Design Thinking is...
I bought a book on Design Thinking recently, by Robert Curedale. It has a chapter called: What is Design Thinking? I like the list of many quotes from well known people on what they think design thinking is. The statements read a little like the quotes from the Love is… cartoons, by New Zealander Kim Grove (Casali).
Everyone has an opinion, reflecting their own experiences, preferences, and interests, and which seem to change over time, and depend on the situation. It seems to be very difficult to find agreement on what Design Thinking actually is, especially when one is in love with it!
So, let’s involve some ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and use Wikipedia. Why? Because, this source should not contain personal or “original thought” and the definition mentioned there does reference three scientific sources (Lawson, Cross, and Dorst).
Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems. (From Wikipedia)
I had to read it multiple times before I understood it, but this expanded my understanding of it. I think it matches well with what actually Design Thinking is.
What do you think? It is good, bad, is something missing, or is there something else…
Let me know your reactions in the comments.
PS: I wanted to post a poll on LinkedIn but the amount of text allowed in those is not even enough to state a definition, so that didn’t not work.
I think design thinking is defined a little more broadly here than most people conceptualize it. Here are a couple of points I often include in intro DT workshops that might help the conversation: - Most designers don’t call this work design thinking. They just call it design! - In recent years, “design thinking” has more an more been used to describe the use of these practices specifically outside the realm of traditional design. - Many of the practices of design thinking are used in other situations. In some ways, we’re all pulling from the same toolkits.