Design Thinking: Insights to Inspiration (Coursera)

Design Thinking: Insights to Inspiration (Coursera)

Welcome Designers! In this course, developed at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, we will introduce you to the design thinking process. It is a project-based course in which you will identify a human-centered problem that you want to solve. We will focus our attention on the first seven steps of our 14-Step design thinking process.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

We’ll guide you through crafting and carrying out a research plan that helps you answer the question, “What is?” You will gather and identify important insights about the needs and wants of others and use this information to identify the attributes of an ideal solution.
Course 1 of 4 in the Design Thinking Specialization.

What You Will Learn

  • How to navigate the design thinking process to tackle a human-centered problem
  • How to craft out an effective research plan
  • How to draw key insights from the design process to arrive at ideal solutions

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Insights into Design Thinking
Welcome to the course! Ready to begin? We are going to get off to a fast start! This week you will be learning some introductory material and starting work on your project by completing Step 1.

WEEK 2
Project Planning
In Week 2 you'll advance your thinking about your project and learn more about the challenges of driving innovation through an organization.

WEEK 3
What Is?
After completing your Design Brief, you are ready to move into Steps 4 and 5. This week you'll make plans and begin your research.

WEEK 4
The Innovation Mindset
In Week 4, we will continue to work on the field work for your project. There are no new steps to tackle--just keep focusing on getting your field research completed. With your field work underway, we are going to spend our time this week shifting our focus from the level of process to the level of the personal and ask you to consider your own mindset and repertoire.

WEEK 5
If Anything Were Possible
Welcome to Week 5. At this point, you have hopefully completed your planning and are wrapping up your field research. Your completed research will be the input that we'll use to mine for deep insights (Step 6) and then transform those insights into design criteria (Step 7).

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Business Models for Innovative Care for Older People (Coursera) Coursera
University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen Business School

Business Models for Innovative Care for Older People (Coursera)

This course will introduce you to healthcare innovation within the field of healthy living and active aging. By following two specific cases on diabetes and rehabilitation, this interdisciplinary course will provide you with key theories, tools and concepts for analyzing and developing viable innovative solutions for aging populations. The lectures will cover demographic, biological, economic, social and cultural aspects of active aging and healthy living, along with lectures on current innovation theories and methods.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals (Coursera) Coursera
University of Virginia

Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals (Coursera)

Not so long ago, the job of product manager was about assessing market data, creating requirements, and managing the hand-off to sales/marketing. Maybe you’d talk to a customer somewhere in there and they’d tell you what features they wanted. But companies that manage product that way are dying. Being a product person today is a new game, and product managers are at the center of it. Today, particularly if your product is mostly digital, you might update it several times a day. Massive troves of data are available for making decisions and, at the same time, deep insights into customer motivation and experience are more important than ever.

Aug 10th 2026
4 Weeks
Innovation for Impact (i4i) The Carlson-Polizzotto Method of Value Creation (Coursera) Coursera
Northeastern University

Innovation for Impact (i4i) The Carlson-Polizzotto Method of Value Creation (Coursera)

Welcome! Partnering with Tech industry giants Curtis Carlson and Len Polizzotto, Northeastern University brings you “Value Creation: The Carlson-Polizzotto Method” a short-form course experience like no other. Building careers by solving for the value proposition - Curt and Len are responsible for driving the integration of the software technology behind Apple’s voice command intelligent assistant and creating the standard for high definition television - now known to billions today as Siri and HDTV.

Aug 10th 2026
1 Week
Escalamiento exitoso e Innovación en los Negocios (Coursera) Coursera
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Escalamiento exitoso e Innovación en los Negocios (Coursera)

Este curso fue diseñado para apoyar a emprendedores y empresarios que se encuentran en la etapa de escalamiento de sus negocios, con el fin de prepararlos para enfrentar los desafíos de esta etapa y tomar las decisiones estratégicas adecuadas que conlleva. El curso permite profundizar en las áreas de estrategia, administración, personas, finanzas y marketing, entregando conceptos y herramientas que permitan a los empresarios ampliar su visión estratégica de negocios y su capacidad para generar e implementar planes de escalamiento eficazmente, impulsando mecanismos que sustenten la innovación y el crecimiento y adoptando buenas prácticas de gestión.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Advanced Business Strategy (Coursera) Coursera
University of Virginia

Advanced Business Strategy (Coursera)

Advance your strategic analysis skills in this follow-up to Foundations of Business Strategy. In this course, developed at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, you'll learn the tools to analyze strategy across time (competitive dynamics), industries (corporate strategy), geographies (international strategy), and institutions (non-market strategy). Top-ranked faculty will introduce the tools you need to complete a comprehensive evaluation and understand the strategy dynamics of an industry: Competitive Lifecycle, Internationalization and Stakeholder Analyses, and Diversification Matrices.

Aug 3rd 2026
4 Weeks
Tinkering Fundamentals: Motion and Mechanisms (Coursera) Coursera
Exploratorium

Tinkering Fundamentals: Motion and Mechanisms (Coursera)

The Tinkering Fundamentals course will offer educators and enthusiasts an opportunity to develop a practice of tinkering and making. We see tinkering as a serious endeavor—one that is generalizable across content and especially good at interweaving disciplines in a way that leads to complex projects and individualized learning opportunities.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship (Coursera) Coursera
University of Maryland, College Park

Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship (Coursera)

This course assists aspiring and active entrepreneurs in developing great ideas into great companies. With strong economies presenting rich opportunities for new venture creation, and challenging economic times presenting the necessity for many to make their own job, the need to develop the skills to develop and act on innovative business opportunities is increasingly vital.

Aug 10th 2026
4 Weeks
Design Thinking and Global Startup (Coursera) Coursera
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology - KAIST

Design Thinking and Global Startup (Coursera)

This course offers a systematic engineering design methodology: Stanford Design Thinking for preparing global startup. The course empathizes the whole Stanford design thinking process, "Empathy-Define-Ideation-Prototype-Test," for building a startup with a business model that has a “customer truly need” component.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Managing Innovation: Ambidexterity, Teams and Leading Change (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Managing Innovation: Ambidexterity, Teams and Leading Change (Coursera)

You may have noticed that what is new often behaves differently than what has become accepted over time, whether it is in a market, or a technology, or involves people and firms. Much research supports these general ideas, and one implication is that management of innovation often requires different approaches and skills than management in established arenas. This course helps you develop a perspective on managing innovation. That is, you will build your capability to lead and design your organization to effectively implement innovation initiatives and achieve their strategic intent.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Mastering bitumen for better roads and innovative applications (Coursera) Coursera
École des Ponts ParisTech

Mastering bitumen for better roads and innovative applications (Coursera)

During the four coming weeks, best experts in bitumen will bring you their knowledge and experience to build a strong understanding of today’s realities and new perspectives on the future of bitumen. Total is the European leader on bitumen markets. Innovation has always been the key to sustainability and durability in the products they develop. Their main objective here is to share technical knowledge and experience to insure bitumen are being used in the most effective and efficient ways for their different applications in road works.

Aug 10th 2026
4 Weeks