Talk:Design thinking/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Needs attention

Google seems to report this as a current management fad of some sort, but the article needs a good workout. Cites, etc. Coren 03:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Design thinking is a mind set that should be explained in detail in the wikipedia. It is something along the lines with innovator, or designer.

This article should be removed or simply become a topic under design. Otherwise, it is just a buzz word and should be labeled as such.

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This is hardly a fad or buzzword. The current entry does not by any means represent the significance of the term.

We're planning an event in DFW and would like to get the entry cleaned up to synthesize the key elements of the concept for the event.

This is a term that has the potential to bring together different dimensions of design by helping to discover common threads -- and truly elevate design to the strategic role that it can play in fundamentally changing business.

General references here: del.icio.us/iknovate/DesignThinking

Start with two Roger Martin references, an interview: http://trex.id.iit.edu/events/strategyconference/2006/perspectives_martin.php

and a journal issue dedicated to Business Design (see his editorial and the first article): http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/pdf/rotman_mgmt_winter03.pdf

A clear distinctive element of design thinking is abductive reasoning: http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~wirth/inferenc.htm

Iknovate 21:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

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Design Thinking is the application of Design principles on other fields, such as engineering. There is an ongoing and active effort to build a "Design Thinking Community", so the term is definetely not a fad. The company IDEO has a strong influence on the development of the term as well as the culture and methods behind it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEO there are also various TED talks referencing "design thinking"

Sniggy 22:13, 11 December 2008 (GMT)

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I think the article is too heavily influenced with the works arising from IDEO and Stanford d.school. The work from these two sources have been quoted quite often in popular media but does not mean that they are the ones who have shaped the understanding of design thinking. For those who equate design thinking with some sort of process, it would worthwhile to take a look at an articles by assistant managing editor of Businessweek, Bruce Nussbaum http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663558/design-thinking-is-a-failed-experiment-so-whats-next Having said that, I would assert that design thinking is a very potent way of innovating. And we must consider the academic work underway in this field for decades in universities such as Delft University of Technology, Aalborg University, University of Technology, Sydney etc.

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The article needs to explain the origins and history of the concept. Where does this process originate? How did it develop? Who says that the words "design thinking" mean the concept described here and not something else? Leonard of Vince (talk) 02:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

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This article conflates science and engineering. This is especially so in the "Bryan Lawson Architects vs. Engineers, 1979" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neverjustlooking (talk • contribs) 03:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

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I think the section "Differences from science and humanities" and its subsection "The language of design" should be deleted. It's irrelevant. As far as how the article is written, design thinking is a method. Even if it's not science since it hasn't been tested (unless it's there and somehow, I glossed over some information about it), nobody needs to know why it should be different from science and humanities. There's a Wikipedia article on design already so "The language of design" is unnecessary. 20:51, 30 October 2013 (EST) - Skywicke — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skywicke (talk • contribs)

Academic legitimacy

The content of this article is very limited (primarily someone's personal take on design thinking), but I've added a comment and a link about ongoing academic research in design thinking. So it's not just a 'current management fad'! Nigel Cross

There are two academic institutes teaching Design Thinking: Hasso Plattner Institute of Design in Stanford: http://dschool.stanford.edu and Hasso Plattner Institute - School of Design Thinking in Potsdam: http://www.dschool.de - there is also ongoing research on "design thinking" --Sniggy —Preceding undated comment was added at 21:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC).

Seems like just a relabeling for promotional purposes. --Ronz 17:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

THINKING: Problem Solving and Creative Thinking knows 2 basic, fundamental, opposed forms of thinking: Analytical Thinking and Synthetic Thinking (According to Prof. Dr. Emil Brauchlin, Problemlösungs- und Entscheidungsmethodik, University of St. Gallen). Analytical Thinking is dividing, decomposing a problem in its smaller, constitutive parts to look at and understand them, and Synthetic Thinking is the opposite and refers to the process of re-combining these parts to re-construct a larger entity to find a solution to the problem. Going into depth and then coming back to surface. What actually Design Thinking could stand for is a way of thinking that looks at processes and the sequences of facts or events in interaction with (End)Users. I think this could give Design Thinking a legitimate place in a modern Encyclopaedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Francois Hutter (talk • contribs) 12:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Analytical thinking

