The first phase of the design thinking process is about developing an empathetic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. This involves consulting experts to find out more about the area in question by observing, engaging with, and empathizing with people to understand their experiences and motivations, as well as immersing yourself in the physical environment to gain a deeper personal understanding of the problems at hand.

In the "Define" phase, you compile the information you created and gathered in the "Empathise" phase. This is where you analyze and summarise your observations to define the core problems that you and your team have identified up to this point. You should try to define the problem as a problem statement in a human-centered way.

In the third phase of the design thinking process, designers are ready to start brainstorming. They have developed a better understanding of their users and their needs in the empathy phase and have analysed and summarised their observations in the define phase to finally formulate a human-centred problem statement.

The design team will now produce a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the product or specific features found within the product, so they can investigate the problem solutions generated in the previous stage. Prototypes may be shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments, or on a small group of people outside the design team.