Off the Rails: Design Thinking Devolution.

What do you think of Design Thinking? Is it a framework? a methodology? a philosophy? maybe just some fancy words so that design professionals and agencies can add wow-ness to their work?

Here’s a controversial opinion, Design thinking is all that and maybe more. In the current business & design landscape it’s not uncommon to see big groups of design and non-design professionals embracing these different perspectives on Design Thinking.

Let’s delve a little into the past so I can explain my point. Design Thinking was promoted and gained momentum either directly by design & innovation firms such as IDEO or Frog, pioneers such as Tim Brown, David Kelley, and Jeanne Liedtka, or indirectly with the immense success of design-led firms such as Apple and Airbnb.

Back then, although frameworks were common, the design was considered a philosophy, it’s not about going through some static sequence of steps — yeah I know some are iterative and cyclical. It was about having core values that aren’t 100% laid down by design but those not laid down by it were undoubtedly influenced by it.

So the frameworks weren’t that static, the people who created them used them as guidelines, just to make sure they’re moving towards a defined end.

As firms’ adoption rate of Design Thinking was rising, the need to standardize it within the firm’s walls was climbing as well, so what happened? The philosophy started to clear the horizon for the contagious framework mania! Why contagious? because it infected designers themselves who supposedly should have pushed back or at least corrected the path evolution was taking.

So, on one hand, rather than seeing designers start by showcasing the impact of their work, or the work they did in terms of navigating complexity — which, of course, is not an easy task — you see them start with a defined framework and predefined steps, and a lot of visuals and artifacts. Design agencies also start evangelizing the potential of Design Thinking and its promises — which aren’t false by the way — yet, committing the same mistake, leading to design thinking being perceived by firms as some swindle.

On the other hand, you start to see interviewees asking designers in job interviews, what framework do they follow? What’s the difference between double diamonds & DT framework? How do they build a user story? Which design software do they use? Whether they can make the company a design such as the one on their portfolio?

Not only that evolution — decline may be more suitable — had led to a decline in perceiving the potential of design thinking in solving some really annoying problem — often called wicked. That decline led to designers being perceived as “less important” in firms today.

Maybe you don’t agree with my brief of what the hell had happened to Design Thinking and designers and how they ended up being so vulnerable today, and it’s totally fine; Otherwise, if you do agree, you might be wondering now, is there a way out? I believe maybe there is one!

First, we need to polish that fact that got rusty and shout-out design thinking isn’t an activity, it isn’t abstract, rigid frameworks, and hell yeah it’s not these artifacts whether it’s a wall filled with post-its or a visual masterpiece Figma prototype. Design is a philosophy, a mindset with a set of non-negotiable values; These values need to sink quite well for someone to “design think” well and be able to choose the activities, tools, or frameworks to nail every problem in the best way possible.

The values:

Result and Impact are the start & finish line.

If we don’t know why we’re using the Design Thinking philosophy, and why it’s the perfect choice for the problem at hand, we’re just messing around.

Design Thinking isn’t suitable for all sorts of problems — yeah, someone has to say it, it can be a very costly choice for typical problems that are not highly complex with lots of unknown factors impacting it, and plenty of stakeholders concerned with it — aka wicked problems.

So, we need to start by assessing the problem at hand and determine how we will feel it’s solved — as it’s nonsense to predict how a solution would be for such vague and highly complex problems, then we will determine how to measure our progress towards solving the problem.

Reduced waste and optimized Solutions.

Since Design Thinking deals with highly complex problems with multiple stakeholders involved — usually referred to as “wicked” — we need to ensure that this problem won’t suck our resources dry, especially if it turned out to be unsolvable.

So, before committing to an activity, or a method we need to ensure we have a rationale behind it. Don’t build a persona or a journey map because “that’s what others do.” Don’t polish your prototypes more than needed and forget that you and your team’s time is an irreplaceable asset.

Action ~ Planning balance.

Although Design Thinking stresses the importance of devoting resources wisely as I stated earlier, watch out not to be trapped within over-planning.

Design Thinking deals with highly complex problems, blind spots are okay, but what’s not okay is to think that you can have a comprehensive view upfront with no blindspots, You’re just wasting time doing that, believe me!

• Everyone concerned is heard and engaged.

I can’t stress that one enough! Design Thinking borrows a lot from the human-centered design approach, It’s even used when the problem at hand is complex and includes MULTIPLE stakeholders, so it’s nonsense to start working isolated, it’s nonsense not to engage everyone concerned or impacted by the problem you’re solving.

But, beware, although all stakeholders must be engaged, they shouldn’t all be engaged the same way, or at the same time. Design Thinking isn’t only about creativity, it’s more about facilitating communication and collaboration between those stakeholders concerned with what you’re trying to solve or design.

No room for assumptions.

Another synonym for this value would be “Make sure you’re learning.” Design Thinking is mainly about eliminating biases that can eventually make your shot miss its target, and make all resources you’ve devoted go in vain.

So, yeah, you need to keep learning, but remember, learning is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If learning doesn’t lead us somewhere, even if it’s useful, it’s useless!

The outcomes of embracing — returning to — this view of design thinking is likely to have a huge impact on both businesses looking to hire designers & designers looking to design better solutions.

Although the biggest counterargument for it would be that these values are so “loose,” that’s the point, it’s flexible — or loose if you want to say so — to not hinder or limit the chance of building some really innovative and radical solution, yet, it serves as an established guideline to remind designers to always keep in mind the basic non-negotiable fundamentals of their craft.

A final word is that it’s true that design thinking leans more towards being a problem-solving approach than being a creative process. But — I’d borrow that from Shawshank Redemption — it comes down to a simple choice, really, get busy just solving a problem, or get busy nailing an innovative solution for it.

What are your thoughts, coffee is on me!