Literature review on design thinking:

IDEO is often known for coining the terms design thinking and practice. Design thinking is based on a global dialogue that has existed for several, decades. Since its founding in 1978, IDEO has been engaged in human-centered design and has used the term “designer thinking” to describe elements of the most widely studied and accepted practices – empathy, optimism, repetition, confidence, creativity and experimentation (“History.” IDEO, February 21, 2019).

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An important element of design thinking is the ability of practitioners to understand new knowledge that skills and equipment may vary. However, it is a combination of the use of design tools with a deep understanding or organizational innovation that defines the strategic value of design thinking (Matthews, Judy, and Cara Wrigley). A summary of the design thinking approach is given in the table 1.

Author

Approach

Details

Examples

Brown (2008)

Design thinking involves empathy, inclusive thinking, optimism, and collaboration to change the development of products, processes and companies strategies.

Design thinking uses designer’s sensitivity and methods to align people’s needs with factors that can transform technologically feasible and viable business strategies into customer value and market opportunities.

Design thinking can change how companies design products, processes, and strategies.

Martin (2009)

Design thinking uses abductive thinking to actively search for new data points, descriptions of issues, and create new world opportunities.

To be successful, creative thinking of the company is required. Companies like apple, or IBM have focused on what happens before and after the design incident.

Examples of popular business processes and routes, but there is no clear direction for changing the business.

Meinel and Leifer (2011)

Design thinking brings people, business, and technology together to identify design problems and processes.

Design thinking combines a human-centered methodology that combines knowledge in design, social sciences, engineering and economics. Combine end-user attention with interdisciplinary collaboration and interactive enhancements to creative intuitive products, systems, and services.

Explore thought processes by explaining the development and application of design thinking.

                            Table 1 (Matthews, Judy, and Cara Wrigley, p-43, 44)

We observed that design thinking is an iterative process that attempts to identify alternative strategies and solutions that are not understood from initial understanding by understanding users, evaluating assumptions, and redefining problems. At the same time, design thinking offers solution-oriented solutions. This is a way of thinking and working and a set of practical ways.

Design thinking is deeply interested in improving people’s understanding of those who develop products or services. Helps you control and develop empathy for your target audience. Design thinking helps with questions about problems, questions about assumptions and their meaning in the interrogation process. It is very useful for solving known or unknown problems, transforming people oriented problems, sharing ideas with many ideas, and developing direct approaches to prototyping and testing. Design thinking involves ongoing experiments such as sketching, prototyping, testing and testing concepts and ideas.

Currently, there are many variations of the thought process that include three to seven stages, steps or modes. But all thinking design options are very similar. All design options embody the same principles that Nobel laureate Herbert Simon first received in Science of Art in 1969. It focuses on the 5-level Stanford Plattner model, also known as d.school, proposed by the Hasso-Plattner design institute. We chose the d.school approach, because they are at the forefront of applying and implementation of design thinking.

The five levels of design thinking in accordance with d. school are:  

Let’s take a closer look at the five steps of design thinking (Dam, Rikke, and Teo Siang).

1. At the first stage of the thinking design process, you usually fully understand the problem that you are trying to solve through user research. Empathy is crucial for human-centered design processes, such as design thinking. For example, you can leave your own assumptions about the world and understand exactly what consumers and their needs are.

2. At the decision-making stage, we collect information that you wrote and collected at the empathy stage. Analyze and summarize your observations to identify key issues identified by you and your team. You should always try to define the expression of the problem in human terms.

3. Designers can create ideas until they reach the third stage of design thinking. A certain experience of knowing the first two steps means that you can start thinking outside the box and find alternatives where you can look at problems and find innovative solutions to alternatives.

4. This is an experimental stage, and the goal is to find the best solution for each problem identified in the first three stages. The development team created a series of low-cost and shortened versions of the product (or certain features included in the product) to investigate the solution to problems that arose in the previous stages.

5. The designer or reviewer tests the entire product with the best solution identified at the prototype stage. This is the last stage of the model, but the results of an iterative process, such as a design incident, are often used to identify one or more additional problems. Then the developer can return to the previous stages of the process, perform additional iterations, changes and improvements and remove alternative solutions.

Limitations of design thinking:                      

Design thinking is a good start for innovation in many areas. But there are some drawbacks of design thinking which we need to fix (Catalanotto, Daniele).

1. Only focus on present:

Design thinking looking for the right point between the profitability of design (business), desire (people) and feasibility (technology).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                              Innovation

This innovative approach is good, but focuses only on the present. It focuses only on current needs, opportunities and desires. Today’s design thinking is hardly connected. Innovation can also be inspired by many future opportunities. This technology is not yet mature, but it will be ready in a few years. This is not about design thinking at all.

2. Only focus on end users:

Design thinking really changes the world of innovation. Design thinking uses empathy as the first building block. This approach centralizes end users. Design thinking makes these changes. It is classified as an egocentric institute and company. This makes the company forget to communicate with its customers. If we follow this path to the end, we may forget to see our inner perspective.

Reference:

“History.” IDEO, February 21, 2019. https://designthinking.ideo.com/history.

Matthews, Judy, and Cara Wrigley. “Design and Design Thinking in Business and Management Higher Education.” Journal of Learning Design. Accessed October 20, 2019. https://www.jld.edu.au/article/view/294/272.html.

“What Is Design Thinking?” The Interaction Design Foundation. Accessed October 20, 2019. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking.

Dam, Rikke, and Teo Siang. “What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?” The Interaction Design Foundation. Accessed October 20, 2019. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular.

Catalanotto, Daniele. “Design Thinking Is a Great Start for Innovating but It Is Not Enough.” Enigma, August 15, 2019. https://enigma.swiss/en/blog/design-thinking-not-enough/.