You Can’t Just Follow the Recipe
I began my design thinking for collective impact having no clear picture of what exactly I would be learning. When I told a few of my mentors and family members that I was taking this course I got the same response, “I love design thinking”. After their comments, I began to associate design thinking as a method used in corporate America, as this is where they worked. On my first day of class, I was introduced to my professor, Dr. Noel, who to my surprise, is a designer. Who would have thought that design thinking is connected to people who have been trained and worked in the field of design?
Design thinking is a process or a way to go about improving your surroundings or the surroundings of others. Ann Yoachim, a professor at Tulane explained that design thinking allows the process to matter; it is not just about the end product (pluriversal design interview for SISE 3010 fall 2019). The design thinking model identifies specific steps, creating a repeatable framework. The model is purposefully simple, universally used, and accessible, for an array of disciplines. When asked if I would change the design thinking model, I believe it to be important to explore my own positionality prior to critiquing the model itself. I am a student at Tulane University and have only taken one semester of design thinking for my Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship minor. All my prior knowledge of this field was connected to big business and not social problem solving. Although I don’t have a great deal of experience, a fresh set of eyes are beneficial, when you are aiming to critically examine a process and rethink an idea.
Design thinking is so simple that given to someone with little context or no assistance, we should not expect a designer’s outcome. The components of the model are beneficial. Designer, Mari de Mater explains that “empathy is brought back through design thinking” (pluriversal design interview for SISE 3010 fall 2019). It makes sense to empathize, work together, test and ask for feedback, but the expectation of a stagnant model being effective without expertise and explanation is too high. Compare the design thinking framework with a cake recipe and it’s easy to see that two people with the same ingredients but different experience, one a novice, the other chef, will create two completely different outcomes. In a design interview for SISE 3010 fall 2019, Glenn Fajardo explained that everyone is a designer and thinks; however, the main difference is designers have training and respect for design.The model is just that, a model and you must be guided on how to you use it. To improve the model, one could build out the simple hexagon with detailed guidance, branches of sorts, ensuring checkpoints throught out the process. The additional detail would confirm for non-designers that they are taking the right steps toward success without requiring the assistance of an expert.
Throughout Design Thinking for Collective Impact, Dr. Noel constantly referred to the process as a recipe, as our class project was tied to health. We then were told to reflect on how this process could be misused or why there were people out there that strongly disliked it. As a class we came to the conclusion that there was a disconnection from the design model and the implementation of it. Because the D school’s design model is so simplified in hopes that it can be utilized for many, it is diluted. This solidified my learnings on how important a designer’s spirit is to this process. In a day and age where we can find answers to almost anything with a click of a button, we often forget the beauty in not knowing and using what we have to create new.
In Natasha Jen’s critic of design thinking, “Design Thinking is Bullsh*t” she explains that “real designers surround themselves with evidence”. They are consumed by their work. Design thinking is a human driven model, and so the framework without experts, falls flat. The design process is there to help guide you, but it is you who has to put in the work. The D School’s model seems to be a linear process, but the value of the model is in the empathy, the testing, the feedback and the iterations. There seems to be an expectation that the design steps will produce exceptional results, but spending time in each phase and trusting the experience of others is what really drives meaningful outcomes.
References
Yoachim, A. Pluriversal Design Interviews for SISE 3010 [Interview]. (2019). Retrieved 2020.
De Mater, M. Pluriversal Design Interviews for SISE 3010 [Interview]. (2019). Retrieved 2020.
Fajardo, G. Pluriversal Design Interviews for SISE 3010 [Interview]. (2019). Retrieved 2020.
Behance, I. (2020, April 23). Natasha Jen: Design Thinking Is Bullsh*t. Retrieved December 06, 2020, from https://99u.adobe.com/videos/55967/natasha-jen-design-thinking-is-bullshit
