Dear list members,
I am hoping that some of you may be able to help me to clarify my
understanding of ‘design thinking’ and its significance.
I have come to design from a couple of previous careers: adult
language learning and literacy, industry training in the context of
organisational change and academic skills teaching in a university
context. I also come to design research from the practice of design,
primarily designing and often also making physical objects and
environments, so my responses to proposed definitions and concepts are
coloured by this experience. When I started my PhD at Swinburne and
came across the idea of ‘design thinking’ I remember a fellow
student providing a definition to do with solving problems through
empathy and collaboration. My immediate response was to say ‘so
I’ve been a designer all my life and didn’t know it!’ Although I
was being flippant at the time, I have not yet read anything that has
significantly shifted my position on this. All the definitions and
descriptions of design thinking that I have so far encountered seem to
me to apply equally well to a whole range of other activities, from
business marketing to developing training programs or teaching my
children maths. Most of my work prior to being formally involved in
design has been about identifying a need or set of problems through
consultation with my audience/students/clients, empathising with my
audience, strategic planning, developing maps and plans and diagrams
to communicate the plan, adapting my plan to feedback along the way,
trying again and developing novel ways to communicate or produce a
range of complex outcomes. Such activities are not restricted to
designers and it would be simplistic to say that everyone is a
designer, just as it is simplistic to say that everyone who uses the
written word to communicate is a writer. There must be some
distinguishing designerly aspect that underpins the term design
thinking.
I admit that at first I hoped to avoid engaging with this issue as it
was not central to my PhD thesis, but now that I am involved in design
education I feel the need to clarify whether ‘design thinking’
needs to be part of the university curriculum. I am wary of designers
claiming to bring expertise to contexts outside of their domain that
require specialist knowledge of that field that includes understanding
of the ramifications of any interventions in the system or situation.
That said, I also understand from my own experience in industry
training the value and clarity that an outsider’s perspective can
sometimes bring to a problem or situation Lucy Kimbell’s critique
of the concept (2011) resonates with me, but I know many academics and
design practitioners continue to use and promote the idea of design
thinking so I am open to persuasion about its significance.
I did the d.school MOOC on design thinking, which was a great course
that promoted a very well-considered process, but it was definitely a
process, not a way of thinking. Thinking is an internal activity that
interacts with external stimuli but it is not an action that involves
others - that is ‘communicating’ or ‘collaborating’. The
‘empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test’ process used in the
course is well suited to some types of design but not others. I can
imagine that this process would be excellent for responding to
specific social issues or proposing an intervention in a pre-existing
system such as a medical records system or a home-care service, but it
is perhaps a bit unwieldy for typographic design, decorative design or
design of a complex environment that is difficult to model such as a
zoo, large-scale artwork or interpretive trail (the fields I work in).
The process is heavily dependent on the ability to model the proposed
solution to a defined problem and for the intended user to be able to
imagine this solution in the real world and interpret its broader
impacts. Aspects such as scale, time and interactivity can be
difficult to communicate through models. The process requires access
to the ‘user’ or a sample of different user types, which is often
difficult. Further, such users are often not as well educated in the
particular problem or issue and the range of solutions and their
impacts as the designer is – it is part of our role to research
thoroughly and to grasp the complexity of a problem or situation and
to envisage the interrelationships between aspects of that situation,
its context and other variables. This is the case with designing a
training program or course; the user cannot effectively provide
feedback on it until they have done the course and developed
understanding of the concepts rather than just seeing a model of it.
(I have intentionally crossed the boundary here by describing
developing training as a form of design, just to show how muddy the
water is here).
Perhaps I am just niggling over terminology. I expect that something
called design thinking is about design and thinking and is applicable
to all types of design, which is perhaps not its intention.
Is anyone able to tell me how ‘design thinking’ is about design
and about thinking rather than being about a strategic, user-centred
process for solving all kinds of problems and developing new
situations, systems, services or products? What do designers bring to
the process that is distinct from what any other intelligent,
strategically minded person might offer?
And secondly, why should it be part of a post-grad design curriculum
as distinct from the standard design process, strategic design and
user-centred design?
Kimbell, L. (2011). Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I. _Design and
Culture_, _3_(3), 285–306.
Best wishes,
Toni
Lecturer, RMIT
Toni Roberts
Hatchling Studio
+61 (0)413 455 414
www.hatchlingstudio.com.au
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