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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Design Thinking for Innovation by University of Virginia

4.7
stars
8,444 ratings

About the Course

Today innovation is everyone's business. Whether you are a manager in a global corporation, an entrepreneur starting up, in a government role, or a teacher in an elementary school, everyone is expected to get lean – to do better with less. And that is why we all need design thinking. At every level in every kind of organization, design thinking provides the tools you need to become an innovative thinker and uncover creative opportunities that are there – you're just not seeing them yet. In this course, developed at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and taught by top-ranked faculty, we provide an overview of design thinking and work with a model containing four key questions and several tools to help you understand design thinking as a problem solving approach. We also look at several stories from different organizations that used design thinking to uncover compelling solutions....

Top reviews

SS

Aug 30, 2018

This is very good course for every body whatever your background, your education & your job role position. I highly recommend to get this training to change, gain & create your mindset for innovation.

ET

Jan 29, 2023

I learned a new approach by this course. I strongly recommend it to any business person who wants to find innovative solutions for his challenges in daily business life as well as long term solutions.

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1 - 25 of 2,556 Reviews for Design Thinking for Innovation

By J B

•

Aug 25, 2018

WARNING : the presentation of the course should make it clear that you cannot complete the end of course assignment unless you already have some previous work experience using one of the design thinking tools introduced in the course.

Although I paid for it, I had no chance to get the certificate as I never used the tools introduced in the course. I wish the presentation of the course had clearly stated this requirement.

Upside : interesting and pleasant introduction to design thinking.

Downside : on top of the warning above, not all the slides used in the course are available for download.

By Trevor W

•

Mar 13, 2016

Content is fairly good with weak story line and connection across the various modules. Also the lack of in session quiz modules or weekly quiz module to re-inforce learning is disappointing.

It's also possible that i was expecting a lot from a course on design thinking and what it turned out to be was just a scratching of the surface of what the definition of Design Thinking is all about. Having read numerous books on Lean Thinking, Agile development, Minimum Viable Propositions, etc. I was really expecting a solid rigorous approach to the world of design thinking.

This course let me down and I just managed to scrape through at the end...almost gave up.

By Rashi B

•

Sep 15, 2020

Very well explained with lots of practical examples - would highly recommend this course to anyone looking at getting an initial understanding of design thinking and how it can be applied practically.

By Mohammad V

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Dec 1, 2016

As a design manager I should say this course actually opened my eyes to a new world. I hope be able to make good changes in my world by using this knowledge more and more in my life. Thanks to All :)

By David M

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Jul 2, 2018

The course gives an idea of what design thinking is, but the teacher just give 4 tools to use, and emphasize a lot that she wrote a book and that we should buy it - the book introduces 10 tools to use. Means the course is not complete, and is a way to sell the book. I already paid for the certification, I think it is unfair to ask the students to buy the book to get the complete information.

By Tomas E

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Mar 5, 2018

The idea of the course is good. But delivery have a lot of space for improvement. (Manage to finish only WEEK 1 and start WEEK 2)

First of all:

Design is about talking with pictures. WEEK 1 - Visualization lesson.

Lets look how this is implemented:

Try to listen WEEK 2 Physics of innovation - and follow visually(in your head) what Jeanne is talking (for 18 minutes) :).

Or

WEEK 1- "What is design thinking. Hear from the experts." The same issue.

The language is too much academic which makes it hard to follow visually.

The authors should analyze these videos and answer the question: "Does it work?"

Speak in front of +14-16 year old children for 20 minutes (without pictures) and see if the audience can follow it (translate every sentence into picture).

If this course is designed for academic world it is probably ok. But it is not ready for the mass majority of audience.

As Jeanne is saying in one of the video: fail fast, cheap and improve.

All the best improving this course.

By SUMEET P

•

Aug 16, 2020

Excellent program to learn lots of tools towards Design Thinking !! Thanks a lot! Very interactive and the last activity of completing the assignment was very thought provoking !! thanks to all pears!

