Design thinking has gained attention as a way to solve innovation problems. It builds on concepts of designerly thinking and pragmatism. At its core, design thinking is a pragmatic approach to innovation that emphasizes uncertainty, contingency, and consequences of ideas. It should not be seen as a linear process but rather a way of looking at problems. Design thinking involves iterative phases of inspiration, ideation, and implementation to transform unstable situations through collective inquiry and rapid prototyping. While lacking academic rigor, design thinking's philosophical roots in pragmatism position it as a framework for embracing uncertainty in the creative process.
3. design thinking
designerly thinking
pragmatism
IDEO
John Dewey
situation
pragmatic
maxim
theory/practice
inquiry democracy
David Schön
The reflective practitioner
wicked problems
academic research
traditional design
empathy
inspiration
ideation
Tim Brown
Change by Design
implementation
rapid prototyping
situating strategies
iteration
determiniate
sitation
idea
generating
developing
testingfeasibilitydesirabilityviability
interaction
management theory approach
organizational problems approach
graph 1 - mindmap
4. Introduction
In recent years design thinking has gained a lot of attention.
A large part of this attention can be attributed to the fact that
it tries to solve the process of creating innovation. The ways
of doing and knowing previously only used by people in
the traditional design disciplines are now used by a larger
and broader group of people, mainly people in the business
world.
This critical review explores design thinking to understand
how it could fit in the real world. A lot has been written
about design thinking already and there are as many
different implementations and views on design thinking. It
is therefore hard to get a real grasp on what design thinking
really is, or how it should be properly applied in a given
situation. To get a better understanding of what design
thinking is, this presentation will explore the different
concepts of this discourse but will also dive deeper into the
philosophical concepts behind design thinking.
The rise of design thinking may be fairly recent, it builds
upon a history of academic research. This research has
been described as designerly thinking. Johansson-
Sköldberg et al. (2013) define this as “... the academic
construction of the professional designer’s practice
(practical skills and competence) and theoretical reflections
around how to interpret and characterize this non-verbal
competence of designers”.
Design thinking on the other hand can be described
as democratizing design and so freeing it from the
constraints the practice had for centuries (Luebkeman,
2015). Design thinking invites people from outside the field
of design to participate in the process of generating and
conceptualizing ideas. Brown (2009) states that “design is
way too important to be left to designers”. Design thinking
therefore relies less on the traditional designer but uses a
broader range of backgrounds to find the solution, as well
as defining the real problem (Beckman and Barry, 2007).
Design thinking hereby builds on to the designerly thinking
concepts of Schön (1983), who rejects the idea that the
practitioner states the problem and the researcher then
solves the problem independently.
design
thinking
designerly
thinking
graph 2
5. ff
The IDEO way
The most well known advocate for design thinking is the
company IDEO. Their process consist of three spaces;
inspiration, ideation, and implementation (Luebkeman,
2015). These spaces are overlapping and not a sequence
of orderly steps to follow. Brown (2009) states that in order
to have a successful design thinking process the three
following constraints should be in balance: “feasibility (what
is functionally possible within the foreseeable future); viability
(what is likely to become part of a sustainable business
model); and desirability (what makes sense to people and for
people)”.
desirability
viability
feasibility
graph 3 - IDEO spaces (Luebkeman, 2015)
6. Inspiration
Brown (2009) defines inspiration as “the problem or
opportunity that motivates the search for solutions”. A widely
used concept for these problems or challenges is wicked
problems. Rittel and Webber (1973) use the term wicked
problems for problems that can not be solved by solely using
extensive analyzing beforehand. Problems and solutions co-
evolve, the designer not only acts to solve the known issues,
the designer also explores the nature of the given problem
(Dalsgaard, 2014). Designers therefore need to move through
iterative phases of thinking, doing and refleciton afterwards,
this to constantly improve the outcome (Schön, 1983).
Empathy
An important aspect of inspiration is empathy. This means
design teams must immerse themselves into the given
situation to obtain the needed insights. Gedenreyd
(1998) explored how designers applied so-called
situating strategies to immerse in the given situation.
Hereby designers use all the design resources available
for the given situation. These resources involve their
own knowledge and learned skills but also insights and
knowledge from other people and physical resources
like materials and tools. These situating strategies will
need to take the real world into account. By watching,
listening and collecting stories designers can get a
better empathy for the users in the given situation.
Ideation
The ideation stage is the process of generating,
developing and testing ideas (Luebkeman, 2015). This
stage involves iterations whereby the designer develops
an increased understanding of the situation through
design experiments. Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013)
frame it as following: ”Design thinking in this discourse,
as an ongoing cycle of generating ideas (abduction),
predicting consequences (deduction), testing, and
generalizing (induction)”. These design experiments
can come in many forms. Martin and Hanington (2012)
have explored these forms of design experiments and
described a hundred methods of design. They have
identified 5 groups of design experiments: planning,
scoping and definition; exploration, synthesis, and
design implications; concept generation and early
prototype iteration; evaluation, refinement and
production; and launch and monitor.
