Dear Chuck,
Thanks for your post – I’m not sure why you addressed it to me. I did not describe design thinking as “self satisfying and subjectifying tautologies.”
Rather, I have repeatedly described the term “design thinking” as a label for a specific but poorly defined design process.
That said, “design thinking” is an approach to design, that is, a way of designing. It is NOT a synonym for “design.”
Neither is “design thinking” a synonym for “design research,” or any specific way of thinking. Klaus Krippendorff writes – and I agree – that design thinking is a problematic term because it is confused often with thinking, rather than being the label for a process.
Klaus’s argument with labeling the process “design thinking” is that it is not a way of “thinking.” That is, it is not an approach to epistemology or cognition. “Design thinking” is the label for a problem-solving process or a design process with a number of important features.
There are several labels that are roughly comparable – these include “design-led innovation,” “integrative thinking,” “design integration,” “strategic design,” “frame creation,” “interaction method,” and “design science event flow.”
These are all approaches to the design process marked by a number of key features.
Where I agreed very much with Klaus is in his description of the features of the process that goes under these several labels.
Klaus wrote that “there are several concepts of design activities worth refining, operationalizing, or theorizing, for example distinguishing design moves such as finding problems, making sense of complexities, framing and reframing conceptualizations; searching for generative metaphors, metonyms; contextualiziations, and systems (including ecological) perspectives; productive conversations; enrolling stakeholders, testing in human populations, playing with representations of ideas, combinatorial techniques; applying critical perspectives to oneself; etc.”
He added that the process is, “enacted in collaborations in design teams … communicated in the form of education, ways to enroll stakeholders in designers’ projects, executable specifications, or demonstrated by concrete accomplishments.”
The reason I sometimes use the term “design thinking” in conversations such as this is that it is the name people are using in the conversation.
I’ve been working on a post stating my views on this. I’m responding to you now because you wrote to me.
Herbert Simon’s definition of design is excellent. I use it often, and I take it as the best definition of design. Nevertheless, Simon did not describe or define “design thinking.” He described design.
To design, wrote Simon is to “[devise] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones” (Simon 1982: 129).
Simon’s definition covers all design processes. But “design thinking” is not a synonym for all design processes. There are many kinds of design process that meet Simon’s definition without fitting Klaus’s excellent description or the several descriptions that map onto it.
Klaus is not complaining about design or about the process. His critique of “self satisfying and subjectifying tautologies” concern the frequent problematic use of the specific term “design thinking.”
On many occasions, I have been present in discussions in which designers represent themselves as design thinkers based on an argument that takes the form of an inaccurate syllogism,
1) I am a designer,
2) I think,
THEREFORE
3) I practice design thinking.
All forms of design practice require thinking.
However, many forms of design practice do not entail the crucial activities of the process labeled “design thinking” (or the processes labeled “design-led innovation,” “integrative thinking,” “design integration,” “strategic design,” “frame creation,” “interaction method,” and “design science event flow”).
These crucial activities involve value creation through stakeholder engagement and iterative development for the needs of customers, clients, and end users. Klaus offered a good, short description of some of the activities that mark this process.
While it would be good to develop a clear set of labels and use these labels consistently, this is far less important than the models of design we use in practicing design. What matters is a model of effective design to serve human needs.
The problem with the term "design thinking” is that it fails to serve as a “a generative metaphor that works in the mind of all thinkers.” So far, it has been a confusing term for all the reasons I describe here. It would be nice if everyone understood what the term means — but this is not the case. If it were, there would not be so many other terms that roughly mean the same thing.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University | Launching in 2015
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia ||| Visiting Professor | UTS Business School | University of Technology Sydney University | Sydney, Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
Telephone: International +46 727 003 218 — In Sweden (0) 727 003 218
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Reference
Simon, Herbert. 1982. The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
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Chuck Burnette wrote:
On Aug 20, 2014, at 16:14, Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
—snip—
if “design thinking” becomes a phrase we adopt to distinguish us (designers) from non-designers, we are stuck with a non-descript designation. what would be added to a conception of physicists if they were to claim that their uniqueness comes from thinking physically; or what would we learn about lawyers when we are told they think legally. these are self-satisfying and subjectifying tautologies that work only where and as long as these attributes are fashionable social constructions.
—snip—
Klaus, Ken, and all
Some of us see more than “ self satisfying and subjectifying tautologies” that depend on fashion. We recognize the need for a descriptive designation that others can understand and use in the same sense that lawyers benefit when people grasp, more or less, the scope of their enterprise. Since the scope for designing is vast we must find its definition in the form of a generative metaphor that works in the mind of all thinkers. I believe Herbert Simon nailed the essential nature of design thinking when he distinguished it as thought that seeks to improve the subject or situation it addresses. How “designers” seek this improvement remains open to definition, belief, skill, and all the other personal attributes and social norms that pertain to individual and social acts. People need to acknowledge the core value motivating practice before they can distinguish what it is or should be.
—snip—
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