Goals, Problems and Core Elements of the Design Thinking - Assignment Example

Design Thinking College: Assignment one (part A) - Design Thinking-Definition Definition of design thinking The designthinking has been defined by Rowe as ‘a fundamental means of inquiry by which man realizes and gives shape to ideas’ (Rowe, 1987). Design thinking literature The present design thinking and all that it entails directly never came out of the history but rather a proof that design thinking has some history. The concept of design thinking arose from the realization via the evolution of collaborative design process methods. Such process methods developed to enhance and extend to another range of practices (Ambrose & Harris 2010). The mid-1980s to date has seen a race to discover emerging methods for improving business, service and design. The particular methods applied is traceable through history and analyzed individually to interpret the historical readings with respect to a particular method of investigation. The analysis of such period aided in the understanding of the evolution of chief design process methods. Consequently, the analysis meant to discover from such evolution of design process methods the moment when design thinking got realized as an emerging approach as well as a framework of thinking that underscored all other prior methods of thinking. However, there was never a precisely framed linear progression of methodologies that emerged. Many methodologies were developed concurrently in various faculties as well as industries. The coining of the term design thinking date back to 1987 when Peter G. Rowe introduced the phrase in his book, ‘Design Thinking’. The design involves a call for conventional minds to change and collaborate. There are various approaches to designing thinking ranging from the participatory design, user-centered, service-centered to human-centered design thinking. The participatory design primarily focuses on user testing efficiency and end-user development. The user-centered design thinking stresses the significance of customers’ needs and paints user as central to the service or product development. The service-centered design focus on the importance of examining the user journey value and the stakeholder’s culture by stressing the need for a collaborative culture. The service design relates with the meta-design that advocates a collaborative, open source systems and holistic community development to ensure social sustainability. Therefore, service-centered design holistically engages the stakeholders and emphasizes on service sustainability. Finally, the human-centered design involves a collaborative and multidisciplinary social systems. There is also holistic engagement of the community development driven by empathy. The humanized approach applies those methods aimed at gaining direct audience understanding and thus empowers. The design thinking looks at how a fully organization can be engaged to think about the ever changing landscape of the business, culture, and society. The design thinking grabs designers, social change makers, and individuals to reflect whatever they have in common to approach the ambiguous 21st century. The design thinking as an effective model for business and involves how the individual changes the world with their creative minds. The concept of design thinking arose from the field of architecture. Design thinking has been central getting an effective solution to the wicked problems. It gives the confidence that every individual participate in the creation of desirable future. The design thinking thus makes people confident enough to engage in processes and actions that culminate into sufficient solutions when faced with challenging situations. The design thinking helps foster optimism amongst the design thinkers, and this is beneficial in every aspect of life. For example, classrooms and school around the world face design challenges on a daily basis. Particularly, such challenges arise from teacher feedback systems and daily schedules. Thereby falling in a spectrum of scale whereby the educators encounter real, varied and complex challenges. However, the design thinking has always presented opportune and effective solutions based on new perspectives, tools, and approaches. Therefore, design thinking is central in assisting individuals faced such real-world problems to counteract effectively and revamp the situations. Historical development of design thinking The design thinking began by participatory design. The participatory methodology in the ancient times was common in urban planning until recent developments in design gave such a method a name. Many people could trace the history and development of the participatory design in and of itself- distinct from the design thinking. For example getting information on nitpicky, Plato’s Republic always come into our mind as he was the first to instigate community participation. Due to pitfalls of the participatory design such as being silent on user experience and primarily entailed usability that caused users dilemma, deliberation circumventing co-design or co-operative or collaborative design emerged. The collaborative design aimed at transforming passive users into co-operative designers. Therefore, the user-contented design thinking was established by theorist Donald Norman. This work greatly transformed the user development design as Norman redefined participatory into the user-centered design. Norman focused on user needs and interest and less on usability with respect to user testing. This design thinking favored user-control and humanized participatory, and system design as things were made visible. The visibility concept of things was incorporated to ensure that users could note errors and have control over resolving them. Norman placed the user at the center of the process of development highlighting the benefits of understanding user experience over user testing. The user-centered design thinking is anchored in behavioral science and hence stressed experience rather than efficiency. The user-centered thinking design thus embraced a humanistic approach alongside the engagement of the user throughout the development of a system or product. Thus, it spread into vast areas of industry and practice as it escalated speculations towards user elevation from guinea-pigs to co-developers. The next design thinking was service-centered design after the turn of the millennium. The service design borrows much from the participatory and user-centered design thinking alongside the customer experience evolution. The service-centered design thus borrows significantly from traditions such as experience and interaction, environment, and product design. The service design recognizes the need for user-centered design alongside understanding the use, interaction as well as the journey of a particular service or product once it leaves providers’ jurisdiction. Thus, service design reinforces the user-centered design by incorporating all the stakeholders and individuals affected on interacting with the service system. Therefore, the service design made is evidential, the concept of a holistic mindset as outlined by Ezio Manzini following his in-depth study of service marketing and meta-design. Also, the anthropology and marketing have reinforced the present methodology used in service design thinking. The service design focuses on a collaborative culture with all users of a service and builds relationships amongst the stakeholders thus opening up communication for the exchange and development of the value and knowledge. Finally, the development of human-centered design thinking became a reality. The human-centered design started within technological and product system industries. The design grew from the human-centered interaction. The human started arose in 1990s following a shift of design thinking to humanized strategy