7. Prototyping
A designer must go back and forth between the whole
and the details while working on multiple alternative
designs in parallel (Stolterman, 2008). To fasten this
process rapid prototyping may be used. By using rapid
prototyping designers force themselves to learn from
their mistakes as fast as possible (Brown, 2009). Brown
states that these prototypes will help conveying an
internal thought to the outside world. The concept gets
externalised and team members can help to improve
these thoughts. Prototypes do not have to be complex
or costly in time or money, they should use enough
resources, but not more than that, to generate useful
insights.
Other approaches
Next to the ‘IDEO-way’ of design thinking Johansson-
Sköldberg et al. (2013) identified two other main
discourses in design thinking. These two are:
design thinking as a way to approach indeterminate
organizational problems and design thinking as part
of management theory. These two discourses focus
more on the management side. Johansson-Sköldberg
et al. explain this as design thinking that “... has been
stripped of the ‘messiness’ of a designer’s approach”.
Design thinking hereby becomes more like a tool in the
toolset of a manager.
inspiration
ideation
implementation
idea generation
idea development
idea development
graph 4 - IDEO process (Brown, 2009)
8. Academic research
The theoretical body for design thinking is meager.
Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013) note that there is
only academic research about designerly thinking,
and that there is few academic writing on design
thinking. Johansson and Woodilla (2010) even go as far
as dismissing it as an “hype or a fad”. Kimbell (2001)
argues that this lack of a clear definition leads to a
poorly understood field of research, by the public as
well as those who claim to practice it.
To get a better understanding of design thinking
Dalsgaard (2014) argues it can be beneficial to
import existing concepts from well-developed and
established theoretical standpoints. He points to
pragmatist philosophy as an opportunity to enrich
the academic debate about design thinking. Olsen
(2015) acknowledges the philosophical roots of design
thinking can be traced back to the pragmatist ideas of
John Dewey. Influential theorist like Schön (1983) and
Buchanan (1992) have used the concepts of Dewey on
pragmatism in their designerly thinking theories.
Pragmatism
At the heart of pragmatism lies the idea that the the
world is always in flux and will never reach a fully
finalised state. The pragmatic maxim states that our
view of the world should constantly be evaluated on
the basis of their practical consequences (Sundin
and Johannisson, 2005). This means that theory and
practise are connected, theories are made through
practise and must be judged upon practise. According
to Dewey everything in the world is connected and thus
everything in the world has an interaction which each
other: “Everything that exist in as far as it is known and
knowable is in interaction with other things” (Dalsgaard,
2014).
Dewey states that everything is situated, by which
he means that things can only be understood by its
connection to the contextual whole (Dalsgaard, 2014).
This means it is not possible to think or act on an
abstract representation of something, it will always
be situated within a certain context. Sundin and
Johannisson (2005) state that: “No state of affairs is
predetermined or eternally stable, but can always be
changed through human practices”. This means that a
situation that is thought of as being problematic can be
temporarily transformed to be stable.
This transformation is done through the use of an
inquiry (Olsen, 2015). An inquiry is the mode of thinking
and acting to transform an unstable situation. An
inquiry is not a way of finding the truth, “... it is the
means or method to reduce doubt and to restore
balance to a problematic situation, to let us get on
with the task at hand” (Evans, 2000). With an inquiry
a person will first try to identify what causes the
unstable situation. This person will then try to form
conceptualizations which need to put into practise
in the real world. If these conceptualization fail, they
are not suitable and the person will try to make new
hypotheses to test again (Dalsgaard, 2015).
9. An important part of Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy
is the importance of democracy. Dewey argued that
a democratic community can be improved by using
by using inquiry (Evans, 2000). The opposite can also
be argued, by using democracy and collaboration
the outcome of the collective inquiry can bring a
more effective change to a situation (Evans, 2000).
Dewey states that hereby that “each is interested in
the success of all” (Hansen and David, 2006). Hansen
and David (2006) point that in Dewey’s vision meaning
can only come from the collective, which means that
meaning can only come through participation in social
practices.
Dewey has been critiqued for describing processes
without stating how all the details should be put into
place (Evans, 2000). Sundin and Johannisson (2005)
argue that pragmatism lends itself to a relativist
attitude, so it can lead to an “anything goes attitude”.
The same critiques can be applied to design thinking.
When looking for detailed instructions in academic
literature how to apply design thinking they can not be
found. This makes it hard to measure the success of
design thinking. Nussbaum (2011) even goes as far as
saying that design thinking is a failed experiment. He
argues that because there is not a clear conceptual
framework design thinking has been transformed by
managers and CEO’s into a “... linear, gated, by-the-
book methodology that delivered, at best, incremental
change and innovation”.
10. ff
Conclusion
Design thinking should not be seen as fixed number of steps
method to innovation. At it hearts it is a pragmatist approach
to innovation. It is therefore a way of looking to the world,
as Crick (2008) describes pragmatism: “a philosophical
framework that emphasizes uncertainty, contingency,
plurality, community, and the consequences of ideas and
actions”. Brown confirms this in his interview with Nussbaum
(2011): “From the beginning, the process of Design Thinking
was a scaffolding for the real deliverable: creativity. But in
order to appeal to the business culture of process, it was
denuded of the mess, the conflict, failure, emotions, and
looping circularity that is part and parcel of the creative
process. In a few companies, CEOs and managers accepted
that mess along with the process and real innovation took
place. In most others, it did not”. To fit design thinking in the
real world it needs to go back to, and embrace, it’s messy
and conflictful origin.
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