Design Thinking in Software Development: A Practical Approach in Technology Labs

The search for ways to improve the software engineering process is never-ending, and huge groups like academia and the software industry are constantly looking for new methodologies, models, theories, tools, and resources to help them improve the quality of their products. In this context, Design Thinking appears as an alternative in the system development process, with specific procedures to better understand the customer's and user needs, assisting in creating and developing competent products and services. This paper presents a design thinking approach to software development through interaction and user-focused. As an environment for evaluation, this work is based on a case study. The study objects included ten software projects developed in technology laboratories of a public university that followed this approach and produced technical solutions for real consumers. As a result of this work, a Design Thinking approach for creating computational systems has been presented, which has proven its efficacy through positive effects on the end product's quality, as well as a more robust organization and a reduction in development time. Finally, as a reference point, this work provides and allows for derivations and adaptations for work in similar contexts.