Design thinking

Draft

Introduction

Design thinking is a concept used in many contexts. Most often it is used to describe a king of design methodology. Dorst (1997) , distinguishes two paradigms of current design methodology: design seen as a rational problem solving process and design considered as a reflective practice.

Types of design thinking

Johansson-Sköldberg et al. (2013). distinguish five types of design thinking. Quotes below are from the online version of their article.

1. Design and designerly thinking as the creation of artefacts (Simon, 1969) “Simon understood ‘design’ to encompass all conscious activities to create artefacts, and thereby differentiated it from natural science, social science and humanities – but not from engineering. [..] His point of departure was that design [research] is about creation, while other sciences deal with what already exists.”

2. Design and designerly thinking as a reflexive practice (Schön, 1983). “In contrast to Simon, Schön constructed a picture of the designer through a practice‐based focus on the relation between creation and reflection‐upon‐the‐creation that allows for constantly improved competence and re‐creation.”

3. Design and designerly thinking as a problem‐solving activity (Buchanan, 1992 based on Rittel and Webber, 1973). , “Buchanan introduced the concept of placements to describe the process of contextualization. Placements are ‘tools’ for intuitively or deliberately shaping a design situation, identifying the views of all participants, the issues of concern, and the intervention that becomes a working hypothesis for exploration and development, thereby letting the problem formulation and solution go hand in hand rather than as sequential steps.”

4. Design and designerly thinking as a way of reasoning/making sense of things (Lawson, 2006 [1980]; Cross, 2006, 2011), . “Cross works from ethnographic research to reveal what designers do during the activity of designing, while Lawson draws on the psychology of creative design processes to turn his research knowledge into forms designers can use.”

5. Design and designerly thinking as creation of meaning (Krippendorff, 2006). “Krippendorff's ‘science for design’, [is a] ‘a systematic collection of accounts of successful design practices, design methods, and their lessons, however abstract, codified or theorized, whose continuous rearticulation and evaluation within the design community amounts to a self‐reflective reproduction of the design profession’ (2006: 209).”

Design thinkers

Razzouk & Shute (2012) , based on a literature review, defined design thinking (DT) competence map. At the top level, the map identifies demonstrate DT skills, use DT terminology and Employ DT behavior. DT skills are divided into locate and use resources, iterate diagrams and innovative design which are then further divided into sub and sub-sub dimensions, totalling 26 items.

Bibliography

Other

Items retrieved from From Doing to Thinking: The Role of Reflection and Self-Regulated Learning in Developing the Design Thinking Mindset

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