Design thinking history
Tracing ‘Design Thinking’ through design history
This article is drawn largely from Stefanie di Russo’s 2016 thesis, Understanding the behaviour of design thinking in complex environments and supplemented with brief biographies (mostly from Wikipedia) of key designers. I have found this review a useful jumping off point for consideration of my research, so thought it would be helpful to provide a rough summary.
Di Russo is clear that the scope of her literature review does not include the history of design (or design thinking) in disciplines other than design, such as engineering.
Di Russo conceptualises three main phases in the development of design theory practice and reseach.
- 1960s-1980s Design methods movement
- 1980s-1990s focus on design congnition
- Evolution of design methodologies
1960s-1980s Design methods movement
This movement emerged from a conference that Bruce Archer, John Chris Jones, Peter Slann and Horst Rittel initiated: The Conference on Systematic and Intuitive Methods in Engineering, Industrial Design, Architecture and Communications, London, 1962.
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 — February 9, 2001). American economist, political scientist and cognitive psychologist, whose primary research interest was decision-making within organizations and is best known for the theories of “bounded rationality” and “satisficing”.
Everyone designs
Simon defined design as a process to improve artificial environments. To change them into ‘preferred ones’. Design, therefore relates to the ‘artificial’ i.e. objects created by man. Everyone therefore designs to some some extent.
Cognitive limitations constrain our understanding of the complexity of our environment, therefore we can only optimise or ‘satisfice’. Prototyping, observing, simulation (based on scientific principles) is the best method of creating solutions that satisfy.
Simon also stresses the importance of shared understanding by all stakeholders of a common problem.
Design and wicked problems
In Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber identify ‘wicked’ problems as ambiguous, open-ended, not subject to one correct solution. Solutions can be good/bad, better/worse, good enough or satisfying but not ‘right’
Science is not the appropriate discipline for problems that are open-ended. Design is the appropriate discipline for wicked problems.
Webber and Rittel also introduced the notion of the co-evolution of understanding the problem and solution.
Horst Willhelm Jakob Rittel (14 July 1930–9 July 1990) was a design theorist and university professor. He is best known for coining the term wicked problem,[1] but his influence on design theory and practice was much wider.[2] His field of work is the science of design, or, as it also known, the area of design theories and methods (DTM), with the understanding that activities like planning, engineering, policy making are included as particular forms of design. In response to the perceived failures of early attempts at systematic design, he introduced the concept of “second generation design methods”[3] and a planning/design method known as issue-based information system (IBIS) for handling wicked problems.
Melvin M. Webber (Hartford, Connecticut, May 6, 1920 — Berkeley, November 25, 2006)[1] was an urban designer and theorist associated for most of his career with the University of California at Berkeley but whose work was internationally important.[citation needed] He was a director of the university’s Transportation Center, an author of classic theoretical papers and of major consulting reports, and an active contributor to debates on transportation policy, regional development and planning theory.[2]
His most important work was in the 1960s & 1970s when he pioneered thinking about cities of the future, adapted for the age of telecommunications and mass automotive mobility. These would not be concentric clusters as in the past but urban-associational areas.
Webber was also well known for his collaboration with Berkeley colleague, Horst Rittel in their seminal paper in 1973 on wicked problems, ones that defied ready solution by the straightforward application of scientific rationality.— argued against design as a science. They claimed problems that are fit for design approach are open-ended, ambiguous ‘wicked problems’. Source: Wikipedia
Simon, Rittel and Webber agree that design is for problem-solving. They all speak about complex wicked problems that are not open to right/wrong solutions.
Design and ethics
Victor Papanek introduced the notion of the designer’s moral responsibilities. Papanek agreed with Simon’s concept of ‘everyone designs’. He doesn’t focus on process or methods, but takes a more intuitive approach. He focuses on innovation — solution resulting from simplifying complexity, noting a triad of limitations (biological, habitat, morality).
Victor Joseph Papanek (22 November 1923–10 January 1998) was an Austrian-American designer and educator who became a strong advocate of the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures. He wrote that “design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself).” Papanek is diligent in writing, and his most important works include “Designing for the Real World”, “Designing for People’s Scales”, and “Green Law”. Among them, “Design for the Real World” has the greatest impact, and the book has been translated into more than 24 languages. Source: Wikipedia
Leonard Bruce Archer CBE (22 November 1922–16 May 2005) was a British mechanical engineer and later Professor of Design Research at the Royal College of Art who championed research in design, and helped to establish design as an academic discipline.
1965, Archer provides an early use of the term ‘design thinking’. Systematic Method for Designers. He focused on a method of design.
Archer’s work has connections with Papanek, around the importance of moral value. Archer defined 10 core elements of design. For Archer, design initially has to be based on formulation of a model. He later reframed this systematic process to a more artistic approach.
Archer also reflected Webber and Rittel’s thinking about the flux in initial stages and ‘emerging requirement ideas and the developing provision ideas’.
Conclusion
All five theorists discussed above understood ambiguous complexity in design practice and that we can only satisfy, not solve. This acknowledgement of complexity and flux in ‘what to solve’ led to a focus on ‘how to solve’ (Di Russo 2016: 22) and a shift towards cognitive design practices.
1980s-1990s Understanding design cognition
This period represents a move from the formulaic logic of design science to ‘ambiguous, intuitive and human characteristics’ (Di Russo 2016:22). Investigation turned to understanding what is unique to the designer — ‘designerly way of knowing’ in Nigel Cross’s famous term.
