A Paradigm Shift in Design Thinking (original) (raw)

Developing New Value in Design: Not "What" but "How"

This study examines how designers in professional practice are evolving the concept of " value " in designed products and systems. Contemporary culture's obsession with design, coupled with a knowledge-based economy and an over-saturated marketplace, requires designers to create and contextualize their work in unique ways if they are to stand out and attract consumers. To succeed, designers must shift their focus from creating mere artifact to developing highly complex narratives and design processes utilizing sophisticated research methods that, in turn, create new forms of perceived value. In addition, they must collaborate with other disciplines, understand interconnectivity of global systems, and adopt a "designer-as-social scientist" approach. This professional shift from "what to design" to "how to design" is radically altering design education. This study aims to provide design educators and program directors with an awareness of how they can improve their students' preparation for entry into professional practice. It also aims to provide designers with an awareness for how they may develop and strengthen their professional practice.

Introduction to This Special Issue on Understanding Design Thinking

The design of artifacts and how designers make them have garnered renewed societal interest as interactive technologies create new opportunities and challenges. The world we experience has never before been as diverse, socially and materially, or as malleable as it now. Increased computation and interactivity are changing the appearance, evolution, and interactions of the personal and collective artifacts that shape our everyday experiences, family and community life, and learning and work activity. These digital artifacts increasingly leverage sensing and physical interaction to provide information at our fingertips and connect us to people around the globe. This new generation of digital technologies gives people a great deal of discretion as to what artifacts and services they use and how they use them (Grudin, 2005). Adoption and appropriation of new digital artifacts is increasingly part of everyday life, and this change draws our attention-and sense of curiosity-to how these artifacts are designed. When we talk about designing, we share Herbert Simon's (1969) broad view that ''everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones'' (p. 129). The articles in this special issue can usefully be read with that broad view of design. That said, we and the authors focus on design professionals, students, and researchers as canonical instances. As computational artifacts take on new shapes and play new roles, so do designers (Moggridge, 2007). Designers of digital artifacts face more complex constraints than, say, furniture designers a century ago. Their work must integrate diverse considerations, physical and mechanical engineering, software engineering, user interface design and user experience, and aesthetics, as well as diverse culture and human values (Dreyfuss, 1955). The position of design and designers at the nexus of so many complex

Two blind spots in design thinking

2017

From the 1980s, design thinking has emerged in companies as a method for practical and creative problem solving, based on designers' way of thinking, integrated into a rational and iterative model to accompany the process. In companies, design thinking helped valuing creative teamwork, though not necessarily professional designers' expertise. By pointing out two blind spots in design thinking models, as currently understood and implemented, this paper aims at shedding light on two rarely described traits of designers' self. The first relies in problem framing, a breaking point that deeply escapes determinism. The second blind spot questions the post project process. We thus seek to portray designers' singularity, in order to stimulate critical reflection and encourage the opening-up to design culture. Companies and organizations willing to make the most of designers' expertise would gain acknowledging their critical heteronomy to foster innovation based on strong and disruptive visions, beyond an out-of-date problem solving approach to design.

Toward a Critical Design Thinking: Propositions to Rewrite the Design Thinking Process

Dialectic Journal, 2019

Design thinking is often praised as a universal tool that can be utilized to address and resolve almost any design problem, even those that are the most complex. Judging by the recent criticism from several key design professionals, design thinking seems ill-suited to confront complex, or so-called 'wicked' problems or to facilitate deep thinking. Design thinking falls short of tackling these problems because it only provides ways to empathize with customers, rendering them passive bystanders in the innovation process. In order to address these shortcomings inherent in design thinking, the following discourse introduces deeper critical thinking skills into design thinking, allowing designers in combination with everyday experts to collectively form a political will and act on it. Borrowing from the critical design debate, the new critical design thinking processes developed in response to the growing need for designers to deploy deeper analytical skills to guide their decision making provides a framework to guide a collective design practice capable of dealing with the complex, multi-faceted nature of current political, economic and social affairs. Rather than sustaining a focus on the development of products and product systems and the means to market them at large scale, designers must now work to shift their practice to create critical meta design tools aimed at solving complex design problems, such as circular design or social design challenges.

Wicked ethics in Design

Wicked problems are wicked because, amongst other things, understanding problems as existing in society, at the intersection of many possible points of views held by a variety of potential stakeholders introduces indeterminacy. Ethical frameworks in this context may also be multiple and may exist in harmony or dis-harmony alongside each other. In this paper, we argue for an acknowledgement of this complexity. This acknowledgement includes recognizing a distinction between successful and good design; that design, when considering the best course of action in an ethical and pragmatic sense needs to look beyond the business and consumer dichotomy; that ethical pluralism can exist across multiple stakeholders in an ecosystem; and that our ethical judgements need to be considered within the context of socio-cultural change. This paper concludes by suggesting a range of interventions and tools that could be incorporated into design curriculum to assist design students with understanding and navigating ethical complexity.

From valuing design to designing value

2014

This paper presents findings of an embedded action research project within a small to medium sized enterprise (SME). Through the implementation of design-led innovation processes, this research aims to identify the changes experienced in the participating company during a shift in the perspective of design from a product focus towards a strategic focus. Staff interviews and a reflective journal were used as methods to collect data from a range of design interventions that were facilitated throughout the engagement. A shift in perspective of design was evident through three cultural changes within the firm. First, the perceived outcome focus of design became increasingly long-term. Second, the value of design outcomes became less directed towards current projects, and more directed towards future possibilities. Finally, the perceived tangibility of design outcomes shifted from tangible to intangible. For example, design activities which produced customer insights, rather than product...