Design Thinking is a human-centered, creative problem solving approach many companies use to innovate. While classic descriptions use phases like Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test, some frameworks simplify or emphasize core guiding principles. One such framing is the 3 E’s of Design Thinking: Empathy, Expansive Thinking (or Experience), and Experimentation.
This version helps anchor the mindset behind design thinking rather than only its process steps.
The “3 E’s” come up in design and innovation writing as a way to remember what you must bring to good design: a deep human view, broad ideation, and willingness to try and iterate.
Another variation, frames the 3 E’s as Experience, Empathy, and Experimentation: focusing first on the experience you are designing, then the empathy you need to understand the user, and finally experimentation to learn and improve.
In practice, these are not rigid categories, there is overlap but they are a useful lens to understand what good design requires.
Why the “3 E’s” framing matters
Using the 3 E’s helps shift designers’ focus from rigid steps to deeper capabilities:
- It reinforces mindset over just methods.
- It helps teams remember that design is not just about building prototypes, but about understanding people and branching into many ideas before narrowing down.
- It provides an anchor for alignment: teams can ask themselves, “Are we being empathetic? Are we letting thinking expand? Are we experimenting?”
Below, we unpack each “E” in clear, actionable terms.
Empathy
Empathy is the foundation. It means truly putting yourself in the shoes of the people for whom you are designing. It is not just about asking what they want, but about understanding their feelings, motivations, fears, and hidden needs.
- In Design Thinking theory, “Empathize” is usually the first step: observing people, interviewing, immersing yourself in contexts.
- It prevents solutions that are disconnected from real needs.
- Empathy helps uncover emotional highs and lows, the pain points users might not even articulate themselves.
- For example, someone applied for a passport, they received SMS updates and got the new passport at home, which was a better “experience” because it reduced anxiety. Empathy would be understanding the user’s emotional state (worry, waiting) and designing to relieve it.
When empathy is weak, many design efforts fail: they may look polished, but users reject them because the solution does not feel relevant or human.
Expansive Thinking (or Experience)
This “E” has two common flavors depending on source:
- Expansive Thinking: here the focus is ideation, opening up possibilities rather than prematurely narrowing ideas.
- Experience: focusing on designing end-to-end experience— how a user feels through the entire journey, across touchpoints.
Either way, the idea is similar: you need creative breadth and care for holistic experience.
Expansive Thinking means:
- Brainstorming many ideas, even those that look wild.
- Encouraging divergent thinking before converging.
Considering many “what if” scenarios, variant paths, or radical alternatives.
Experience means:
- Thinking beyond a single interaction or feature.
- Mapping the full journey: before, during, and after.
- Considering emotion, memory, pain/joy, and meaning.
- Designing transitions, touchpoints, and continuity.
Design thinkers using this “E” ask: What do I want the user to feel? How should their journey unfold? What is memorable?
Experimentation
The third “E” is Experimentation: the discipline of testing ideas, validating, failing fast, and learning. No matter how much empathy or ideation you do, real insights come when you test with real users or prototypes.
- It is comparable to the “Prototype” and “Test” phases in canonical design thinking models.
- Experimentation means building light, low-cost versions or mockups (paper sketches, clickable fakes, minimum viable versions) and seeing how people respond.
- You learn what works, what does not, where assumptions are wrong, and where to refine.
- Good experimentation encourages failure, but controlled failure. You design to learn.
These three—Empathy, Expansive Thinking (or Experience), and Experimentation—form a triad. Empathy grounds you in real human needs, expansive thinking opens possibilities, and experimentation lets you test and refine.
How the 3 E’s map to the classic 5-step model
Design Thinking is often taught in five phases: Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test.
Here is how the 3 E’s relate:
- Empathy aligns with Empathize / Observe
- Expansive Thinking or Experience maps to Define & Ideate (framing the problem, generating ideas, thinking broadly)
- Experimentation corresponds to Prototype & Test
But the value of the 3 E’s lens is it encourages a more fluid, mindset view rather than rigid phases.
Examples / Use in real organizations
While the 3 E’s framing is more conceptual than tied to specific product case studies, many organizations that claim to practice design thinking echo similar principles:
- Google, in its “Design Thinking Principles,” refers to three guiding pillars: Empathy, Expansive Thinking, Experimentation.
- Leading design and innovation consultancies often emphasize empathy first, ideation second, prototyping/testing third, in line with the 3 E’s.
- In learning & development contexts, design thinking is used with iteration (experimentation) and empathy to craft learning paths.
You can often see these applied in practice when product teams begin with user interviews, then diverge into many design concepts, then test prototypes with users to see which path to refine.
Common misunderstandings & pitfalls
Rushing past empathy
Sometimes teams jump to solutions because they think they know but skipping deep empathy leads to mismatches with real user needs.
Idea starvation or narrow thinking
If you limit ideation too early, your design space shrinks. Expansive thinking counters that.
Fear of failure / no real testing
If experimentation is skipped or done superficially, insights are weak. Real learning requires risky but monitored testing.
Linear mindse
Believing the 3 E’s or phases must run in strict order is limiting. Design thinking (and the 3 E’s) is iterative and often loops back.
Overemphasis on appearance over meaning
Sometimes design teams prototype pretty mockups without validating the deeper experience, appearance is not enough.
Conclusion
The 3 E’s of Design Thinking: Empathy, Expansive Thinking (or Experience), and Experimentation, give you a compact, mindset-oriented framework to guide creative problem solving. They remind us that design is not just method but mindset.
- Empathy ensures what you build is grounded in real human feelings and needs.
- Expansive Thinking helps you explore many possibilities and craft rich, holistic experiences.
- Experimentation brings humility and learning to the process through real tests and feedback.
Though there are variations (some prefer Experience instead of Expansive Thinking), the core is the same: design that matters starts with people, opens mindfully, and learns fast.
