Stephanie,
I haven't wanted to get involved in this discussion, so I'll keep this brief. First off, I share your concerns and your observation. My concern, however, might go a step further in that design thinking may be little more than a metaphor, and it is used to represent a cluster of associated notions and orientations to designing. Its primarily characteristic may actually be its rhetorical usage, and its changing usage.
d.
On Dec 12, 2012, at 11:35 PM, stefanie di russo wrote:
> Demanding evidence is easy. Has anyone made a genuine attempt at evaluating
> design thinking in order to provide evidence of its 'claims'? No- at least
> not to my knowledge. I presume it is because it's virtually impossible to
> justify an evaluation of a concept or process (even its tangible methods)
> when it changes shape according to designer, interactions with client, the
> nature of the problem, economic variables, stakeholders, team members, etc
> , the list goes on.
>
> It is a catch 22. In order to properly (as a researcher, not self evaluated
> impact from a designer) evaluate or measure the 'success' or impact of
> design thinking, it requires that we first create fixed characteristics or
> boundaries as to what design thinking is to measure against (and this as i
> stated in previous post, is highly problematic and counter intuitive to the
> whole concept). And even then, it has to be elements that are measureable
> and not conceptual like 'creative intuition'. There have been research
> attempts to evaluate certain elements like prototyping, mobile technology,
> etc that work as aids but none that claim to provide evidence on the impact
> of design thinking as a whole.
>
> Is it possible to make a genuine research claim on the impact of design
> thinking (across a number of very different cases) when so many variables
> affect the process and outcome? I spent much time deliberating over ways
> around this before i realised that if i pursued such a feat it would result
> in very weak research claims. Although i do not have the experience or
> expertise as many on this list, so if anyone has any ideas i would be over
> joyed to hear them!
>
> Regards,
>
> -Stefanie
>
>
> --
> *Stefanie Di Russo*
>
> PhD Student
> Faculty of Design
> Swinburne University
> *twitter:* @stefdirusso <https://twitter.com/#!/stefdirusso>
> *linkedin: public
> *profile<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/stefanie-di-russo/35/16/a84>
>
>
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