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Design thinking refers to creative strategies designers use during the process of designing. It has also been developed as an approach to resolve issues outside of professional design practice, such as in business and social contexts.

Origins of the term
The origins of regarding design thinking as a particular approach to creatively solving problems lie in the development of creativity techniques in the 1950s and the development of new design methods in the 1960s. L. Bruce Archer was perhaps the first author to use the term 'design thinking' in his book "Systematic Method for Designers" (1965). The notion of design as a "way of thinking" in the sciences can be traced to Herbert A. Simon's 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial, and in design engineering to Robert McKim's 1973 book Experiences in Visual Thinking. Bryan Lawson's 1980 book How Designers Think, primarily addressing design in architecture, began a process of generalising the concept of design thinking. A 1982 article by Nigel Cross established some of the intrinsic qualities and abilities of design thinking that made it relevant in general education and thus for wider audiences. Peter Rowe's 1987 book Design Thinking, which described methods and approaches used by architects and urban planners, was a significant early usage of the term in the design research literature. Rolf Faste expanded on McKim's work at Stanford University in the 1980s and 1990s, teaching "design thinking as a method of creative action." Design thinking was adapted for business purposes by Faste's Stanford colleague David M. Kelley, who founded the design consultancy IDEO in 1991. Richard Buchanan's 1992 article "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking" expressed a broader view of design thinking as addressing intractable human concerns through design.



Solution-focused thinking
Design thinking is a method for practical, creative resolution of problems. It is a form of solution-focused thinking with the intent of producing a constructive future result.

Design thinking identifies and investigates both known and ambiguous aspects of the current situation in an effort to discover parameters and alternative solution sets which may lead to one or more satisfactory goals. Because design thinking is iterative, intermediate "solutions" are potential starting points of alternative paths, allowing for redefinition of the initial problem, in a process of co-evolution of problem and solution.

Solution-based vs. problem-based
In 1979 Bryan Lawson published results from an empirical study to investigate the different problem-solving approaches of designers and scientists. He took two groups of students – final year students in architecture and post-graduate science students – and asked them to create one-layer structures from a set of coloured blocks. The perimeter of the structure had to optimize either the red or the blue colour; however, there were unspecified rules governing the placement and relationship of some of the blocks. Lawson found that:

"The scientists adopted a technique of trying out a series of designs which used as many different blocks and combinations of blocks as possible as quickly as possible. Thus they tried to maximise the information available to them about the allowed combinations. If they could discover the rule governing which combinations of blocks were allowed they could then search for an arrangement which would optimise the required colour around the layout. [problem-focused] By contrast, the architects selected their blocks in order to achieve the appropriately coloured perimeter. If this proved not to be an acceptable combination, then the next most favourably coloured block combination would be substituted and so on until an acceptable solution was discovered.'' [solution-focused]"

- Bryan Lawson

Nigel Cross concluded that Lawson's studies suggested that scientists problem solve by analysis, while designers problem solve by synthesis.

Analysis and synthesis
The terms analysis and synthesis come from (classical) Greek and mean literally "to loosen up" and "to put together" respectively. In general, analysis is defined as the procedure by which we break down an intellectual or substantial whole into parts or components. Synthesis is defined as the opposite procedure: to combine separate elements or components in order to form a coherent whole. However, analysis and synthesis, as scientific methods, always go hand in hand; they complement one another. Every synthesis is built upon the results of a preceding analysis, and every analysis requires a subsequent synthesis in order to verify and correct its results.

Divergent thinking versus convergent thinking
Design thinking employs divergent thinking as a way to ensure that many possible solutions are explored, and then convergent thinking as a way to narrow these down to a final preferred solution. Divergent thinking is the ability to offer different, unique or variant ideas adherent to one theme while convergent thinking is the ability to find the preferred solution to the given problem.

Design thinking as a process for problem-solving
Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking includes "building up" ideas, with few, or no, limits on breadth during a "brainstorming" phase. This helps reduce fear of failure in the participant(s) and encourages input and participation from a wide variety of sources in the ideation phases. The phrase "thinking outside the box" has been coined to describe one goal of the brainstorming phase and is encouraged, since this can aid in the discovery of hidden elements and ambiguities in the situation and discovering potentially faulty assumptions.

