# Index:
1. What is Design Thinking
2. The Design Thinking process
3. What is a Design Thinking Workshop
4. The benefits of a Design Thinking workshop
5. Our workshops
6. Conclusion
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# What is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking is an iterative process in which you try to better understand your users and/or customers, question your assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions. Following this process, it enables you to convert these solutions into working prototypes and test them with real users. The overall purpose of this is to identify and validate alternative strategies and solutions. Applying the Design Thinking method helps companies to quickly collect a lot of data, providing insight, which ultimately leads to saving time and costs.
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Design thinking is more than just a process; it opens up a whole new way of thinking and it offers a collection of practical methods to help you apply this new way of thinking.
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![Design thinking1.png](https://storage.googleapis.com/strapi-image-bucket/Design_thinking1_ef1fbb7283/Design_thinking1_ef1fbb7283.png)
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The Design Thinking Process
Design Thinking is an iterative and not a linear process consisting of five phases:
1. **Empathize** - Creating Empathy for the End User
2. **Define** - Define the problem
3. **Devising** Solutions - Generating Ideas
4. **Prototype** - Create a prototype
5. **Test** - Test and optimize
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![designthinking2.png](https://storage.googleapis.com/strapi-image-bucket/designthinking2_9e5db25a4e/designthinking2_9e5db25a4e.png)
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Applying these five phases are essential to the Design Thinking process. These phases are the 3rd step in our **[app development process](https://www.octopusit.nl/en/app-development)** and area  crucial part of prototyping.

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# What is a Design Thinking workshop?
A Design Thinking workshop is an activity-based session built around the Design Thinking process. Usually these workshops are conducted in person, but we also offer an online workshop that can be performed digitally.
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Our workshops range from 4 hours, a day or even 4 days. That depends on the context and purpose of the project. These workshops are set up based on the 5 phases of the Design Thinking process mentioned above.
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Design Thinking workshops are all about collaboration and problem solving. It enables us as a product team to create feasible and user-oriented solutions for your idea together with you. It gives a clear insight into the problems we are trying to solve and allows us to set the right goals.
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![Mask Group.png](https://storage.googleapis.com/strapi-image-bucket/Mask_Group_70db38405c/Mask_Group_70db38405c.png)
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# The benefits of a Design Thinking workshop are:
- Create innovative solutions that better meet your customers' needs and deliver a competitive advantage
- Develops a culture of innovation that creates empathy for the end user
- Ensures involvement, collaboration and co-creation
- Reduce risks
- Saves costs
- Enables you to set clear goals and provides action points
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# Octopus IT’s workshops
Depending on the complexity of the project, we offer different Design Thinking Workshops to collect all this data in the best possible way. This is how we offer:\\

**Online workshop** (4 hours) \
Digital workshop in which we empathize with the idea and set goals.\\
**Idea Validation** (8 hours) \
A full day physical workshop where we validate assumptions, set goals and generate ideas.\\
**Design sprint** (4 days)\
A workshop from problem to a working prototype that can be tested with users.\\

# Conclusion
Conducting a Design Thinking workshop ensures that as a customer, you are involved in the entire product development process. It creates innovative co-creation which results in finding problems, understanding user needs, generating ideas and experimenting with them.
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In short, it ensures perfect collaboration and that is why the Design Thinking process has become an integral part of Octopus IT’s work process.




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Design thinking is becoming an increasingly popular trend within the IT industry. It enables product teams to create feasible and user-oriented solutions to your idea or problem. Design thinking is an extremely effective way to design better products faster, reduce costs and increase profits. It enables everyone involved in the process to look at a problem in a creative way and to make improvements.

Design Thinking workshops

The reason why we do this is simple: A project often becomes cluttered and quickly runs out due to the amount of functionalities that are put into it. Are all these functionalities really necessary for a first phase and how do we keep the project manageable? The MoSCoW method is the most transparent way for us to gain structure and overview. 

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# Index
1. [What is the MoSCoW method?](#moscow-what)
2. [The benefits of a MoSCoW list](#moscow-benefits)
3. [Conclusion](#moscow-conclusion)

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# What is the MoSCoW method?
At its core, the MoSCoW method is nothing more than a prioritization method that can be applied to any project and provides a prioritized to-do list that is achievable, also known as a MoSCoW list.

The purpose of the process is to divide tasks into four categories; Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves and Won't-haves. As you will probably understand, Must has the highest priority and Won't the lowest. Now you probably also see where the capital letters in MoSCoW come from.

