Design Thinking? Think Design Hacking instead!

More Design Hacking than Design Thinking.

At 40/60, we grow up with a strong belief: ideas are only valuable if they land and take shape in the real world. However, today, a large majority of innovations are abandoned. They do not go beyond the idea stage, are put aside for lack of investment or do not meet their audience. So how do you succeed in launching THE right idea?

Have you tried Design Hacking?

Design Hacking is a design method seeking the perfect match between a product and its market (Product Market Fit). It follows all the phases of design and development of a product and/or service by merging the spirit and techniques of designers with those of growth hackers.

Growth Hacking

At the beginning, there was a concept: Growth Hacking.

Growth Hacking is a set of techniques — or “hack” — used by startups technological tools to rapidly increase their user base, and thus their growth.

Growth hackers work from a framework: the AARRR tunnel which structures the various stages of development of the product/service user base.

• Acquisition is the first step. It includes all the means that growth hackers put in place to promote their product/service. It is often measured by the volume of traffic on the website (click rate).
• Activation determines if the prospect is ready to use the product/service. It often results in the number of registrations (email retrieval).
• Retention aims to convert these prospects (or “leads”) into regular users. It is a question of deploying a certain number of actions to encourage them to return to the website.
• Referral represents the means put in place to encourage leads to invite others to use your product/service.
• Income is the final stage of the tunnel. It aims to generate and increase revenue per user, i.e. maximize the product/service conversion rate.

But Growth Hacking is above all a state of mind, carried by a strong figure: the Growth Hacker.

The latter often considers himself a “pirate”, a person who does not hesitate to test various actions, sometimes unconventional, to achieve a specific goal: the rapid and exponential growth of its product. The growth hacker tracks, analyzes and orients user behavior on the web to convert them little by little into customers, collecting as much knowledge as possible about them in the process.

The Design

The designer is wearing the product and user vision.

It explores the uses and behaviors of individuals, analyzing how they interact with their environment and the product/service offered. Based on their feedback, he optimizes his product/service to guarantee best experience possible for each user.

Just like growth hacking, design is above all a state of mind. The designer places The human at the center of the design process, adopting an empathetic approach in order to understand emotions, problems and needs. Based on his observations, he imagines and prototypes solutions, tests them with users and improves his product/service accordingly. This approach cyclical, iterative, and experimental is the cornerstone of any designer.

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Design Hacking

Humans are multi-faceted and Acts differently on the web than in the real world. To understand all of its behaviors and design adapted products/services, it is necessary to explore both channels. This is where the designer and the growth hacker meet: their methods are both user-centered.

By comparing their visions, ideas and practices, the designer and the growth hacker challenge each other and feed, validating hypotheses and progressively perfecting the service/product to be developed. The decisions taken are thus pragmatic and 100% user-oriented.

The meeting of design and growth hacking opened a unique window of opportunity for product development. By providing, in real time, a validation of the concept by the user himself, design hacking makes it possible to convince without detour, bringing confidence in future investment and guaranteeing the design of products/services aligned with the true expectations of individuals.

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