Peter Rowe. A recognized critic and lecturer in the field of architecture and urban design, in addition to numerous articles, Rowe is the author, co-author, or editor of twenty-five books: Principles for Local Environmental Management (1978); Urban Watershed Management: Flooding and Water Quality (1979); Design Thinking(1987). Source: Harvard University website
The first Design Thinking Research Symposium was initiated by Nigel Cross, Norbert Roozenburg and Kees Dorst. A book resulted from the conference, Research in Design Thinking.
Nigel Cross (born 1942) is a British academic, a design researcher and educator, Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at The Open University, United Kingdom, where he was responsible for developing the first distance-learning courses in design.[1] He was an editor of the journal Design Studies since its inception in 1979 and is now Emeritus Editor in Chief. Cross helped clarify and develop the concept of design thinking (or “designerly ways of knowing”) as a domain-independent discipline.[2] He is one of the key people of the Design Research Society. Source: Wikipedia
For Cross, design is intuitive and creative and independent from art and science (Archer).
‘We have come to realize that we do not have to turn design into an imitation of science, nor do we have to treat design as a mysterious, ineffable art’ Cross in DiRusso 23)
This approach emphasises the centrality and importance of the designer. Cross also contends that design is natural to many people and exists in professions other than design.
Donald Alan Schön (September 19, 1930 — September 13, 1997) was a philosopher and professor in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed the concept of reflective practice and contributed to the theory of organizational learning. Source: Wikipedia
Schon agrees that Simon’s science of design only works for tame problems. He focuses on the process of problem solving but particularly on problem setting and framing. ‘The design process is personal and internal conversation between the object designed and the designer.’ (DiRusso2016:26)
He also elucidated instrumental problems vs situations when there is not yet a ‘problem’ to ‘solve’.
Richard Buchanan is a professor of design, management, and information systems. Currently he teaches at the Weatherhead School of Managementat Case Western Reserve University. Previously he was the head of the Carnegie Mellon School of Design.[1] He serves as an editor of Design Issuesand is a past President of the Design Research Society.
Buchanan is one of the first people to talk about “Fourth Order of Design”[citation needed] and is known for extending the application of design into new areas of theory and practice, writing, and teaching as well as practicing the concepts and methods of interaction design.[citation needed] Source: Wikipedia
Buchanan articulated the four orders of design from visual to systemic. He agrees that design is a process that you can see in many people.
Conclusion
Three common themes emerge from the period from 1960s to 1990s:
- Design is done by humans to improve on human needs. It is seen all around us.
2. Design is a discipline separate from arts and science.
3. Design practice deals with complex and ambiguous problems and issues.
The evolution of design methodologies
Participatory design.
Participatory design grew from Scandinavian research into design methods. Methods such as mock-ups prototypes, role plays and usability testing were borrowed from science methodologies (used in ergonomics and socio-technical systems).
This developed into concern with a holistic picture of the user and involving users as cooperative designers (Di Russo 30)
User-centred design
‘Much of our everyday knowledge resides in the world, not in the head’ (Norman 2002:89 cited in Di Russo 2016:30).
This approach moved beyond user testing to involving users throughout the development of a product of system. ‘User-centred design was coined.’
Donald Arthur Norman (born December 25, 1935)[2][3] is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego.[4] He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science.[4] He is a co-founder and consultant with the Nielsen Norman Group. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.[when?]
Much of Norman’s work involves the advocacy of user-centered design.[5] His books all have the underlying purpose of furthering the field of design, from doors to computers. Norman has taken a controversial stance in saying that the design research community has had little impact in the innovation of products, and that while academics can help in refining existing products, it is technologists that accomplish the breakthroughs.[6] To this end, Norman named his website with the initialism JND (just-noticeable difference) to signify his endeavors to make a difference.[1]. Source: Wikipedia
Service Design
Service design focuses on what the user does with a good or service, including their journey and experience. (Di Russo 2016:32)
Ezio_Manzini is an Italian design academic and author known for his work on design for social innovation and sustainability. He is Honorary Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Chair Professor at University of the Arts London, and presently Distinguished Professor on Design for Social Innovation at ELISAVA, and guest professor at Tongji University and Jiangnan University.[1] Manzini is the founder of DESIS, an international network on design for social innovation and sustainability. Source: Wikipedia
Users and stakeholders are designers of a service. Manzini developed the concept of meta-design — design of a set of tools etc to support designers in a variety of design proesses. (Manzini ,2006 cited in Di Russo, 2016:33).
This represented a shift from ‘designerly ways of knowing’ to the use of ethnogoraphy to understand humans and experiences, variables and personas. It involved stakeholders as well as users. This is described as a ‘holistic’ approach — inolving designers, users and stakeholders and visual skills. Tools were drawn from anthropology.
Human-centred design
William Rouse works within tech systems and product engineering. He broadens the interest in ‘users’. Di Russo is critical that the process he outlines means that design is driven on quantified user data rather than guided by it. One argument is that the attempt to make the methodology empirically reliable, ‘stripping designers of their ‘rhetoric’ [ends up] reducing designers to little more than a passive bystander.’ (Freiss, 2009:40 cited in Di Russo 2016:35)
William B Rouse is a researcher, educator, author and entrepreneur. His current positions include Principal at Curis Meditor, a company focused on the health of people, processes, organizations, and society, Research Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and Professor Emeritus in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His earlier positions include Executive Director of the university-wide Tennenbaum Institute and Chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Di Russo acknowledges that it’s difficult to differentiate HCD from other user-centred and collaborative design practices. She argues that HCD changed with growing understanding of the impact on societal problems. ‘Service design allowed for HCD to redefine its meaning and develop into what is now understood as the foundation of design thinking’ (DiRusso, 2016:35).
This brief history of design thinking has traced fundamental developments within the design field to illustrate that our contemporary design thinking practice is grounded in the design field and has historical genealogy in both design academia and practice.
