The fundamental and the first step of design thinking is: Designing a product or service Empathising with the customer Prototyping Developing a market plan

The fundamental and first step of design thinking is Empathising with the customer. This stage involves understanding the needs, experiences, and emotions of the users. By empathising with customers, designers can gain insights into their challenges and desires, which serves as a crucial foundation for developing effective solutions. This step ensures that the design process is user-centered, focusing on creating products or services that truly address the users' problems and enhance their experiences. Through methods such as observations, interviews, and engaging with the users directly, designers can gather valuable information that will inform the subsequent stages of the design thinking process, including defining the problem, ideating solutions, and ultimately prototyping and testing those ideas.