Design Thinking: Thought Process for Design Solutions - Thesis Example

Design Thinking: Thought process for design solutions Design Thinking This paper will vali the thesis statement, 'In design thinking thought processes are required to identify and understand design problems and create design solutions.' In doing so we will take an inter-disciplinary approach , as we pay special attention on Lawson's book, 'How designers think,' to examine the diverse concepts of design and thinking -(since design is a product of thought)-to identify the types of thinking that are most used in designer thinking as a process, namely imagination as well as reason. Lastly we will look at the meaning of the word process and the steps that need to be taken during the creative process of designer thinking. Design Thinking There are many diverse meanings to the word design which can be used as both, a noun and a verb. "If you're leading a team or mapping out a strategy- if you're trying to solve a problem - you're engaging in design."1 Designers first began to gain importance in post war years when they worked in an isolated, compartmentalized and disordered way for various companies for improving the design of commercial goods. But the designer bubble burst during the 50s and 60s when designers began to be looked upon as tools of capitalist society till they redefined their role in the 70s as developers of culture and lifestyle. Today: "The word "design" has a lot of different meanings when people think of design they think of an artefact that's been designed well such as a chair, a car or a building. Or they thin1k of design as style or fashionThe term "design thinking" has gained popularity because it makes it easier for those outside the design industry to focus the idea of design as a way of thinking about solving problems, a way of creating strategy by experiencing it rather than keeping it an intellectual exercise, and a way of creating and capturing value"2 Design consultant Linda Naiman states that, "The revolution taking place in design - as it emerges from its traditional role of serving commerce - to a role of leading, shaping and directing the way we live and work, presents tremendous opportunities" For the purpose of this paper we will focus on the definition, "Design is the thought process comprising the creation of an entity," Archer too saw design as a complex and shared rational logical sequential activity that would solve problems and bring innovation and change. Today designing is a skill required by architects, fashion designers, urban architects, products and industrial design, engineers, landscape designers, the automobile industry and interior decorators. But the culture of design has been with us from the stone age when man first began to create tools to shape and control his environment but these primary inventions happened in a disorganized and an unplanned way. Designer thinking today by contrast blends aesthetics as well as ergonomics to improve our lifestyle and develop culture. The great architect and designer Charles Eames, Lawson states, " the culture of design was greater then the creation of a new chair. It was part of a much bigger socio-cultural process of 'adding valuethrough an injection of creative individualism that distinguished designer goods' frommass production." 3 And so Nike and Yves Sainte Loraine were born as virtual personality cults of Design Culture. 2 Since designers redefined their role as the developers of culture they had a wide scope since, "culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society it encompassesart literature, lifestylesvalue systems traditions and beliefs." 43Today from being just architects or product refiners and innovators, designers are the definers of good taste, better lifestyles and efficiency in diverse fields, all of which embrace the designer culture that was vigorously promoted by advertising companies as a key international marketing strategy in the 70s ad 80s. As designer culture became reinforced so did the premier educational institutes required to perpetuate it. Soon design institutes offered complete, detailed and sequential knowledge on the process of designer thinking. Aspen conferences in the US gave a common platform to designers on which they could exchange opinions and ideas. With the growth of designer education came the ability to design a variety of goods and services across different categories. To do so the design process makes use of both spontaneous creativity and precise technology in the realm of design. In today's fast changing scenario, Design Education helps designers to keep pace with the escalated rate of change by learning to use new technologies and thought processes as they develop, to produce transformative innovation. Design thinking uses thought processes to identify and understand design problems and create design solutions with an end product/service in mind. For W.R. Miner, "Design is the thought process comprising the creation of an entityIt is the mental synapse that immediately sees the potential connection between problem and possibility.' For Miner design is the synthesis of insight, intuition and reason. Since design is a thought process we will now go on to examine thinking which has as many diverse meanings as the word design. Thought as applied in thought process or design process is an act or process of thinking that can refer to an idea or a concept. It includes under its umbrella words like- attention, belief, daydreaming, reasoning and reflective problem. Out of these Lawson isolates 'reasoning' and 'imagining as two of the most important types of thinking. Reasoning is used more by engineers. It is directed towards a goal, has logic, and is concept forming and goal oriented. Imagination is used more by fashion