rather than a techno-driven design thinking. This approach became more of a mindset than a physical set of tools as discussed by William B. Rouse (1991). Thus, the mindset approach of human-centered design re-surfaced design thinking, however, as a mindset applied a method for interpretation of wicked problems. Key influence of design thinking The design thinking is based on a number of core elements. Primarily design thinking aims at solving problems creatively to produce solutions. The solution is resulting from design thinking always put humans and good user experience first. Such solutions also start with an understanding of goals incorporating thinking about the customers and user goals. Moreover, stakeholders, and business goals are also central to the solution of design thinking that always attempt to create a win outcomes. Finally, the solution fostered in design thinking are ethical, purposeful and pragmatic alongside being elegant. Moreover, such elements as critique, abductive thinking, reflection and consider results greatly shapes the design thinking. The design thinking also depends on one’s ability to pretend that the future is now and physically express the concepts. Also, design thinking is influenced by the ability to identify many options designs that satisfy the most requirement. Once the identification is complete, then the design thinker foregoes a few or one of the many alternatives already identified to solve a problem. The design thinking in business involves a deep and holistic user understanding. The business professional can only accomplish such understanding via user modeling and research. Moreover, the visualization of new possibilities, refining and prototyping significantly influence design thinking. The design thinking involves working with a multidisciplinary product team. Finally, the design thinking is closely attached to the creation of a new activity system. Such creations aim at bringing the nascent idea to reality and productive operation. There is a need to create an organizational culture that precisely understands and perpetuates design thinking. Subsequently, it is appropriate to apply the design thinking to projects aimed at developing innovative commodities (Buchanan & Margolin 1996). Therefore, design thinking-derived commodities establish customer value leading to increased profitability. The attributes of a design thinker also influence design thinking. For example, a design thinker must be empathetic, integrative, optimistic and collaborative. Appendix 1 Evidence and short comment of information from the lectures The lectures information formed the foundation for my study as I got prior instincts on the design thinking. I therefore, started my research with a clear mind on what particular information I was wanted. Reference Ambrose, G., & Harris, P. (2010). Design th!nking. Lausanne: AVA Academia. Buchanan, R., & Margolin, V. (1996). Discovering design: Explorations in design studies. Chicago [u.a.]: Univ. of Chicago Press. Carmona, M. (2014). Explorations in urban design: An urban design research primer. Dohr, J. H., & Portillo, M. (2011). Design thinking for interiors: Inquiry + experience + impact. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Helfert, M., & Donnellan, B. (2013). Design Science: Perspectives from Europe: European Design Science Symposium, EDSS 2012, Leixlip, Ireland, December 6, 2012, Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Imprint: Springer. Ingle, B. R. (2013). Design thinking for entrepreneurs and small businesses: Putting the power of design to work. Margolin, V. (2002). The politics of the artificial: Essays on design and design studies. Chicago, Ill., [u.a.: University of Chicago Press. Menges, A., & Ahlquist, S. (2011). Computational design thinking. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Assignment one (Part B) Design Thinking-strategic tool in business leadership Real world application of design thinking on business strategy The design thinking has become an integral part of the present every day activities. The design thinking is used daily in business models, the solution to the social problem and even healthcare settings. The service design thinking and human-centered design have always been used in the today’s world. For example, the mindset approach of human-centered has re-introduced design thinking as a mindset applied a method for interpreting the wicked problems. For example, consumers of a service or a product are proactively incorporated when a firm wants to produce a particular product. The firm has to tailor their products in a more humanized manner to gain from their activities. Consumers are now seen not as spectators but co-developers of a product. The firm has to do proactively effective market research and identify a particular niche or segment needs and interest before engaging in the commercialization of a particular product. Also, for those designers who produce technologies, they must consider not only the usability but also user journey value and experience of the technology. The design thinking is also applicable in the workplace. Firms are currently carrying both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation amongst their employee to increase their productivity. For example, there is a need for a teamwork based on a collaborative corporate culture. Here, every employee’s input is recognized as an integral input to the firm’s realization of success. The employees’ wages and salaries are adjusted based on the humanized approach to ensure low turnover. Moreover, the client-centered counseling has also greatly employed the design thinking where the client social problems are solved amicably based on empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard to the clients. Evaluation of design thinking impact on business strategy Design thinking is the bedrock for any success and profit-oriented business. The design thinking approach is presently an integral part of any business plan strategy. The design thinking approach helps the firm in determining a particular niche or segment to tailor the products and service. Only those firms that proactively recognize the significance of design thinking in their business marketing strategies can surpass the fierce competitive environment (Ingle 2013). For example, the production, marketing and particular market of a firm are determined by deign thinking. Currently, the customers are never spectators but co-developers of a service or a product a given business makes. In addition, the firm’s employees who are key to the firm’s daily operation must be motivated in a more holistic manner. Therefore, a corporate social responsibility that is determined by an effective corporate culture design also rest on design thinking. The sustainability of any business lies in the effectiveness of the corporate culture strategy and, therefore, a business must employ a holistic approach to ensure a more humanized corporate social responsibilities. The customer’s loyalty rises with a convincing corporate culture and, therefore, the business must incorporate its customers in every stage of product or service development (Menges & Ahlquist 2011). The marketing approach must rely greatly on a humanized and service design thinking to ensure less resistance to the products once they are commercialized. Therefore, the business strategy must be developed purely from the design thinking perspective and all levels of business undertakings right from the production to after purchase evaluation. Appendix 2 Evidence of task taken in seminar to explore value of design thinking I undertook a thorough review of the literature online available to explore the value of design thinking. I paid particular attention on how design thinking impacts on the business strategies particularly, in marketing strategies and realized a reciprocal connection. Read More