Benefits of Design Thinking
My relationship with Design Thinking is, well complicated ... I’m not a fanboy or a detractor. I look at what it can help an organization achieve, and what it can’t. Throughout my fifteen years of experience these are some of the things I’ve learned that helps me know when and how to use it — and when not to.
First: there are several important and distinct features of Design Thinking:
In the article ‘Design Thinking: Get a Quick Overview of the History’ for the Interaction Design Foundation, the author Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang touches on several features of Design Thinking while going through its history.
- Complexity— Design Thinking is a practice fit to solve complex/ multi-dimensional problems
- Collaborative — Design Thinking is a collaborative practice
- Empathy — Design Thinking urges a deep understanding of human context, behavior and motivation
- Inquiry — Design Thinking uses inquiry to identify constraints relevant to the problem
- Testing through observation — Design Thinking uses a probe-sense-respond approach to exploration and learning
- Visual problem solving — Design Thinking uses visual modelling and techniques combining both the left and right brain for more holistic problem solving
- Solutions focused— Design Thinking attempts to solve the problem through the lens of the solution, not the problem.
“scientists tended to systematically explore every possible combination of blocks, to formulate a hypothesis about the fundamental rule they should follow to produce the optimal arrangement of blocks. In other words, scientists were problem-focused problem solvers. On the other hand, the designers tended to quickly create multiple arrangements of coloured blocks, then tested to see if they fit the requirements of the problem. The designers were solution-focused problem solvers ” — link
- Rapid prototyping — Design Thinking uses a technique of quickly fabricating scale models of a part or experience.
A central feature of design activity, then, is its reliance on generating fairly quickly a satisfactory solution, rather than on any prolonged analysis of the problem. In [Herbert] Simon’s inelegant term, it is a process of ‘satisficing’ rather than optimising — link
- Integrated thinking — All sciences developed over time from the Renaissance and formalised in the specialisations and processes they used, becoming more and more cut off from each other. Design Thinking has formed as a means of integrating .. combine the human, the technological and the strategic needs of our times, in a synthesis
Source and most definitions from : Design Thinking: Get a Quick Overview of the History
First: Neri Oxman argues that design’s role is to convert utility into behavior.
The role of Design is to .. [convert] utility into behavior. — Neri Oxman
The role of Science is to explain and predict the world around us; it ‘converts’ information into knowledge.
The role of Engineering is to apply scientific knowledge to the development of solutions for empirical problems; it ‘converts’ knowledge into utility.
The role of Design is to produce embodiments of solutions that maximize function and augment human experience; it ‘converts’ utility into behavior.
The role of Art is to question human behavior and create awareness of the world around us; it ‘converts’ behavior into new perceptions of information..
Neri Oxman, The Age of Entanglement
Third: Design is a method of problem solving
I’m paraphrasing Charles Eames in this video. Design is not about having a creative idea and protecting it. But it is inquiring to identfying all constraints and enthusiastically working within them. Design is not an output, it is a method of problem solving:
“[Design is] the sum of all constraints. Constraints of size, price, attention, motivation, distribution, time… The design process is defined by its ability to recognize all constraints, and its willingness and enthusiasm to work within them.” — Charles Eames