![Group 4714.png](https://storage.googleapis.com/strapi-image-bucket/Group_4714_9cf457b76b/Group_4714_9cf457b76b.png)
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# The benefits of a MoSCoW list
One of the main advantages of a MoSCoW list is that important decisions must be made before a project that determines the direction that such a project will take. It will be determined together with the customer which functionalities are absolutely fundamental for the product (Must), which are of less importance (Should), and which are simply nice-to-haves (could), but also which offer absolutely no added value for the product. product (won't).
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This whole process allows us to divide the project into three phases.\
**Phase 1** - An [MVP](https://agilescrumgroup.nl/minimum-viable-product/) to test the product.\
**Phase 2** - Make improvements and add new functionalities (Should haves).\
**Phase 3** - Again making improvements and adding new functionalities (Could haves).\
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The advantage of dividing a project into these steps means that we can very quickly create a first version and test it with real users, which in turn allows us to generate feedback and make improvements where necessary, which in turn enables us to make better products.
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In addition, there are many more advantages. Here are a few advantages:
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- It gives a clear direction of the project
- It helps to estimate the value of a task or functionality
- It helps to divide the project and make it manageable
- It helps to prioritize tasks
- It increases productivity
- It avoids vague approaches to a project that leave tasks unclear
- It ensures involvement within the team
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# Conclusion
In summary, the MoSCoW method helps us as a product team as well as the customer to make the right choices easily and efficiently and to set clear priorities. It gives a clear direction to the project and activates productivity. However, this method is not perfect. It requires a lot of attention and the right people to make the right choices. Nevertheless, the MoSCoW method is a powerful approach and we do not tackle a project without applying the method.



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We work on a wide variety of digital products and we often tailor our approach to the type of product we need to develop. That said, there are a number of steps in our app development process that we always apply. A part that we never skip in this process is a MoSCoW list, also called the MoSCoW Method.


A MoSCoW list, what is it and what is it good for?

# What is a prototype?
Prototyping is a process in which development teams come up with ideas, experiment with them, and bring concepts to life. At its core, a prototype is an early example of a product that allows you to test an idea with real users before developing a final product.
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An important feature of prototyping is that prototypes are created without applying a single line of code, also known as, “No-code”. It enables developers to link designs together with different transitions, creating an interactive clickable environment without the need for a developer. This helps to save costs by allowing early testing with stakeholders and users to make improvements, without requiring a huge investment in building the product — a key element in cost saving.
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Prototypes can be used in different stages of product development. Prototypes are a necessary tool to validate ideas, whether in the early stages of the design or halfway completed the project. By testing prototypes, you can determine the practicality and processes involved before moving on to the development phase.
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# Types of prototypes
There are different types of prototypes that you can use:
1. **Low-fidelity prototyping:** A cost-effective and agile variant that allows you to quickly make a blueprint of your idea or product. This is also known as wireframing. It is essentially a line drawing that can be made digitally or on paper, giving you a quick overview of the product to map out the structure, flow and design, and technical solutions.
2. **High-fidelity prototyping:** This method involves a realistic representation and a product that functions like the product that will be eventually launched. It is an interactive product that would be like the real product, while no code is involved. It allows you to test the product with real users to collect user feedback. In addition, this variant is also good for demonstrating the final product to potential investors or interested parties.
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# Why is prototyping important?
One of the most essential aspects of prototyping is that, when done right, it creates a lot of empathy for the end user. This enables you to think from the user's point of view and their needs, enabling you to make better choices. In that respect, you could compare it to an architect who has to design a house for the people who would have to eventually live in it.
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As an architect, you are required to take into account the needs of your end user. Questions such as:
- What style do they prefer?
- Should there be multiple rooms? 
- Should it be a well-illuminated house?
- How big should it be? and most importantly, 
- What is the budget available?
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This process ensures that an architect can look much more objectively at the ultimate goal of the product. This process is very similar to when a developer goes through the prototyping process.
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Further, this process ensures the involvement of the entire team working on the product. It gives a clear picture of what the product should ultimately do and what it takes to realize the end product. Empathy plays a key role in ensuring that the end product not only looks exceptional on the outside but also ensures that it is functional on the inside.
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Some of the main advantages of prototypes are:
- It provides a solid foundation from which improvements can be made early in the process.
- You can test the prototype with your users so that they can gain immediate feedback.
- It creates empathy for the end-user.
- Since no code is applied, costs are saved since nothing has actually been built yet.
- Enables the development team to connect with stakeholders and users so that everyone is involved in the process.
- It gives an obvious picture of the end product.
- It takes away a lot of risks.
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We can safely assume that making a prototype benefits everyone involved as highlighted by the positives in this article. This mainly applies to the development team, as well as to the customer and the end-user. Making a prototype makes the product process understandable, insightful, and engaging.


