The Value of Drawing to Design Thinking
Recently I presented a few ideas to a product team for a new web application we had been planning. I drew up a few sketches and presented them to the team. Everyone was excited about the direction. Afterwards, several members of the discussion complimented the work, ‘I really like the hand drawn style of the comps. What application did you use to get that effect?’ It took me a minute to comprehend the question, then I realized they were serious. ‘I drew them, with pen and paper’. They looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. Which, in a way I was.
Here’s the deal, using a drawing to communicate an idea isn’t a stylistic choice. Drawing is a cognitive process. It is the literal capturing of critical thought and an invaluable practice for problem solving. Hear me out. Over here in the western world drawing is seen as a discipline of art. We take art class as children and we are encouraged to find our own style — drawing is presented to us as a means of personal expression from day one. We’re taught that people have an innate artistic ability or they don’t. Structure for learning how to be creative doesn’t come until long after that ‘talent’ has been identified.
We believe drawing equates to art and talent and therefore is precious and unique. Parents, looks at your fridge for confirmation of this. However, drawings are rarely if ever precious — just ask a child. Ask them to draw you a picture. You won’t get one, you’ll get twelve. Because drawings don’t represent an end, they are far more often a means. A child’s drawings are a representation of their thought process, in pictures, which is how we think, in pictures. Drawings are not simply a product of thought, they also represent the process of thought. And they are critical to helping think a problem through. Before we are taught how to use language to express our thoughts we use pictures. And yet, we are taught that communicating with pictures is an art form, whereas communicating with words is a skill.
Contrast this with East, where children are culturally exposed to drawing within a graphic schema which ultimately helps them adopt a visual vocabulary. Take for example the role that Manga plays in their cultures. Most children, often as young as six, are able to expertly copy Manga forms to tell their own story. Manga isn’t precious, it’s culturally universal. The pervasiveness of Manga, combined with the stereotypical conventions of the art form create this ‘copy culture’. It’s an environment when imitation is strongly encouraged. The result is that imitation isn’t stealing, it’s establishing common symbols — it creates a lexicon. And once you have a lexicon, then personal, intelligent, creative interpretations can emerge.
Back here in the West, the ability to express yourself with pictures is a gift for a ‘talented’ few. Yet, without being taught the vocabulary, how could anyone be expected to exhibit talent, to be creative? The sad reality is that drawing is accepted as an extracurricular activity. It isn’t taught as a skill to be learned, and so few of us have the vocabulary. The result is that our culture fundamentally lacks many of the core skills needed to apply critical and creative thinking to problem solving.
Drawing is at once considered and imprecise, illustrative and provocative, personal and universal. When the goal is to buck the status quo and look creatively at a problem, these contrasting perspectives are critical. This is the value of a design thinking approach. Design thinking is a process for iterative, critical thought. Design is not the department that uses Photoshop, it’s the people in the company that were taught to put the pictures in their head down on paper, and then scribble them out, and then do that again and again, until they arrive at a more perfect solution.