One version of the design thinking process has seven stages: define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn. Within these seven steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren't linear; can occur simultaneously and be repeated. A simpler expression of the process is Robert McKim's phrase "Express–Test–Cycle". An alternative five-phase description of the process is described by Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer: (re)defining the problem, needfinding and benchmarking, ideating, building, testing. Yet another way to look at it is Shewhart's "Plan-Do-Study-Act" PDSA cycle.

Although design is always influenced by individual preferences, the design thinking method shares a common set of traits, mainly: creativity, ambidextrous thinking, teamwork, user-centeredness (empathy), curiosity and optimism. These traits are exemplified by design thinking methods in "serious play".

The path through these process steps is not strictly circular. Meinel and Leifer state: "While the stages are simple enough, the adaptive expertise required to choose the right inflection points and appropriate next stage is a high order intellectual activity that requires practice and is learnable."

Design thinking is also closely aligned to co-design, a form of design thinking where stakeholders associated with the product or service are directly involved in the design process at each stage. This process has been shown to produce more innovative solutions than more traditional perspectives of non-group based stakeholder consultation.

Wicked problems
Design thinking is especially useful when addressing what Horst Rittel referred to as wicked problems, which are ill-defined or tricky (as opposed to wicked in the sense of malicious). With ill-defined problems, both the problem and the solution are unknown at the outset of the problem-solving exercise. This is as opposed to "tame" or "well-defined" problems where the problem is clear, and the solution is available through some technical knowledge.

For wicked problems, the general thrust of the problem may be clear, however considerable time and effort is spent in order to clarify the requirements. A large part of the problem solving activity, then, consists of problem definition and problem shaping.

Design thinking for social innovation
Social challenges require systemic solutions that are grounded in the client's or customer's needs. Nonprofits are beginning to use design thinking as well to develop better solutions to social problems, because it crosses the traditional boundaries between public, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors. By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.

Principles
Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer, of the HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Program, laid out four principles for the successful implementation of design thinking:
 * The human rule, which states that all design activity is ultimately social in nature, and any social innovation will bring us back to the 'human-centric point of view'.
 * The ambiguity rule, in which design thinkers must preserve ambiguity by experimenting at the limits of their knowledge and ability, enabling the freedom to see things differently.
 * The re-design rule, where all design is re-design; this comes as a result of changing technology and social circumstances but previously solved, unchanged human needs.
 * The tangibility rule; the concept that making ideas tangible always facilitates communication and allows designers to treat prototypes as 'communication media'.

The "a-ha moment"
The "a-ha moment" is the moment where there is suddenly a clear forward path. It is the point in the cycle where synthesis and divergent thinking, analysis and convergent thinking, and the nature of the problem all come together and an appropriate resolution has been captured. Prior to this point, the process may seem nebulous, hazy and inexact. At this point, the path forward is so obvious that in retrospect it seems odd that it took so long to recognize it. After this point, the focus becomes more and more clear as the final product is constructed.

Methods and process
Design methods and design process are often used interchangeably, but there are significant differences between the two.

Design methods are techniques, rules, or ways of doing things that someone uses within a design discipline. Methods for design thinking include interviewing, creating user profiles, looking at other existing solutions, creating prototypes, mind mapping, asking questions like the five whys, drawing issue trees (or issue maps ), and situational analysis.

Because of design thinking's parallel nature, there are many different paths through the phases. This is part of the reason design thinking may seem to be "fuzzy" or "ambiguous" when compared to more analytical, Cartesian methods of science and engineering.

Some early design processes stemmed from soft systems methodology. Koberg and Bagnall wrote The Universal Traveler in 1972 which presented a circular, seven-step soft systems approach to problem-solving 'in daily life'. These seven steps could be followed also linearly or in feed-back loops, and many other expressions and models of design processes have been proposed. Hugh Dubberly's free e-book How Do You Design: A Compendium of Models summarizes a large number of design process models.

The use of visual analogy in design thinking and learning
Ill-defined problems often contain higher-order and obscure relationships. Design thinking can address these through the use of analogies. An understanding of the expected results, or lack of domain-related knowledge for the task, may be developed by correlating different internal representations, such as images, to develop an understanding of the obscure or ill-defined elements of the situation. The process involves several complex cognitive mechanisms, as the design task often has elements in multiple cognitive domains—visual, mathematical, auditory or tactile—requiring the usage of multiple "languages", like visual thinking.

