{"id":26,"date":"2010-04-05T12:03:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T20:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/?p=26"},"modified":"2010-04-05T12:10:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T20:10:22","slug":"rethinking-design-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/05\/rethinking-design-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking Design Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin McCullagh offers a critical reflection<\/a> on the state of design thinking following the recent Big Re-Think<\/a> conference in London.<\/p>\n

A key difficulty with the emergence of the “design thinking” movement is the diversity of its associated conceptions:<\/p>\n

In fact, design thinking always meant different things to different players. For some it was about teaching managers how to think like designers; for others, it was about designers tackling problems that used to be the preserve of managers and civil servants; and for others still, it was anything said on the subject of design that sounded smart. To most, it is was merely a new spin on design. All its proponents were, however, united by their ambition for design to play a more strategic role in the world than ‘making pretty.’ Who could argue with that?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with McCullagh’s assessment that the design thinking movement’s common ground is the “ambition for design to play a more strategic role in the world.” Over the past decade design has “expanded its scope from products and graphics into interactions, experiences, services and, more recently, ‘social change.'” Still, as design’s ambitions and scope of influence enlarge, has design practice actually changed? Or, is it simply the same old design process told (or sold) as a new story? That is, what is new about ‘design thinking’ that makes it able to solve today’s new order of problems? Regarding these matters, McCullagh offers an insightful observation:<\/p>\n

…the most useful thing about the conference was that it brought into sharp relief the chasm between post-recession realities and how stuck in past design still is. After all, what’s notable about the design thinking debate is not so much how design practice has changed, but rather how the audience for design has changed and raised its expectations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCullagh suggests four future directions for design offered by the two stars of the conference\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRoberto Verganti and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran.<\/p>\n

Quality over Quantity:<\/span> While we are all designers in a way, we are not all great, or even good, designers. And in the end, great designs are the products of talented designers. So, the point is not continue arguing for more “design thinking” in everything that we do, but to start focusing on how to deliver great design where it will matter the most.<\/p>\n

Vision over Users:<\/span> While “user-centredness” has proven important to incremental innovation it has failed to produce radical designs. Even user centered design champion Don Norman has come to this conclusion<\/a>. According to Verganti, “the key to seeing the future first… is about finding the right interpreters.”<\/p>\n

Balance Left with Right Brain Thinking:<\/span> While this “balanced thinking” might indeed be true, designers are not often the best exemplars of this principle. That is, designers as a culture tend to emphasize their organic, creative, right brain thinking. Still, “even the smartest designers have to be schooled in analytical rigour and robust reasoning”.<\/p>\n

Knowledge over Emotion Conviction:<\/span> Lastly, Vaitheeswaran suggested that designer’s need to become more knowledgeable of the world beyond design. An understanding of the big picture is essential to understanding wherein that picture is design’s best fit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin McCullagh offers a critical reflection on the state of design thinking following the recent Big Re-Think conference in London. A key difficulty with the emergence of the “design thinking” movement is the diversity of its associated conceptions: In fact, design thinking always meant different things to different players. For some it was about teaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hubwise.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}