markets. Professionals, both new and experienced, will benefit from our list above to find the best design thinking courses and learn the most important skills required to succeed and be at the top of this field.