Design Thinking: Understanding how Designers Think and Work
The book I read named Design Thinking: Understanding how Designers Think and Work, which is written by Nigel Cross. He is a university professor specializing in the field of design and gains worldwide fame with this book. The theme of this book is an in-depth analysis of the ideas involved to determine the methods and processes by which designers think and work, and memorizing the summary and analysis. The book has only one author, which contains many case studies and some unique reflections.
I chose this book because my friend recommended me to read it. Most importantly, I have read some of the readers’ comments about the book, which are illuminating and confirm the guiding value of the book, and it is gratifying. I am also very interested in the topic of this book, which focuses on relevant design thinking and analysis. Unlike other books, this book pays more attention to the decomposition and hierarchical analysis of designers’ behaviors, and it also focuses on specific product and domain cases to make the overall design analysis more clear and understandable.
My overall impression of the book is that it is deeply analytical. This book concretely explores and analyzes the abstract design capability, and through the construction of design behavior and related case studies, gives the audiences a brand new understanding of design. Design is no longer mysterious and esoteric, but concise and understandable. Crucially, the book establishes a strong readability that ensures a deeper understanding and retention. Relying on this book, my design ideas have been effectively guided and better design thinking has been established. It can be said that this book has strong guiding value.
The first major insight I get from the book is that the scope of design is very broad. Our stereotype is that design is concentrated in a specific field or industry, and it is difficult to have a comprehensive and accurate understanding of design. Based on the reading and understanding of this book, we can find that design is a very broad concept. For example, design covers a wide range of design forms, from hardware to software, as well as a wide range of fields and industries, from architecture to the Formula One racing season. And all of the design norms and ideas in these different fields and industries, in fact, have shown great similarity, which give a person great inspiration.
The second major insight I get from this book is that design can be explained through observation and investigation. That is, observing and understanding design practice can give us a new perspective on design thinking and foster a new way of design understanding. For example, in order to better understand the design ideas, we can conduct in-depth analysis of the behavior of professional designers and related cases, so as to draw some common ground and differences, and determine the design ideas of designers and their unique work understanding. These relevant summaries and analyses can determine a more systematic design analysis work.