designers, and is more unpredictable. According to Lawson, design thinking requires, "The control and combination of rational and imaginative thought is one of the designers most important skills"5.4 Design thinking falls closer to the Gestalt model which saw thinking as playing an important role in problem solving. And it 5is furthest away from the early behaviorist model of Thorndike -(1911) who saw thinking as an involuntary muscular activity. By contrast design thinking is a process defined as, 'a particular method of doing something, generally involving a number of steps or operations'6.A process is a series, or set, of thought-filled events and procedures that lead to the creation of that which is being designed. Finally a designers thinking uses both right and left brain thinking and is both subjective as well as objective. Lawson says, "Unfortunately, the really interesting things that happen in the design process may be hidden in designers' heads rather than being audible or visible." Having examined the words 'design' and 'thinking' let us now look at the actual stages of design thinking as a process. "The general consensus is that we can identify up to 5 phases in the creative processwhich we call first insight, preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. 7 The first stage of (1) Insight-recognizes the existence of problem(s) formulates problems and makes a commitment to finding solutions. This stage can last from a few hours to years. Before working creatively many designers find it imperative to zero in on a problem first. 2) Preparation is about gathering knowledge about the background of the problem in a conscious attempt at finding a solution. According to Edison great ideas don't just come, they are, 'one% inspiration and 99% perspiration.' 3)Hard work is followed by a period of incubation or rest in which there is no conscious effort and one is laid back and relaxed 4) Illumination or sudden appearance of an idea that is inspired.5)Verification or conscious development through the use of reason. In which the idea is tested elaborated and developed. The stages of design thinking include:- 1)Pre-production design: that would include a) A design brief spelling out the goals b)Research c)Specification d)Problem solving including conceptualizing and documentation e)Presentation of design solutions.2)Designing during production: would include development and testing to improve the present design. 3.Post production design: would include a)Feedback for future designs b)Implementation or introduction to the design c)Evaluation d) Conclusion. These stages may vary according to the specific application of design thinking. Lastly, the design process is an endless one as the designer's job is never really done-(since there is always room for improvement.)Nor are there any hard and fast rules in the designer process that can be personalized and altered by the designer according to the problem structure. "a designers job is never done and it is always possible to do better" These steps can be altered according to the problem being addressed Having examined the words 'design', 'thinking' and 'process let us now examine creativity in the context of design thinking. 6 "For me creativity is finding solutions for all those things that are contrary and the wrong type of creativity is that you just forget about the fact that sometimes it rainsyou just make stairs with the one idea you have in your head, this is fake creativity" 9 It is true that, "To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted."10 Ultimately creativity is a mental process because as Buonarroti pointed out that "A man paints with his brains and not with his hands." To be creative one needs to think outside the box by remaining open to new perspectives, be willing to do things differently as one focuses on new ideas and ways to value add. the design process is a fundamental outline that would help frame a design problem then professionally and creatively solve the problem while satisfying the needs of others. To sum up, design as a process involves recognizing a problem, making every effort to understand the background conditions, defining of the problem along with criteria and constraints, developing of alternate solutions, evaluating alternates, selecting the best alternates, implementing the solution and lastly evaluating the results. At the end of the day as Tim Brown, the CEO of an innovation and design firm states, design thinking matches peoples needs 'with what is technically feasible' in a human-centered design ethos. References 1. Bisra, S. Social Change(1984) NCERT Delhi 2. Brown, T.(2009 January 15) 'Design thinking' retrieved from harvardbusinessonline. 3. Brown, T.(2009 January 12) Design thinking: social impact retrieved from designthinking.ideo.com/ 4. Brain Power (2009 January 15) creative problem solving techniques, retrieved from http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com 5. Creative problem solving techniques(2009 January) retrieved from www.IncreaseBrainPower.com 6. Davis, K. Human Society (1981) Surjeet Publications 7. Dubey, M.S. Sociology an introduction (1989) NCERT Delhi 8. Lawson, B. (2006) 'How designers think: the design process Demystified, Architecture press USA 9. Lawson, B. (2004) 'What designers know' Architecture press US 10. Rothman, (2009 January 15) What is design thinking Retrieved from metacool.typepad.com 11. Pierce, Penny, (2009 January 15) Transformation Design and Design Thinking retrieved from intuitnow.blogspot.com 12. Pirsig, R. (1974)Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Bantam Books, New York 13. whole-brain-innovation (2009 January 15) retrieved from http://www.creativityatwork.com 14. What is Design Thinking (2009 January 15) retrieved from noisebetweenstations.com Read More