This is excellent work, almost a whole book here.
At Code 4 SF where I've been volunteering a subgroup has been running a series of tests/challenges using design thinking. This is a hugely effective methodology for understanding problems, identifying opportunities, opening up the creative process in order to address them.
Design thinking works, but you have to really invest in it. If you don't want to make the full leap, there's also a large number of individual methods/tools emerging in the design thinking community that you can try out.