Unfortunately there is no working link to "analytical thinking"; so maybe this article could be extended to explain how it differs from analytical thinking? The "design thinking" idea doesn't seem to me as something very "revolutionary", but maybe a comparison with other thinking methods highlights some truly different and new ideas? 82.83.243.19 (talk) 11:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Does the article, Analytical skill, help explain "analytical thinking"? Chimin 07 (talk) 03:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup

While the article might be better off deleted/merged, if someone wants to take a stab at cleanup: the lead is much too long vs the size of the article, the ref should be at the bottom, the stages/steps should be referenced and made encyclopedic or otherwise removed. --Ronz 16:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've (drastically) edited down the introduction. The Simon quote allowed the following 'Design thinking is, then, . . .', which doesn't stand as an opening sentence in its own right. I've deleted the material about 'boiling down' problems, etc. because design thinking (as practised by designers) doesn't proceed from 'understand problem' to 'propose solution' - problem and solution co-evolve. The rest of the article still needs a lot of work! It's another example of a patchy, personal 'essay' rather than an encyclopedia entry. Nigel Cross 18:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I added two main interpretations, but this page has been a backwater in wikipedia I think for a while. Also, the 7 step process is an example not they only way - and not a very good one (learn at the end, really? Edit was prompted by my blog discussion: please contribute if you like: http://designenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/04/design-thinking-does-it-exist.html#comments

- Tom Barker April 2011

Design Thinking has two interpretations: Option 1) Designers bringing their methods into business - by either taking part themselves in business process, or training business people to use design methods. Option 2) Designers achieving innovative outputs, for example: 'the iPod is a great example of design thinking.'

Option 1) has been described Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, at a TED lecture, though his blog also considers an element of 2). Business schools with an interest in innovation, such as the Imperial Business School (ranked 5 globally for innovation) also tend to adopt option 1). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.170.218 (talk) 23:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I did some clean-up of the summary paragraphs in attempt to make them more encyclopedic and recognize the various uses of Design Thinking in engineering, design, business and education. I also added some headers to give structure to future additions to this article. PYRSMIS 23:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

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I deleted the section "Differences from science and humanities" and its subsection "The language of design". I left the other subsection "Design thinking in business" intact because it's relevant. The ones I deleted are irrelevant. As far as how the article is written, design thinking is a method. Even if it's not science since it hasn't been tested, nobody needs to know why it should be different from science and humanities. There's a Wikipedia article on design anyway so "The language of design" is unnecessary. 21:00, 30 October 2013 (EST) - Skywicke — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skywicke (talk • contribs)

Herbert Simon?

I'm not sure why H Simon is referenced in this context of 'design thinking'. Did he advocate the creative resolution of problems through design thinking? Did he advocate the 'seven stages' process as given here? In this article these points are directly referenced to Sciences of the Artificial - erroneously I suspect. Nigel Cross (talk) 13:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The entry is decidedly devoid of the references to economics that should be included (Herbert Simon certainly qualifies). Why? Because fundamental to design and particularly to design thinking are the weightings and tradeoffs that influence choice. The fundamentals of economics are about choice: "Economics is a theory of choice and its unintended consequences." Devoid of an understanding of economics -- particularly of the Heynsian variety -- would leave anyone short-sighted in their ability to apply the principles of design thinking. Iknovate (talk) 02:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have the first edition of Sciences of the Artificial and I could not find either cite attributed to Simon; and I looked very carefully through most of the book. Yes, he has lots to say about the science of design generally, but I am quite certain he did not specifically articulate the seven stages attributed to him in this article. Nick (talk) 11:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The Simon reference, which I've relocated to the opening sentence, is legit and good way to ground this article in something other than flimsy management-consulting jargon. The exact quote from the 2nd edition is: "Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing circumstances into preferred ones… Schools of engineering, as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, and medicine, are all centrally concerned with the process of design.” (Simon, 1981, p. 129) Perhaps this quote would be good to include in the article, under Education. PYRSMIS 23:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see that Simon was referenced twice in the article. Indeed, the second is erroneous and I've deleted it. PYRSMIS 23:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

