demystifying design thinking: on the origins, applications and implications of how designers think

Jun 2013

Michael Eckersley, PhD

Demystifying Design Thinking:

On the origins, applications and implications of how designers think

“demystifying design innovation”

who doesn’t love a good mystery?

especially one close to home?

•when did design get interesting to people other than designers?

•when did the uniqueness in how designers think and act become somehow sexy?

•World War II

•RAND•SRI•war gaming•Mutually Assured Destruction•equilibrium•standoff

•problem structure•design problems tend to be“ill-

structured”, messy problems with ambiguous givens, goals, obstacles

•such complex problems and such complex problem-solving came to be of great interest to researchers working on complex Cold War gaming scenarios

Herbert Simon

•“Design is a complex problem solving process whereby artifacts are structured to attain goals”

•creativity research•creative characteristics•fluency•flexibility•advertising industry•Synectics

•mind as black box•impenetrable•exotic•mysterious•capricious•irreplicable

•my research:•controlled•empirical•results:•not just more fluency•nut just more flexibility•better ideas•better results

•design thinking combines characteristics of empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism, and collaboration (Brown, 2008). To think like a designer, one must demonstrate these characteristics in order to create for others within parameters, given a specific deadline.

1. The ability to understand the context of circumstances of a design problem and frame them in an insightful way2. The ability to work at a level of abstraction appropriate to the situation at hand3. The ability to model and visualize solutions even with imperfect information

– Chris Conley, IIT

Design thinking is design activity embraced by a broader group.

4. An approach to problem solving that involves the simultaneous creation and evaluation of multiple alternatives5. The ability to add or maintain value as pieces are integrated into a whole

– Chris Conley, IIT

Design thinking is design activity embraced by a broader group.

6. The ability to establish purposeful relationships among elements of a solution and between the solution and its context7. The ability to use form to embody ideas and to communicate their value

– Chris Conley, IIT

Design thinking is design activity embraced by a broader group.

Tim Brown, IDEO

What is design? It can be material or conceptual, and is experienced as beauty, value and meaning. Unlike the fine arts, design has an everyday use, so it must excel at both form and function. It's also intellectual property and cultural capital, which is why it ladders the entire economic value chain.

Patrick Whitney

Tim Brown, IDEO

•so why does any of this matter?•the past is “solved”•the future is a mystery, not a

puzzle•solving for efficiency is easy•solving for innovation is hard•innovation takes a different

mindset

Tim Brown, IDEO

The future catches us short because we don’t have good stories to tell about about it. And because the future conceals answers to big strategic questions, our ability to shape the future is dependent on our ability to tell powerful, penetrating stories.

–Daniel Kahneman

•“design thinking” isn’t “magical thinking”

•its integrative•design isn’t mystical•done well it can shape the

future of things, sometimes in magical ways

•on design school•advanced design practice•the shelf-life of professional

training•getting/staying in the game

Business schools focus on the analytic. Engineering focuses on the specific. Design focuses on the visual. A new kind of professional is needed. What would it be? –Chris Conley

•what do designers want?•what do you offer the world

that others don’t?•are you prepared to deliver

what’s needed?

Michael Bierut in DesignObserver:

It was September, 1981, when design critic Ralph Caplan first unveiled the phrase. He was speaking at a Design Management Institute conference in Martha’s Vineyard. His talk was titled “Once You Know Where Management Is Coming From, Where Do You Suggest They Go?”

“I want finally to address in some detail,” Caplan said toward the end of this talk, “a role that I call ‘the designer as exotic menial.’ He is exotic because of the presumed mystery inherent in what he does, and menial because whatever he does is required only for relatively low-level objectives, to be considered only after the real business decisions are made. And although this is a horrendous misuse of the designer and of the design process, it is in my experience always done with the designer’s collusion.”

It’s 25 years later. Has anything really changed?

•for a long time–and still today for many–design was deemed peripheral, an “exotic menial”

“There is a huge river of misunderstanding between the design world and the business world. You have to start building a bridge between them.”

“What designers need to learn–and this is the most important thing– is the language of the business world. Only by learning that language can you effectively voice the arguments for design.”

–Peter Gorb, London Business School, 1993

•business has an fundamental problem with the future, while design is almost entirely about the future

•this yin-yang relationship makes for strange bedfellows

As designers, realism and practicality are survival skills. But we don’t have to cynical about the ends of design. Cynicism is the great enemy. I was originally trained as an artist, and then later on I discovered the world of business, and I liked it, because I could see it as a form of conceptual art, like that of Duchamp or Baldessari. Done well and imaginatively, it’s powerfully beneficial to many interests. Done poorly, it’s stultifying and rapacious.

Design blends aspects of art, science and the humanities, and therefore has the capacity to humanize the world of things: products, services, systems, and experiences.

Design’s rising influence raises the stakes for designers, bringing greater responsibility and accountability. Are you up for it?

Jun 2013

Michael Eckersley, PhD

Demystifying Design Thinking:

On the origins, applications and implications of how designers think