The Logic of Design Thinking

Inductive and Deductive Logic

Moving from parts to wholes Or

Moving from wholes to parts

Deduction works from an initial premise and draws from it either valid or invalid conclusions based on the truth of that premise or on the logic of the reasoning involved in coming to those conclusions. Induction moves in the other direction. It starts from empirical observations of phenomena or experiences and based on that activity, constructs one or more general theories or laws that have a high probability of explanation.

Abductive Logic

Lateral, iterative, creative leaps that see connections among seemingly

disconnected phenomena

The distinguishing characteristic of design thinking, however, involves imagining the future, while accepting the fact that we can never know for certain what doesn’t yet exist, in an iterative process that expands outward in order to focus in and takes steps backward in order to move to the best solution.

Imagine turning the undulating, spiraling design process 90 degrees and looking at it on end. We would see a series of connected loops nested within each other, with some of the spirals more tightly wound and others less so, as the design process narrowed in and then expanded out along its course. The connection among the various levels or scales at which the design process occurs has become more prominent. What seemed loose and even somewhat disorganized from the side, now appears to move in a much tighter and more integrated way from an end view.

Inversion – flipping something on its head or turning it inside out

Transference – taking something from one context and applying it to another

Rescaling – transforming something by interpreting it at a very different size

Reassembly – chopping something up and rearranging it for a new purpose

Omen or Hunch, when we have an intuition about some possibility Symptom, when we find in that intuition a resemblance to other things Metaphor or Analogy, when we see clear parallels to things we already know Clue, when we relate the specifics of the particular case to more general solutions Diagnosis or Scenario, when we apply it as a prototype to more than the particular case Explanation, when we evolve a theory from the particular case that can apply to all cases

The Value of Abductive Thinking

Seeing patterns and relationships that others miss or see as unrelated

On August 1, 2007, the 1,907-foot-long I-35W Bridge near downtown Minneapolis suddenly fell into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people and injuring 145 more.

Panarchy describes the way in which human and natural systems move in continuous adaptive cycles, where exponential growth in the connectedness and efficiency within a system eventually makes it less and less resilient, leading eventually to its collapse back to a state of greater resilience, with fewer connections and less efficiency.

The dramatic increase political polarization in the U.S. aligns with the equally dramatic rise in income inequality.

When we look at the plot of the Gini index, which measures inequality, we see the same exponential curve we have seen in other fracture-critical systems, in this case, because relatively few people control most of the wealth and most people control relatively little.

The human population has experienced “hyper-exponential” growth. Reaching 1 billion people globally in 1830, we reached 2 billion in 1930, one hundred years later; 3 billion in 1960, 30 years later; 4 billion in 1975, 15 years later; 5 billion in 1987, 12 years later; 6 billion in 2000, 13 years later; and 7 billion in 2011, 11 years later.

“Until recent times the interval between major innovations far exceeded the productive life span of a human being. But this is no longer true: The time between the most recent major shift from computers to IT was only about 20 years and is destined to get even shorter. This pace is surely not sustainable and, if nothing changes, we are heading for a major crash — a potential collapse of the entire socioeconomic fabric.” Geoffrey West

E = MC2

E = M3/4

Consider the following two equations. The one, based on physics, has come to represent the 20th century: Einstein’s E-MC2. Encapsulating the relationship of matter and energy, that equation also epitomized the last century’s pursuit of power, speed, and acceleration, which has helped fuel some of the exponential increases we have traced here. The other equation, based on biology, may come to represent the 21st Century: E=M3/4. As Geoffrey West describes it, “the metabolic rate varies as mass raised to the ¾…man is a little less than 100 watts in metabolism (a light bulb) – that’s about 2000 calories a day.”

The 20th C. Equation

The 21st C. Equation

Applications of Abductive Thinking

Why innovation and creativity have become the most important skills we

can have.

Public-Interest Design has emerged as a new field in which design attends to the needs of the 90% of the world’s population who can benefit from design services without the ability to pay. This amounts to the emergence of a public health version of the design disciplines.

Service design looks at processes and procedures that are inefficient or ineffective. As healthcare systems have begun to hire design thinkers to improve healthcare delivery, the return on investment has been as high as 150 to 1.

Experience design looks the whole experience of people, often in retail settings, integrating graphic, product, interior, and architectural design in a more holistic way.

Geo-Design looks at the earth itself as the ultimate design problem now that humans have such an impact on it. The scale of the design action is continental or even global in scale.