This seems to say that anyone who writes about design as a general concept is necessarily writing about "Design thinking", The process of design in a very generic sense is ancient, the particular methodology here is a recent formulation. Unless the term is actually used by an author in the sense used in this article, I don't think a quote is relevant DGG ( talk ) 23:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

New Suggestions

This page is currently IDEO's process as documented on Nightline in the 'Deep Dive.' The process is not wrong, however, it isn't the only approach in terms of process. Nor is process the only aspect of design thinking.

Suggestion: 1. As design thinking is more solution-based thinking than one example of a process, we suggest to keep this page as is with the topic heading "Design Process". And then other firms/scholars could add other processes out there. 2. Then wiki could create a new page called "Design Thinking" to encompass the methodologies and metacognition. This page would have the history and creation of Design Thinking from the 1960s citing scholars from the field like Nigel Cross, Bryan Lawson and Horst Rittel. This page would also start to address the differences of Design Thinking, Science Thinking and Art and Humanities Thinking. 3. Link to Wicked Problems page and links to Design Process page. As design thinking addresses wicked problems.

24.18.233.52 (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite 8/15/11

We have posted a complete rewrite of what design thinking is. We hope this sparks a better, more neutral Design Thinking Wikipedia page.

The page that was here previously with IDEO's design process steps is good information as well. There is currently a design methods page, and there should be a "Design Process" page as well where others can add their processes. I am not sure how to "move pages" with all the history, or if it can be done with the previous iteration. Hopefully an administrator of the Design Thinking page can make this happen.

ShonaBose (talk) 22:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC) in collaboration with Salon |e| Aspire

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: there is no consensus to move the article GB fan 01:17, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

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Design thinking → Design Process – Relisted. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 17:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The section "Design Thinking as a Process for Problem-Solving" that has been added back shows one process, and contradicts what is said in the "Methods versus Process" section in that there are MANY MANY MANY different processes that people use to do design thinking, and even use to do design thinking for problem solving. The ebook How Do You Design by Hugh Dubberly names at least 130 different models of process.

So again, I would argue for the need of a "Design Process" page where all (or some) of these models can be showcased. The one on this page can be the "Design thinking as a Process for Problem-Solving" and should be attributed to Koberg and Bagnall (from The All new Universal Traveller) and to the Stanford D.School who uses it to understand design thinking in the 21st century.

Thanks, ShonaBose (talk) 17:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Not sure if the article should be moved or not, but if it is moved it should be to Design process per WP:CAPS. Jenks24 (talk) 09:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

AFD?

The lead still contains no reference that substantiates this as a legitimate topic for an article, rather than promotion. If one (or preferably more) can't be provided I'm afraid that the next step is AFD. Comments welcome. Andrewa (talk) 04:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the article is badly written, structured, etc. But design thinking is certainly a legitimate topic for an article - as witnessed by the many references included to the work of academic authors. The article needs a lot of attention and rewriting, but not a threat of deletion (nor renaming/moving). Nigel Cross (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC).

Reader's Viewpoint: Helped Me a Lot

I am an experienced software designer and educational technologist and PhD student working on a systems thinking paper in instructional design. From my perspective, there has to be a Design Thinking entry in Wikipedia. I have traced the lineage of systems thinking in instructional design and arrived at similar points raised by Design Thinking as described in this entry. I cannot speak from many years of experience as an academic but fundamentally, what this article describes is what the best instructional designers do. Work out the details, neutrality, etc., but don't fundamentally change the article. I found it very helpful. I expected it to be here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Czintgraff (talk • contribs) 16:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Lin Hsin Hsin and Equguru

