What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is a non-linear 5 step human-centred approach to problem-solving and innovation that emphasizes understanding the needs of users, challenging assumptions, and redefining problems to identify alternative strategies and solutions.
The Creative Process
Starting by engaging with the user (that means empathize), followed by evaluating the data collected (define / making sense / identifying the real issue), then moving into explore (ideation), expand (prototyping) and finally execute (testing your concepts).
A Relatively New Term
To many, design thinking is seen as a relatively new term or construct that refers to the now popular collaborative problem-solving process often associated with Post-it notes. Some refer to it as a methodology, a tool or even technique mistakenly believed by many individuals and organizations to be able to solve any and every problem they encounter. According to popular understanding it (the process) is or was originally used by traditional designers in advertising and design agencies alike to identify and solve some of the world’s most highly complex social problems - often referred to as wicked problems. However, what is often overlooked in the pursuit of mastery and implementation is that the foundations of design thinking stretch way back.
A Way of Thinking
Design thinking has been influenced by areas of study such as science, philosophy, mechanical engineering, architecture, computer simulation, integrative thinking, systems thinking, artificial intelligence and human cognition. Plus, individuals such as Buckminster Fuller, Bill Moggridge, Bruce Archer, Robert McKim, Herbert Simon, Nigel Cross, Jane Fulton Suri, Peter Rowe, Graham Douglas, Rolf E Faste and many others have played very important roles in the development of what we today commonly refer to as Design Thinking. Even though Design Thinking as a term has become something of a buzzword in recent years, it has been an evolving field since the 1960s, when American sociologist and psychologist Herbert Simon characterized design not so much as a physical process, but as a way of thinking.
Wicked Problems
Then in 1992, design theorist Richard Buchanan connected fellow design theorist Horst Rittel’s term “wicked problems” to Simon’s Design Thinking when he published “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.”
In this landmark essay, Buchanan proposed using design to solve the world’s most extraordinarily persistent and difficult challenges, namely wicked problems.
And by 2005, the Stanford School of Design (commonly known as the d.school) under the guidance of David Kelly began teaching Design Thinking as an approach to technical and social innovation.
Shortly afterwards Tim Brown of the global design firm IDEO commercialized the process and introduced it into the business industry.
A non-linear Process
Design thinking is a non-linear, consisting of organic, fluid and overlapping phases each underpinned by the principles of human-centred design - that means putting the needs of the end user at the centre of all our thinking. These phases or steps should be viewed only as a scaffold, a structure, a pathway that is there to guide or assist you towards finding the most appropriate solution. By doing this you are able to develop appropriately focused solutions that are desirable to the end user (they want the particular product or service, it meets an identified need), it is feasible to execute (that means we have the technology to do so) and it is viable as a business entity (meaning it makes business sense, the numbers stack up). Solving these problems requires continuous defining of the problem, in depth research and numerous attempts at iteration.