The languages of design
Conventionally, designers communicate mostly in visual or object languages. Symbols, signs, and metaphors are used through the medium of sketching, diagrams and technical drawings to translate abstract requirements into concrete objects. The way designers communicate, then, is through understanding this way of coding design requirements in order to produce built products.

The process of design thinking
As an approach, design thinking taps into innate human capacities that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. The process is best thought of as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps: inspiration, ideation, and implementation; or alternatively: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Projects may loop back through inspiration, ideation, and implementation more than once as the team refines its ideas and explores new directions. Therefore, design thinking can feel chaotic, but over the life of a project, participants come to see that the process makes sense and achieves results, even though its form differs from the linear, milestone-based processes that organizations typically undertake.

Inspiration
Generally, the design process starts with the inspiration phase: understanding the problem or the opportunity. This understanding can be documented in a brief which includes constraints that gives the project team a framework from which to begin, benchmarks by which they can measure progress, and a set of objectives to be realized—such as price point, available technology, and market segment.

Empathy
Designers approach users with empathy, understanding what humans need or might need, what makes life easier and more enjoyable, what is technologically useful and more usable. It is not only about making things more ergonomic but about understanding people - the way they do things and why, their physical and emotional needs, how they think about the world, and what is meaningful to them. Conventional research methods, like focus groups and survey, can be useful in pointing towards incremental improvements, but those don't usually lead to breakthroughs because these techniques simply ask people what they want. Henry Ford understood this when he said, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said 'a faster horse." and no one would have said a car.

Ideation: Divergent and convergent thinking
Ideation is idea generation. Mentally it represents a process of "going wide" in terms of concepts and outcomes. The process is characterized by the alternation of divergent and convergent thinking, typical of design thinking process. To achieve divergent thinking, it is important to have a diverse group of people involved in the process. Multidisciplinary people—architects who have studied psychology, artists with MBAs, or engineers with marketing experience—often demonstrate this quality. They're people with the capacity and the disposition for collaboration across disciplines.

Interdisciplinary teams typically move into a structured brainstorming process by "thinking outside the box". During this process participants ideas should not be judged and participants should take generative role. Participants are encouraged to come up with as many ideas as possible and to explore new alternatives. Good ideas naturally rise to the top, whereas the bad ones drop off early on. Every member of the team needs to possess a depth of skill that allows him or her to make tangible contributions to the outcome, and to be empathic for people and for disciplines beyond their own. It tends to be expressed as openness, curiosity, optimism, a tendency toward learning through doing, and experimentation. Convergent thinking, on the other hand, allows for zooming and focusing on the different proposals to select the best choice, which permits continuation of the design thinking process to achieve the final goals. After collecting lots of ideas, a team goes through a process of synthesis in which it has to translate ideas into insights that can lead to solutions or opportunities for change. This approach helps multiply options to create choices and different insights about human behavior and define in which direction the process should go on. These might be either visions of new product offerings, or choices among various ways of creating interactive experience.

Complexity and mindset conditions
More choices mean more complexity, which can affect organization's decisions to restrict choices in favour of the obvious and the incremental. Although this tendency may be more efficient in the short run, it tends to make an organization conservative and inflexible in the long run. Divergent thinking is the route, not the obstacle, to innovation, and a way to diverge is to define a mindset of condition in which people are encouraged to produce lots of ideas. The most notable themes fall into three general traits: open-minded collaboration, courage, and conviction. Open minded refers to the concept of being opened and accept new ideas and contributions. Courage is also fundamental because innovative ideas are characterized by a high risk of failure. It permits to face failure, element of high importance in order to improve in the right way. In addition, conviction is the mindset which permits to carry on a process or an idea even if there are constraints or obstacles.

Implementation and prototyping
The third space of the design thinking process is implementation, when the best ideas generated during ideation are turned into something concrete. At the core of the implementation process is prototyping: turning ideas into actual products and services that are then tested, iterated, and refined. A prototype helps to gather feedbacks and improve the idea. Prototypes speed up the process of innovation because allow to understand strengths and weaknesses of new solutions. Prototyping is particularly important for products and services destined for the developing world, where the lack of infrastructure, retail chains, communication networks, literacy, and other essential pieces of the system often make it difficult to design new products and services. Prototyping, testing, "failing many times but quickly and cheaply in order to succeed" are different existing methods to test solutions, but the earlier users can give feedbacks, the lower are the costs for the organizations and higher is the level of adaptation of the solution to customer needs.

