Advanced Design Thinking Certificate
Deepen your design thinking skills and practice

Use creative problem solving to tackle your most complex challenges. The Advanced Design Thinking Certificate builds on IDEO U's Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate to help you deepen your design thinking skills, advance your practice, and have a greater impact through your work.
Learn from IDEO
As a global design company, IDEO has been honing the methods of design thinking and a human-centered approach to business for over 40 years. At IDEO U, we believe in learning by doing and that building design thinking skills requires practice and pushing outside your comfort zone. In our courses, you'll:
- Learn practical design thinking skills from experienced IDEO practitioners.
- Practice the skills you're learning through in-course challenges, and gain the confidence to go and apply these techniques to your own work.
- Demonstrate your understanding through giving and receiving feedback among a global community.
- Gain a fresh perspective that will expand your thinking and push you to bold new ideas through practice and discussion with your in-course community.
- Receive downloadable toolkits and activity workbooks, in addition to supplemental resources.
Why Enroll
- Practice the mindsets, processes, and tools to design more human-centered products, services, and systems.
- Advance your design thinking skills, using them to move others toward new ways of working.
- Deepen your understanding of the design thinking process and have a greater impact at work.
- Learn by doing through hands-on activities, sharing insights, and gathering feedback.
What to Expect
- Earn a certificate of completion for each course and class you complete, as well as a Foundations in Design Thinking certificate of completion and Advanced Design Thinking certificate of completion after successful fulfillment of relative requirements.
- To receive your Advanced Design Thinking Certificate, you must complete the Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate plus the required 2 multi-week courses and 1 on-demand class, a total of 21 weeks of learning.
- For the optimal learning experience, we recommend taking one course at a time.
Deepen Your Design Thinking Skills

Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate
Gain a practical understanding of the design thinking approach.
To earn your Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate, complete Insights for Innovation and From Ideas to Action. Refer to our class and course calendar for enrollment dates.
Complete both of these required courses:
5-WEEK COURSE
Insights for Innovation
In this course, you'll develop empathy for your customers and surface insights for creating products and services they want and need. Gain practical design thinking skills and mindsets that will help you turn your customer needs into human-centered solutions.
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Course Overview
Introduction
Learn about IDEO's approach to innovation, explore the power of insights, and choose your project challenge.
Observe
Discover how to observe others and unlock your curiosity.
Learn from Extremes
Learn why it's important to look at extremes, and how to go about identifying extreme people to interview and observe.
Interview
Learn how to conduct a great interview so you can get deeper, more honest answers that inspire great insights.
Immersive Empathy
Create immersive experiences that get you beyond intellectual understanding to a more visceral sense of another's perspective.
Share Insights
Share compelling, quality insights that will inspire and motivate others to innovate.
5-WEEK COURSE
From Ideas to Action
In this course, you'll learn techniques for coming up with innovative ideas, using rapid prototyping to de-risk your new ideas, and iterating your way forward. Get results faster by evolving your ideas to be more desirable, feasible, and viable.
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Course Instructors
Course Overview
Introduction
Review how insights help spark ideas that lead to action and choose your project challenge.
The Art of Ideating
Go beyond brainstorming—learn techniques for coming up with innovative ideas.
Rapid Prototyping
De-risk your new ideas by gaining feedback with early prototypes.
Iterate Your Way Forward
Get results faster by evolving your ideas to be more desirable, feasible, and viable.
Advanced Design Thinking Certificate
Deepen your design thinking skills and advance your practice.
To earn your Advanced Design Thinking Certificate first complete the Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate. Next complete Storytelling for Influence, Unlocking Creativity, and your choice of either Designing a Business or Human-Centered Service Design. Refer to our class and course calendar for enrollment dates.
Complete both of these required courses:
5-WEEK COURSE
Storytelling for Influence
In this course, you'll create a story brief to identify your key stakeholders, their needs, and your big idea; explore different mediums for telling your story and create multiple versions to gather feedback from others; and work on tone, style, and timing to better engage your audience.
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Course Instructors
Course Overview
Introduction
Learn about the science of storytelling and choose your story theme.
Develop Your Blueprint
Identify your key stakeholders, their needs, and your big idea.
Build Storytelling Prototypes
Get your story out of your head and into the hands (and minds) of others for feedback.
Design for Impact
Develop your tone, style, and timing to better engage your audience.
ON-DEMAND CLASS
Unlocking Creativity
In this class, you'll learn exercises to help you and your team overcome the common barriers to creativity. Through hands-on activities designed and practiced by creative experts at IDEO, you'll gain practical skills to help you learn from failure, find inspiration, and get unstuck. Gain the tools and mindsets to break patterns, generate new ideas, and take creative leaps.
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Class Instructors
Class Overview
90-day access from date of purchase
Introduction
Learn why creativity has become a competitive advantage.
Learn from Failure
Flip failures into opportunities to learn.
Find Inspiration
Diversify your experience to get to fresh ideas and find space to embrace curiosity.
Get Unstuck
Get beyond assumptions that prevent progress.
Complete one of these courses:
5-WEEK COURSE
Designing a Business
In this course, you'll combine traditional business strategy with the methods and mindsets of design thinking, and prototype three parts of a business—value proposition and offer, revenue model, and sales channel. You'll unite the analytical with the creative, prototype to get tangible early, and focus on people to uncover new opportunities and unlock more value.
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Course Overview
Introduction
Use design thinking to stay generative, prototype, and test assumptions early.
Creating Value
The Value Proposition: Design the essence of a business.
Capturing Value
What revenue model is right for the business?
Delivering Value
Designing the Last Mile: Deliver value through the channel.
5-WEEK COURSE
Human-Centered Service Design
In this course, you'll learn from IDEO designers who will guide you and inspire you with service design stories from around the world. You'll create a journey map to better understand the interactions customers have with your organization, identify and prototype the moments that matter along the customer journey, and build a service blueprint to align stakeholders and share the vision of your service.
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Course Overview
Introduction
Service Surrounds Us
Expand the Journey
Better understand the moments of interaction customers have with your business.
Make Moments Real
Brainstorm how to bring your service moments to life and build a prototype to go deeper on a particular moment.
Share the Vision
Diagram the visible and invisible parts of your service, and translate that into a service blueprint.
FAQ
Click the questions below for more information. If you don't find what you're looking for, email us at hello@ideou.com.
- In what order should I take the course and class requirements for the Advanced Design Thinking Certificate?
- Do I need to take the Advanced Design Thinking Certificate requirements within a specific time frame?
- What if I can't attend during the dates listed?
- If I've already taken one or a more of these courses, will they apply toward my Advanced Design Thinking certificate of completion?
- Will I still get a certificate of completion for each individual course and class?
- Will the Advanced Design Thinking Certificate certify me to teach design thinking to others?
- How should I talk about my Advanced Design Thinking Certificate to others?
- When will I receive my Advanced Design Thinking certificate of completion?
- How do I enroll my team to earn their Advanced Design Thinking Certificate?
- Do I have to enroll in all courses at once or can I purchase one by one?