Someone with username Equguru is repeatedly inserting an inappropriate citation of a lecture by artist Lin Hsin Hsin in the 'History' list (1987). Lin Hsin Hsin is an artist not a designer and as far as I know and can see from her Wikipedia entry has made no contribution to Design Thinking. The cited lecture was entitled "Thought as an Art Form", which sounds appropriate for an artist. I deleted the entry on March 13 because it is not relevant. Equguru has since replaced it and made other acts of vandalism. Equguru's hundreds of contributions since 2009 have been entirely devoted to Lin Hsin Hsin. Probably Equguru has a close relationship with Lin Hsin Hsin. I am not a sufficiently experienced Wikipedian, but I know that contributors can be banned. Can someone please ban Equguru? Nigel Cross (talk) 10:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

2014 Updates

A lot has happened since this article was first written. Several books specifically about Design Thinking as a method have been published and there has been significantly greater public exposure to the subject in the popular and academic press. As a graduate of Stanford's product design program and someone who has tried to stay current on the subject both personally and professionally, I'm hoping to walk the line between original research and accurate referencing. DWmFrancis (talk) 06:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Some serious editing would be welcome. It's all rather messy. As someone commented earlier, it should really focus on Design Thinking, not design processes or methods more generally. I hope you won't mind if I suggest that an emphasis on Stanford has become a bit too pronounced; the d.school was certainly a significant innovator, but Design Thinking had other origins and is much more widely spread now.

Nigel Cross (talk) 14:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Nigel - I agree (in spite of my begin a Stanford PD grad and contemporary of Kelley) but have a question; Since the first documented use of the term "Design Thinking" as a method doesn't seem to occur in the literature until fairly recently (1970ish) and McKim was at Stanford at the time, it's a little difficult to separate the two. Would it help to have a section on the spread of the idea to other venues? What would you think of also expanding the references to the work of L. Bruce Archer in establishing Design as a "knowledge-based discipline in its own right". He was a contemporary of Simon's and contributed significantly to the development of the discipline. DWmFrancis (talk) 16:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if we could be precise on the 'first use'. I don't seem to have my copy of McKim's book any more, but I don't remember it being about design thinking as we now know it. I'm not really keen on a new section on spread to other venues (it might be contentious). I do agree on greater recognition for Bruce Archer's contributions. Nigel Cross (talk) 14:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@ Nigel - Please forgive my opacity at not recognizing with whom I was corresponding. I have just put one and one together and realized who you are. (aided by being in the midst of reading your excellent book "Design Thinking"). I recently did a nGram search on the phrase "Design Thinking" and found a distinct starting point in 1960, with a very slight rise between then and 1971 when it was back to zero, followed by a continual rise. I contrast this with the phrase "design thinking", which shows a similar pattern beginning in 1912.

From drilling down into the quotations from the associated texts, I get the very strong impression that there was a shift afoot in the usage from being an idea (ways of thinking when doing design of any type) to being a name associated with a formal process or discipline of "Design Thinking" which started about 1970. How I'd put that into the Wikipedia article without being accused of original research is beyond me at the moment. I am enough of a neophyte Wiki editor that I don't know how to thank you for thanking me for my contribution, so I'll just do it here.--DWmFrancis (talk) 16:58, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of the section on differences between sciences and humanities

I'd like to delete the section on differences between sciences and humanities entirely, since it doesn't add anything to the understanding of the methods or purposes of Design Thinking. --DWmFrancis (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The section is definitely confused in its current state as to the goal and purpose of its information, but the overall purpose for including it is sound. Much formulation of design thinking has been to position it in relation to sciences, humanities, craftsmanship, and the fine arts. Ideally, this section would be directly addressing that line of thought, citing those authors who have positioned design thinking either as a scientific process, a method of fine art, or (most commonly) as an independent discipline with it's own traditions and methodology. It seems this section begins or attempts that, but isn't quite there yet. 208.123.86.130 (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I can see two problems with that section:

• The first bit is OK, but very related to earlier stuff on "Designers vs. Scientists"
• This edit added in stuff that isn't about "Differences from science and humanities" and then other off-topic stuff was added later.

