Design Thinking: What’s it All About
Encouraging collaboration, creativity, and optimism
Design thinking is to architecture what the scientific method is to scientific experimentation. The scientific method consists of asking a question, gathering background information about the question, forming a hypothesis based on the background information, testing the hypothesis by carrying out a controlled experiment in which a small number of variables are manipulated, and then reaching a conclusion based on analysis of the data. The design thinking revolves around a solution, unlike the scientific method, which revolves around a question, also called a problem. Whereas the scientific method revolves around analysis, design thinking revolves around synthesis.
Design thinking begins with the brainstorming phase
The writers who have outlined the principles of design thinking come from a variety of professional and academic fields, and this fact shows the diverse applications of design thinking. Its early proponents include computer scientist Herbert Simon, designer engineer Robert McKim, and entrepreneur David Kelley. Design thinking is of great value to people who develop and design websites and mobile apps.
Design thinking begins with the brainstorming phase. During this phase, the people working on the project identify the outcome they want and then think of as many ways as possible to reach that outcome. That is, they list as many possible solutions as they can think of. During the brainstorming phase, they do not focus on whether the solutions are feasible or on the steps necessary to implement them. No proposed solution is too strange or too poorly examined. Trying out the solutions comes later. The brainstorming phase is not the time to analyze the solutions, and pointing out potential flaws in the solutions, that is, playing devil’s advocate, is discouraged during this phase. Criticizing solutions that others have proposed will break the momentum of generating ideas and will lead designers to become self-conscious, which is detrimental to the brainstorming phase.
Experimenting with solutions may even lead designers to redefine the original goal.
During the next phase, the designers try out the solutions. When a designer tries out a solution, he or she may discover that the solution is not feasible and may abandon it. Even more likely, though, is that trying out the solution will lead the designer to even more questions. Experimenting with solutions may even lead designers to redefine the original goal. In design thinking, as in research in the humanities, questions that lead to other questions, rather than having simple and straightforward answers, are considered desirable.
Larry Leifer and Christoph Meinel have outlined four basic rules of design thinking: the ambiguity rule, the human rule, the re-design rule, and the tangibility rule. The ambiguity rule is that ambiguity is inevitable, and designers must not oversimplify matters in order to remove ambiguity. The human rule states that the design process is intrinsically social; even a designer working alone is engaging with designs made by other people before him or her. The re-design rule states that all design is re-design, as human beings have always desired the same basic outcomes and have only constantly re-designed the means of reaching these outcomes. The tangibility rule states that tangible products are the best way of communicating design ideas.
Horst Rittel has classified problems in design as “tame problems” and “wicked problems”; there is actually a continuum from the tamest to the wickedest of design problems. How wicked a problem is can be determined by how much already known information surrounds it. A tame problem is one that is well defined, and in the tamest problems some possible solutions are already available. In the wickedest of wicked problems, neither the problem nor the solution is known.
In design thinking, goals and potential courses of action may seem poorly defined until the designers reach a sudden epiphany, which Garth Saloner calls the “a-ha moment”. At that moment, both the nature of the problem and the name of the solution become clear.
User experience in the design of websites and apps can be considered a wicked problem. This is because users have not clearly specified what kind of experience they want. The designer must try out various types of website and app designs and see how the users respond. Once the designer has discovered what kind of experience the users want, he or she can look for the most efficient way to create that experience for users.
Design thinking is especially beneficial in the world of website and app design because it encourages collaboration, creativity, and optimism. Since new apps become available very frequently, designers can see the human rule and the re-design rule in action every day. It is a much more productive way of looking at the app design world than the old business model, which was full of brand loyalty and trade secrets. Design thinking operates on the principle that there is always room for innovation. This same principle has led to the appearance of a tremendous number of new websites and apps in a short time, solving all kinds of problems that their users had never even known existed.