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Many questions arise when developing an idea.  Will potential customers enjoy the product? Does it fill a specific need as we think it would? Is it user-friendly? And so on.

In short, many uncertainties that you want answers to and ideas that you want to validate are answered with prototypes.


What are prototypes and what are the benefits?

What I want - as I imagine everybody does - is a happy and healthy life. But in a fast-paced, performance society where we are assessed not only on our professional achievements but also on our personal ones, I sometimes find this hard to achieve. 
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When I think about the forces in my life having an impact on happiness and health, I can identify two flows that make up 100% of my time spend awake: Work and pleasure. 
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Work takes energy. Pleasure gives energy. 
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The key to happiness and health in my life is balancing the two. I can feel my body and mind going into resistance when I spend too much time working OR relaxing. I will be inclined to move more towards the other one. But let me tell you, ignoring my resistance for too long had always brought bad days to me. 
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So, how to balance work and pleasure the best way?
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Well, that depends on the type of person you are. Some people feel perfectly fine with a 75-25 work-pleasure ratio. Others are at their best with 25-75. In our achievement-oriented society, however, you are considered lazy when only 25% fall onto work. I disagree entirely with this. 
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We created a world in which 40h work weeks are the norm, and we expect our people to be productive this whole time. And yes. For some people, that works well. For many others, it doesn't work at all. Depression and burnout are on the rise. 

I know this sounds cynical, but perhaps it's time to explore what we can do differently?
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I believe the goal should be to help people find their purpose in life and not max out their labor capacity. To create time for things that really matter: building and maintaining relationships. There is plenty of work that can't be done by a computer and requires actual humans. Social and community work. Care for children and the elderly. Teaching. Being a nurse and many more. And I believe people should be able to do that without worrying about their survival, which translates to having to pay rent in our modern times. 
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Suppose we can find a way to create happier and healthier lives by optimizing business processes that set human energy free to do work that matters: What would that do to your work-pleasure balance?
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Keep an eye out for the second part of this blog series and explore what human energy is and how that is part of your identity.

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IT for the right reasons: Optimizing processes that set humans freeto do things that matter.

Why use IT to set humans free to do things that matter?

Component-based development (CBD) is a way of creating and combining design and development of software through reusable software components, which are means of breaking an application into manageable parts. By using a well-defined software architecture, it provides the perfect foundation of flexible, maintainable, performant and high quality software with coherent designs. 
From a technical perspective: components are functionally independent parts of any system. It performs some function and may require some input or produce some output.
From a UI perspective: components can be recognized by standalone elements, e.g. a button or user card that are reused throughout the application. They are flexible in nature and can be large or small.
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At Octopus, we are all about providing the most value and including our clients throughout the whole process. We define this process through CBD as follows:
- Design thinking: find out why and what, and how this may be accomplished by using components
- Styleguide: define all (reusable) components
- Planning and setting goals for delivery: minimized (small) components and frequent delivery
- Versioning: Minimum Viable Product and testing components with the audience
- Feature releases and maintenance: continuous improvements, testing and maintenance of components
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In short, the flexible nature of CBD allows for creating coherent designs that targets the audience and fulfills a set goal, gathering feedback and seamlessly implementing and maintaining software improvements at any stage.
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Would you like to learn more about how we think about CBD and how we like to implement it from a technical perspective? Sign up for our upcoming tech event by sending us a message!

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At octopus, we believe the best software and great user experience (UX) comes with coherent user interfaces (UI) and functionalities. Sounds familiar? Then component-based development might be an interesting topic for you.