There is a similar problem on a different sub-topic in that we have one section called "Design thinking as a process for problem-solving" and another called "The process of design thinking"... which has a sub-section about "Divergent and convergent thinking"... which is also a subsection of "Solution-based thinking"... and there are other aspects related to process in "Attributes of design thinking".

I think much of the content in this article needs to be re-ordered in an attempt to give it some structure. Changes to the headings may also help. Some of it may have to be deleted.

Yaris678 (talk) 11:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

OK. I have separated off "Design thinking in business" and "Design thinking in education". These weren't about "Differences from science and humanities". I suspect that those sections - especially the one on eduction - will need cutting back. Yaris678 (talk) 18:31, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree (about the cutting back). Removing the 'multiple issues' tag may be OK, but the fact remains that this article is still a mess!

Nigel Cross (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Nigel. I removed the tag because the specific issues it mentioned don't apply. I think the main issue now is one of structure. I don't think there is a tag for that, but I am thinking about how to improve the structure. There is {{Cleanup reorganize}} but I don't think the text in that tag describes the issue. There is {{Very long section}}, which we could add to the "Design thinking in eduction", but maybe we should just hack it back. Yaris678 (talk) 11:48, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it needs major reduction. One of the problems is that has a rather limited, very USA-centric viewpoint. Any discussion on this should continue under Design Thinking Education talk section. Nigel Cross (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

History section

In the 1960 entry it says "The beginnings of computer programs for problem solving, the so-called soft-systems approach." I'm not sure what was intended here - but this is definitely wrong. SSM is not "computer programs for problem solving" and does not date from the 1960's.

If anyone can work out what this should refer to please correct, otherwise I will delete. Angrhoiel (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

You are right about it being wrong! It doesn't make sense, and the citation (to a blog) is incorrect: there is no such statement in that blog post. So OK to delete, I would say.

Nigel Cross (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I think part of what that line of the table is trying to say is similar to the quote from the book in the article Engineering and the Mind's Eye. "Since World War II, the dominant trend in engineering has been away from knowledge that cannot be expressed as mathematical relationships" etc.

The source makes an interesting read... but yes, it doesn't count as reliable and it doesn't support most of what is said on that line. I have removed the line.

Either of you guys could have removed it too. It sometimes helps to discuss things in advance, but if something is obviously wrong, just dive in and correct it - there's lots more to be done on this article.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:37, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I have just seen that the "Methods and process" section also mentions soft systems in the 1960s. It does not mention computers and it has a source that could support it, although I can't find the text of the book online so I can't be sure.

Some early design processes stemmed from soft systems methodology in the 1960s. Koberg and Bagnall wrote The All New Universal Traveller in 1972 and presented a circular, seven-step process to problem-solving. These seven steps could be done lineally or in feed-back loops.

Any thoughts on this? Should we put a line back in the table, but based on the above?

Yaris678 (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I do have a copy of Koberg & Bagnall (original 1972 edition). It is a kind of hippy version of a design methods guide, much looser in approach and style than Jones' slightly earlier Design Methods (1970). See this blog [1]. They only mention computers as something they are deliberately turning away from 'for solving complex world problems' (p.1). Apart from the sub-title, they mention soft systems only on page 1:

Since 'Systems' is the name which has been assigned to Cybernetics and the various numerical techniques for modeling problem situations, we have similarly called our more conversational approach by the name Soft-Systems.

I am not sure when or if the term 'soft systems' was used previously. It is usually attributed to Checkland, but his book on 'Systems Thinking' was not published until 1981. Early soft systems thinking and methods are strongly related to current design thinking and methods. Koberg & Bagnall don't seem to have been very influential and don't get cited very often, but they were certainly pioneers, so maybe they deserve their own time-line entry in 1972.

Nigel Cross (talk) 14:48, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Design thinking education

To solve partially two issues described here (influence by the d.School and Stanford; and the heavy influence of science and engineering), I have been adding another section for design thinking education. These references shall especially help higher education institutions which don't have the facilities nor the budgets to conduct a proper Design Thinking session. Thus, it's more a practical hands-on guide, rather than the description of high level concepts which can't be realized in a normal educational setting. Furthermore, the references illustrate how design thinking can be organized in media management education - thus an example outside of science and engineering...

