How to use it

Stage 1. Empathize – Research Your Users' Needs
Gain an empathetic understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve, typically through user research. Set aside your own assumptions and gain real insight into users and their needs.

Stage 2: Define – State Your Users' Needs and Problems
Accumulate the information and analyze your observations. Synthesize them into main problem statements.

Stage 3: Ideate – Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
Now, you’re ready to brainstorm and generate ideas. Identify innovative solutions to the problem statement you’ve created.

Stage 4: Prototype – Start to Create Solutions
Identify the best possible solution for each problem found and produce some inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the product to investigate the ideas you’ve generated.

Stage 5: Test – Try Your Solutions Out
Test the prototypes and use the results to redefine one or more problems. Return to previous stages to make further iterations, alterations, and refinements.

Remember that the process is iterative. These 'stages' are different modes that contribute to the entire design project rather than being sequential steps.