Upcoming tech event: Component-based development

## How does it work?
Google Analytics works by placing a small bit of Javascript Code on your website. This code is activated when visitors go to your site. By doing so it allows Google to collect important information about your website so you can use that information to better understand your visitors and build your business. It can help you determine top sources of traffic, gauge the success of marketing activities, track goal completions, trends in user engagement, discover trends and there’s much more information available. Google Analytics includes such as analysis, data collection, visualization, monitoring and reporting and integration with other applications. However, there’s many more features that Google Analytics include such as: 
- Segments and advanced segments
- Custom reports and dashboards
- Custom channel grouping 
- Annotations
- Custom alerts
- Event tracking 
- Pages report
- Demographics
- Interests
- Site speed report
- Google search console 
- Insights search bar
- Site search tracking
- Entrance pages under behavior section 
- Behavior flow
- Top conversion paths and conversion events
- Custom goals
- E-commerce tracking 
- Date range
- Block company’s IP address
- UTM parameters
- Data import
- In-page analytics
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## Benefits
Google Analytics allows users to track up to 200 different metrics and has a lot of benefits as you can imagine. Professionals generally relate to the platform being called powerful, free and user-friendly. The types of data that Google Analytics can provide can be categorized into different categories, these being user acquisition data and user behavior data. 
User acquisition data provides the user with insights on how customers are arriving at the website. There are multiple different types of channels through which the customer can get to the website, suchs as paid search engine results, unpaid search engine results, social media links or by simply typing in the URL. Having a good understanding of user acquisition data is key for maximizing website traffic.
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User behavior data shows you what your customers are doing on the website and how they are engaging with the website. This data includes information on how much time  they spend on each page, how many pages they visit. And if they engage with videos and graphics. This data can then be used to design web layouts that are more effective. If user experiences are optimized according to the behavior data it most likely leads to more sales and conversions.
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If you’re interested in these types of blogs then we suggest you to keep an eye out for them on our social media or on our website because we will be posting regularly. We’re also available for any questions you might have on info@octopusit.nl 

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Google Analytics is a web service that provides statistics and analytical tools for marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. This platform can be used for free, the only thing you’ll need is a Google account. 


Solutions for your business; Google Analytics

## What is React
React is a UI development library based on the JavaScript language. It provides developers the ability to seamlessly create interactive user interfaces (UIs) and user experiences(UXs) in a component-based fashion and a declarative application programming interface (API). In a recent survey by Stack Overflow (a public platform used to learn and share coding knowledge), React came out on top as the most popular and favorite web framework. In the following sections, we described the benefits of React in more detail.
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## Declarative API
The declarative nature of React helps us create and improve large scale applications whilst optimizing performance, maintainability and scalability. React is written in JSX, which is a syntax extension to JavaScript. In code, it describes what the UI should look like and results in React “elements”. These elements can be used or combined to build the UI, which is performant and easy to understand for developers.
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The declarative API of React is enabled by the Virtual DOM (Document Object Model), which is a programming concept where a virtual representation of a UI is kept in memory and synced with the real DOM. You tell React what state you want the UI to be in, and it makes sure the DOM matches that state. This makes interactions and changes made by the end user load very efficiently as it will only update parts of the application that involve changes, which is great for UX as the user does not have to reload the full application.
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## Component-based
Every design or element in an application is component-based, which makes it reusable and testable. This makes it easy for developers to implement new features and predict the behavior of the application by means of functional or class components. 
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At Octopus, we like to create and ensure consistency throughout our applications using a Design System, which is an efficient way of managing and implementing web designs. We think inconsistencies are disadvantageous to the UX, which can be prevented by combining design and development in a component-based fashion. 
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## Large community
React has a community of millions of developers. It is very likely that the solutions necessary for your business already exist. Otherwise, there exists extensive amounts of knowledge and support for developing new solutions. The large community makes it very efficient for us and our clients to quickly and securely implement new solutions.
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Besides the community, these are also numerous integrations and tools to improve software created with React. From UI visualization tools through Storybook (UI component explorer), product boards (A/B testing and communication) to testing through Cypress (testing automation framework).
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Are you interested in developing a fast and UX friendly application or project by means of React? We would love to help you out. It all starts with an idea and we help you turn it into a scalable business.


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The days of keeping up your business administration in countless spreadsheets and documents now seem like distant memories due to the fast-paced growth in technologies. At Octopus, we adopted the best technologies to allow our clients to get the most out of their businesses by providing fast applications with optimal user experiences by using a program called React.


News & insights

Design Thinking workshops

A MoSCoW list, what is it and what is it good for?

What are prototypes and what are the benefits?

Why use IT to set humans free to do things that matter?

Upcoming tech event: Component-based development

Solutions for your business; Google Analytics

Bring value to your business by utilizing technologies: React!

Questions?

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