Differences from science and humanities
Although many design fields have been categorized as lying between science and the arts and humanities, design may be seen as its own distinct way of understanding the world, based on solution-based problem solving, problem shaping, synthesis, and appropriateness in the built environment.

One of the first design science theorists, John Chris Jones, postulated that design was different than the arts, sciences and mathematics in the 1970s. In response to the question "Is designing an art, a science or a form of mathematics?" Jones responded:

"The main point of difference is that of timing. Both artists and scientists operate on the physical world as it exists in the present (whether it is real or symbolic), while mathematicians operate on abstract relationships that are independent of historical time. Designers, on the other hand, are forever bound to treat as real that which exists only in an imagined future and have to specify ways in which the foreseen thing can be made to exist.''"

- John Chris Jones

Nigel Cross built upon the early work of Bruce Archer to show the differences between the humanities, the sciences, and design in his paper "Designerly Ways of Knowing". He observed that in the sciences the phenomenon of study centres around the natural world, the appropriate methods being controlled experiment, classification, and analysis. In this culture, objectivity, rationality, neutrality, and a concern for "truth" are most valued. In the humanities, analogy, metaphor, and evaluation serve as methods of study of the human experience. The values of this culture include subjectivity, imagination, commitment, and a concern for "justice". Design, however, concerns itself with the artificial world and uses modeling, pattern-forming, and synthesis to study it. In design, practicality, ingenuity, empathy, and a concern for "appropriateness" are the core values.

Design thinking in business
Design thinking has two common interpretations in the business world:


 * 1) Designers bringing their methods into business by either taking part themselves in business process, or training business people to use design methods
 * 2) Designers achieving innovative outputs or products (for example, the iPod)

The first interpretation has been described by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, at a TED lecture, though his blog also considers the second interpretation.

The limits of the first kind of design thinking in business are also being explored. Not all problems yield to design thinking alone, where it may be a "temporary fix". Design thinking companies including IDEO and Sense Worldwide are responding to this by building business thinking capabilities.

Tim Brown has argued that design thinking is now widely, but sporadically, used in business. He argues that competitive advantage comes from sustained use of design thinking, from becoming "masters of the art."

In organization and management theory, design thinking forms part of the Architecture/Design/Anthropology (A/D/A) paradigm, which characterizes innovative, human-centered enterprises. This paradigm also focuses on a collaborative and iterative style of work and an abductive mode of thinking, compared to practices associated with the more traditional Mathematics/Economics/Psychology (M/E/P) management paradigm.

A study by the London Business School found that for every percent of sales invested in product design, profits rose by an average of 3 to 4 percent.

Historically designers were only introduced in the last steps of product development process, focusing their attention on improving the look and functionality of products, instead looking for a high impact on the world and the society. Design was a tool of consumerism, able to make products more attractive, easier to use and more marketable. In recent years designers developed specific methods and tools to deliver products and services and businesses are beginning to realize the necessity of design as a competitive asset. Therefore, designers bring their methods into business by either taking part themselves in the earliest stages of business processes or training business people to use design methods and to build business thinking capabilities. Design thinking, as the perfect balance between desirability, technical feasibility and economic viability helps organizations to be more innovative, better differentiate their brands, and bring their products and services to market faster.

Design thinking in education
All forms of professional design education can be assumed to be developing design thinking in students, even if only implicitly, but design thinking is also now explicitly taught in general as well as professional education, across all sectors of education. Design as a subject was introduced into secondary schools' educational curricula in the UK in the 1970s, gradually replacing and/or developing from some of the traditional art and craft subjects, and increasingly linked with technology studies. This development sparked related research studies in both education and design.

In the K-12 sector, design thinking is used to promote creative thinking, teamwork, and student responsibility for learning. New courses in design thinking have also been introduced at university level, especially where linked with business and innovation studies. A notable early course of this type was introduced at Stanford University in 2003, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school. It draws students from several Stanford departments, including engineering, medicine, business, law, and education, utilizing the d.school approach to design thinking to develop innovative solutions to problems. Also, the REDLab group, from Stanford's Graduate School of Education, conducts research into design thinking in K-12, secondary, and post-secondary settings.