"Practical Guidelines for Design Thinking in Higher Education

Design Thinking does not necessarily require specialized facilities, tools, and environments. Design Thinking sessions in a higher educational setting can also be conducted on a shoestring budget. Hand-on guidelines fitting to the needs of typical university settings shall help to be able to conduct Design Thinking sessions within the context of normal university settings.[63] Media management education has been acting as one sample scenario for performing these type of Design Thinking sessions. [64]"

++++++ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.190.186 (talk) 20:25, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

This section has become far too long and indiscriminate. It needs major cutting and rewriting. Problems include weak citations and a limited, USA-centric viewpoint. Nigel Cross (talk) 17:44, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

To comply with this comment, I contributed by shortening the paragraph. I disagree that these are weak citations, as the publications are part of internationally ranked publication venues published by the Association of Computer Science (ACM), and Springer-Verlag - both ranked and indexed in international scientific indexes. A hands-on guide for conducting Design Thinking sessions in a higher educational setting without specialized facilities, tools, and environments has been developed in and. The described approach especially enriches Design Thinking by a business modeling phase.

I disagree, that Wikipedia should be solely USA centric, which would be against the Wikipedia rules!

Ho

See related discussion under 'sciences and humanities' section above. I will begin major cutting and rewriting. Nigel Cross (talk) 12:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Criticisms of design thinking

Some recent scholarly publications have raised criticisms of design thinking:

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Design Thinking is a Boondoogle": https://www.chronicle.com/article/Design-Thinking-Is-a/243472

In ACM Interactions, "The Divisiveness of Design Thinking": http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2018/the-divisiveness-of-design-thinking 205.175.106.219 (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Recent changes

I have been looking through the changes that have been done during the past 6 months. It seems some strong editing happened, and much of the content has been simply removed. The current version of the article does not really reflect anymore the rich content that has been on this page prior to that. I strongly suggest to take a look at the past 6 months of rather tough changes, as too much information has been removed. The current article is a very poor edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.162.226 (talk) 09:41, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I fully agree, the current edit seems to be rather biased, and does not include any of the valuable contributions from the past. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.17.113.165 (talk) 05:11, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

We used the page in the past as reference for design thinking. The current page is biased, full of own opinions, and self promotion. Am going through its history from the past years to re-create a trustworthy encyclopaedia page. I was surprised that so many valuable contributions have been deleted prior the recent edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markus.r.brand (talk • contribs) 17:05, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what happened to this article but some of this is just nonsense. Design thinking is a kind of cognition, not a method, and it doesn't have well-defined phases. I don't have much time today, but I'll try to sort out the introduction at leastPaul Ralph (University of Auckland) (talk) 23:53, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

This article became completely useless! I agree with the comment from Paulralph! It's completely written from one viewpoint and perspective, and when looking through the page history - any comment that contradicts the viewpoint of one/two people simply gets removed. I used this article in the past as teaching guide, but now I only can remove it, as it's worthless - all sections gone, that would allow a critical discussion around design thinking. No critics section, references tied to only one thought school of design thinking (more or less to one person), no practical teaching guides anymore... I strongly suggest to get an appropriate editor for this page! It's not acceptable that personal opinions rule a Wikpedia article. Sad, it was a good page 2-3 years ago... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.191.225.98 (talk) 13:17, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I am truly sorry, but the article became completely unusable. I followed it's history since a long time, as I use it to support my lectures. However, all relevant and really important sections are gone. It was a great article 2-3 years ago. Too much sections got removed, or will always be removed by a handful 1-2 editors. It's sad that the richness of this article has gone... no critiques section, no teaching guides anymore, no clear alternative definitions, no ways how to do design thinking outside of the context of dSchools, … all gone. Needed to remove it as source for my teaching unfortunately. It would require a really strong editor who looks through the page history brings it's richness back! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.191.225.98 (talk) 13:20, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

This is my third and last comment for today ;) - in principle the article could be rolled back to it's state 3-4 years ago, and all comments, edits would need to be checked. When I prepared my lectures this year, I was pretty shocked to see the current version and had to remove it from my lecture materials... Let me know if I am able to help in getting the article back to it's original state! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.191.225.98 (talk) 14:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Responding to some of the complaints above: The current version of this article is 15:11, 13 October 2018‎. The IP editor above proposed reverting to the version from "3–4 years ago" (a rather wide range of versions!). The version from three years ago is 05:30, 13 October 2015. The version from four years ago is 23:18, 15 October 2014‎.

