Design Thinking Prompts: 30 Templates for Product Teams

Draft 5 user interview questions to uncover pain points about {{topic}}. Avoid leading questions; focus on stories and past behavior.

Create a concise persona for {{audience}} trying to achieve {{goal}}. Include motivations, constraints, current workaround, and what success looks like.

Build a lightweight research plan for {{product_or_problem}}. Include target participants, 5 research questions, method, risks, and expected decisions.

Summarize these interview notes into themes, quotes, unmet needs, and contradictions. Separate evidence from interpretation: {{notes}}.

Turn {{user_behavior}} into 5 jobs-to-be-done statements using: When {{situation}}, I want to {{motivation}}, so I can {{outcome}}.

Write a crisp problem statement: “{{persona}} struggles with {{pain}} because {{root_cause}}. Success means {{outcome}}.” Output 3 options.

Generate 5 “How might we” questions for {{problem}} that open multiple solution paths.

Assess the opportunity behind {{problem}}. Estimate affected users, frequency, severity, business value, and confidence level. Output a simple scoring table.

Prioritize these user pain points by frequency, severity, business impact, and solvability: {{pain_points}}. Recommend the top 3 to address first.

Compare how 5 competitors or substitutes solve {{problem}}. Note strengths, gaps, user expectations, and openings for differentiation.

List 8 distinct solution ideas for {{problem}}. Each in one sentence; avoid repeating patterns.

List key assumptions for {{idea}} and classify as Known/Unknown and High/Low risk. Output a 2x2 list.

Score these solution ideas against user value, business value, complexity, risk, and time to learn: {{ideas}}. Recommend the best first experiment.

Outline a user journey for {{persona}} achieving {{goal}}. Phases, steps, emotions, and friction points.

Create a service blueprint for {{journey}}. Include customer actions, frontstage touchpoints, backstage work, systems, failure points, and metrics.

Write a 6-frame storyboard for {{solution}}. Each frame should include user context, action, system response, emotion, and risk.

Write a prototype brief for {{idea}}. Include hypothesis, target user, core flow, what to fake, what to measure, and what not to build yet.

Write a usability test script with 5 tasks for {{prototype}}. Include opening, tasks, and closing questions.

Create a screener for recruiting usability test participants for {{product}}. Include must-have traits, exclusions, and 8 screening questions.

Turn these usability notes into observations, user quotes, severity, affected task, and suggested follow-up questions: {{notes}}.

Summarize usability findings: Top 3 issues, severity, evidence, and quick fixes.

Review {{flow_or_screen}} for accessibility risks. Check language, keyboard use, contrast, error states, labels, cognitive load, and inclusive defaults.

List edge cases for {{solution}} across new users, power users, low connectivity, empty states, errors, permissions, and unusual data inputs.

Design a lean experiment for {{hypothesis}}. Include audience, setup, metric, success threshold, timeline, and what decision the result will inform.

Write a tradeoff memo comparing {{option_a}} and {{option_b}}. Cover user value, technical cost, risk, dependencies, and recommendation.

Draft a one-page PRD for {{solution}} with problem, audience, goals, non-goals, user stories, acceptance criteria, analytics, and launch risks.

Turn {{research_findings}} into a stakeholder-ready narrative. Include the user problem, evidence, opportunity, recommended next step, and decision needed.

Plan a {{duration}} design thinking workshop for {{team}} around {{problem}}. Include timings, activities, inputs, outputs, and facilitation notes.

Create a decision log from {{workshop_notes}}. Capture decisions, rationale, owner, open questions, evidence, and follow-up actions.

Translate these design thinking outputs into a one-sprint plan: {{outputs}}. Include backlog items, owners, validation tasks, and risks.