For a while I’ve been reading online discussions and reports of the bursting of the ‘design thinking’ bubble (it all started here and here).There is a great sigh of relief by sceptics who never really got Design Thinking and who feel genuinely vindicated by this discussion. I have to put my hand up here and admit that I was one of these sceptics. Design Thinking seemed to me to be more of a mantra than a theory, used by IDEO and its advocates as a way of generating new business, rather than explain how designers think and work.
When I worked at the Design Council there was always a great discrepancy between the way the organisation talked about design as a strategic tool, as a way of thinking laterally about problems, as a way stimulating organisational culture, and the way it engaged designers, in-house and consultants, in a very conservative, task-driven way. The strategic work was done mostly by marketing consultants of various guises, but rarely by designers. This organisational cognitive dissonance, where the mind says one thing but does the other, was assuaged by the acceptance of Design Thinking: these consultants may not be designers, but they are using Design Thinking, so that’s alright isn’t it?
Design Thinking may have become too trendy too fast, but the real problem from a designer’s point of view is that it never really connected with designers’ practice and was too quick to adopt the practices of no-designers as its own.
As a service designer I often get asked what is it exactly that distinguishes a design approach from another. What is the difference between the way a service designer would approach the redesign of a hospital and and, say an architect or healthcare expert. The answer I give is a mix of skills, methods and process, most of which are unique to designers. It’s not Design Thinking.
The rumors of the death of Design Thinking have only made it worse for service designers who have been struck hard by the economic recession. But service design is fast growing and is likely to be here to stay. Service designers may have used Design Thinking as a cushion against sceptics in the past, but now and I suspect that this will reverse. I hope that with time Design Thinking will adjust its meaning based on the evidence of the working practices of designers using design skills, methods and processes, rather than a groovy state of mind.
Comments
Designers thinking or design thinking?
I appreciate your scepticism of buzzwords, but as someone having spent 15 years at IDEO and now at the design council perhaps i can illuminate a few things!
Design thinking, for me, was two arguments. One was that business people were not as creative as they ought to be in looking for new solutions to new problems, the other was that designers have the ability to think not just to respond to others thinking. So business people might benefit a bit from thinking like designers and designers might do well to claim some ability to define briefs as well as to resolve them.
Some people erroneously thought that business people should only associate creativity with design methods and more than that, design was a simple linear process. Both, in my view, corruptions of the truth. The problem in my mind was not with what the proponents of design thinking were saying, it's the poor interpretation that many made.
As for the design council, yes i agree that it did not necessarily walk the talk - but that gets to the heart of the fact that methods live within practice and in organisational culture. I am delighted to report that the new design council, moved away from government, feels more authentic and designerly than ever.
And that's also why design thinking got corrupted by some. People tried to make it work in a culture hostile to creativity and risk-taking.
--Mat Hunter
repositioning design
For what it's worth, I wanted to share an article I read this morning, which for me simply explains the value of design thinking to create a shared language in taking an interdisciplinary approach to innovation. I think this article clearly articulates where the value of design thinking lies - tackling the fuzzy front end of the innovation process. The more design trained people are employed in organisations, the more design thinking would become embedded, creating a culture of innovation within. In my design career, I have welcomed the openness of the design profession in sharing their tools, methods and processes, and case studies, which suggests a professional confidence in a design-led approach to innovation. Designers relationship with business can only be strengthened when design is repositioned to create more social, economic and environmental value. richard arnott @servicejunkie Design Thinking: Bringing Everyone to the Table
According to an article that
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