I oppose reverting to earlier versions, because there have been some clear improvements in the intervening years: for example, the History section (called Origins in earlier versions) only went as far back as Herbert A. Simon's 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial. The current History section goes back to John E. Arnold's 1959 book Creative Engineering. So the historical scope appears to have improved. The lead has also been expanded significantly, from one short sentence to three paragraphs. Due to such improvements, reverting is not an option. Those editors who have expressed dissatisfaction with the current version will need to be more precise about which sections or passages they wish to restore from previous versions.

By the way, I notice that the three IP addresses above are all from Australia, and Paul Ralph is in New Zealand. Are these geographic locations a coincidence, or is there something about the current version that is especially objectionable to editors from Down Under? It could be that design thinking is defined quite differently in different parts of the world; I already noted elsewhere on this talk page that some of the published criticism of "design thinking" may be more relevant to how it is presented in the USA than elsewhere. And I imagine that different kinds of designers bring different prejudices to the study and teaching of design thinking. In my opinion, this article has been a mess for as long as I can remember (at least since 2015), and was never good enough to be used as a source in academic lectures! Biogeographist (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Time to add a criticism/controversy section?

There's an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed - "Design Thinking is a Boondoggle," but it's behind a paywall. Ileanadu (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ileanadu: Thanks for sharing Lee Vinsel's recent article "Design Thinking is a Boondoggle" in The Chronicle of Higher Education. I like the article. I think the problems that Vinsel identifies are real, and his attitude is appropriate. There is a growing body of criticism pointing out that the faddish emperor called "design thinking" is naked, or at least is very scantily clad. I think a "Criticism" section would be a valuable contribution to this article. An even more valuable contribution would be to make this article more coherent overall. Biogeographist (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to say that the cited 'criticisms' (opinions?) relate to design thinking as business strategy, and not to the significant other view of design thinking as designers' cognitive and working strategies. See also the article's timeline entry under 21st Century. Nigel Cross (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

I concur with Nigel Cross, but phrased perhaps more precisely the criticisms relate to popularized applications of design thinking to fields such as business strategy and general education, and do not relate to the academic study of designers' cognitive and working strategies. Biogeographist (talk) 18:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. But I would say that the cited 'criticisms' are not so much about design thinking in 'general education' but the introduction of brief DT courses within management schools, and the packaging and selling of such courses more broadly. I haven't been able to read "Design Thinking is a Boondoggle" but I have read the same author's "Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis". The titles alone suggest the quality of 'criticism' within them, and the author backtracks on some points in later blog entries. Although I share some of the views expressed, I cannot see such articles justify a new section on criticisms, and certainly not as reliable citations. The ACM Interactions article is of a different quality; it's a considered commentary, but not a strong criticism of design thinking - just the mis-appropriation and mis-selling, etc. I agree entirely that "An even more valuable contribution would be to make this article more coherent overall." Nigel Cross (talk) 17:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nigel Cross: I should have said "education in general"; I didn't mean "general education" in the sense of a foundational curriculum. See also, for example, "How Design Thinking Became a Buzzword at School" by Jessica Lahey in The Atlantic. This may be more of a phenomenon in the USA than elsewhere. My own experience with "design thinking" workshops in the area where I live (in the USA) corroborates Lahey's observations. I consider The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Atlantic, where these articles appeared, to be reliable primary sources, and while it is best to cite secondary sources, most of the citations in this article are primary sources. Again, I agree that the criticism is of "mis-appropriation and mis-selling" (or over-selling) and not of the study of designers' cognitive and working strategies. Biogeographist (talk) 17:48, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I edited the 'business' section to improve it and to include a ref to Kolko's analysis of criticism of the business approach to design thinking. Nigel Cross (talk) 15:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