By Laura M

•

Sep 23, 2019

I really liked the peer reviews at the end. It was a great way to view other examples of how different projects, industries, and teams have used design thinking. The course was easy to follow as well.

By Setyobudi

•

Aug 31, 2018

This is very good course for every body whatever your background, your education & your job role position. I highly recommend to get this training to change, gain & create your mindset for innovation.

By Fernando A

•

Jun 27, 2017

This course lacks contents. It´s a quick overview on some of the main tools that can be used for design thinking, but if you want to learn more you'll need to do your own research or buy the promoted book in the course (written by the teacher). I think it's a good introduction, but I don't think it should be a paid course or award a certificate since it's mostly a book's teaser. The assignment was also strange since it's was more a reading/writing exercise of past experiences instead of actually applying the learnt concepts. A lot could have been made here, there are many people in the forum where we could have formed groups and try to problem solve wicked things and use other students as stakeholders. I wish this course gets a proper update and I can come back in the future and continue to learn new things.

By John B

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Apr 29, 2020

I was pretty excited to start this "5 week" course but quickly realized it's about a 5 hour course. I can make any course a year long course if I wanted by only doing 1 minute of work a day which is basically the principle at work here to make this course seem more robust. For example "Week 3" is 35 mins of video. I'm giving this a one star review because the content is outdated (from 2013) and better, more updated content can be found on YouTube. This course is effectively content marketing for the Profs books and for the school. There are no graded assignments or workbook until the end when a 5 paragraph assignment is peer reviewed. Note that your peers in this course most likely won't even review your work and just give you a passing grade. Conversely, of the work I reviewed 3/4 submissions were either blank documents or some random article copied from another course/website on Design Thinking. This course is a certificate farm and I'm pretty unhappy to have paid $60 USD for the 'credential'. First and likely last course I take on Coursera. Woof.

By AJIT Y

•

Feb 28, 2020

The course provides a practical approach to how to address issues using Design thinking approach.The examples provided to understand the tools used, provide deep insights on usefulness and applica

By Conrad A

•

Jun 17, 2017

great course , i am grateful to Coursera and everyone at Darden who helped develop this course.

i really enjoyed the course. best wishes to all . keep up the great work!!!! God bless all of you!!!

By Sumit S

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Dec 12, 2017

Great course for designers and entrepreneurs, as innovation is the requirement in today's world, course helps to enhance knowledge about innovation process and some tools used for Design thinking.

By Scott C

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Mar 25, 2020

It's a lot of screen time watching Instructors and speakers talk. Very high level and overarching themes, Ideas, concepts of Design Thinking. I got to the end not understanding what to do or how to take the test. I had no idea how to utilize the forum with others taking the course. I should have just read a book.

By Marius L

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Aug 12, 2016

This course is basically about watching uninspiring videos. It needs a lot of design thinking itself.

I have bought the book however. It is really useful.

By Mohammed A N

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Dec 4, 2018

This is such an important course to understand Design Thinking and proper application. I must thank the course designer for introducing this course. I have already recommended this course to my colleagues. As I deal with complex social issues involving technology this course was very helpful to identify how to understand challenges and move towards innovative solutions.

By Ushasree K

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Feb 8, 2017

Design Thinking for Business innovation is a new concept to me, Its a wonderful insight on how to do innovation using tools and techniques of the DT course, Jeanne Liedtka is just great. thanks

By Anjani T

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Apr 22, 2019

Fantastic course! a lot of learning

By Ehia E

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Apr 29, 2019

Excellent presentation of concepts with appropriate examples that drives home the learning. Very impressed!

By Raphael B

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Feb 2, 2019

Great course, nice videos to understand the principles and how to of design thinking

By Jamer N C

•

Dec 19, 2018

Una exposición clara, amplia y motivadora sobre el tema. Gracias.

By Julia H

•

May 6, 2019

One of the best courses I have ever made

By Ankita D

•

Jan 2, 2019

Excellent Course

By Hsin-Fang H

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Apr 29, 2019

It is really useful and shapes my thinking in a more innovative way.