It's best to avoid a criticism section, just add criticism in relevant sections of the article as per WP:CRITS. I've added a small paragraph to the lead. Volunteer1234 (talk) 15:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

POV

Qzekrom just tagged this article with Template:NPOV with the rather unhelpful edit summary: "I'm surprised this is all positive." @Qzekrom: Perhaps you need to read about drive-by tagging at WP:DRIVEBY, and then explain to us in more detail where you think the POV problems are in this article and how they can be fixed. If no further rationale for the tag is forthcoming, I (or some other editor) will remove it. Biogeographist (talk) 14:41, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

I added the tag because I thought the discussions above indicated that one was needed. I was also surprised by the lack of a criticism section, as there are some potent criticisms of design thinking. For example: "Design Thinking is Bullshit" and "Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis". Qzekrom (talk) 04:11, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

From my own perspective, the lead section portrays design thinking as "the cognitive process from which design concepts (e.g. ideas for products) emerge" rather than merely one of many possible processes for designing things. It also claims that "[d]esign thinking is related to, but different from problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, sketching and prototyping." The sources I cited dispute that assertion; they argue that design thinking is merely fancy terms for common sense. Finally, the word "criticize" only appears once in the article. This leads me to conclude that this article (a) was written primarily by proponents of design thinking, and (b) barely addresses criticisms of design thinking at all. Qzekrom (talk) 04:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: Thanks for the clarification. Both of the primary sources that you mention are discussed in the secondary-source article by Jon Kolko in ACM Interactions that is cited (twice) in this article, including in the lead. So those perspectives are not missing from the article. I can see how one could argue that the people who have voiced those perspectives are not visible enough, since in both places where Kolko's piece is cited, the passive voice is used: "these techniques have been criticized for oversimplifying the design process and trivializing the role of craft and making things" and "doubts around design thinking as a panacea for success have also been expressed" (emphasis added on passive verbs). But remedying that issue would simply involve rewriting the sentences to include the critics' names as subjects of the sentences. Since the entire first paragraph, as well as the quotation that you find objectionable, are all referenced to publications by subject expert Nigel Cross, perhaps Nigel would care to respond to that objection, and you can discuss it further here. As I see it, the first sentence is merely giving a simple definition of the term "design thinking", and does not imply that there is only one way to think about designing things. Biogeographist (talk) 17:57, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

A brief response. The opening paragraphs may cite me, but I didn't write them, and the citations are not very specific. The opening is really not very good at all; does not meet good Wikipedia standards. I think a lot of the article has been written by enthusiasts for a Business-Innovation view of Design Thinking, and promoting an 'approach' or 'methodology'. So the POV tag is not unreasonable, but some of the comments that seem to have provoked it are unreasonable. I have commented several times that the article is a mess, but I think it has been getting better, with some recent edits. The anonymous 'roll-back' comments are not at all helpful; that would just return it to a bigger mess. Like Biogeographist I find it very difficult to see how earlier versions could be a basis for academic teaching. The 'criticisms' are also not academic or well-reasoned arguments (just look at the language in the titles!); they refer to the business-innovation approach and they would not improve the quality of the article. The article needs a lot of more careful (and sometimes drastic) editing to make it more objective and encyclopedia-like, but I fear edit wars might start up. Nigel Cross (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: Notice that Nigel edited the lead to address your objections. Biogeographist (talk) 12:25, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll take a look. Qzekrom (talk) 15:57, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

@Qzekrom:@Biogeographist: It could still do with significant improvement (as could the whole article). I don't always have time - or energy - to attend to it, but I am willing to continue to make improvements as long as it doesn't get to edit wars and petulance (as it has sometimes). Although I commented that the POV taggging was not unreasonable, I do think it was hasty and unduly influenced by some of the talk commentaries. There are a few experienced editors working on it from time to time. Nigel Cross (talk) 15:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Boosterism-->NPOV

New kid here. My take is the article is a fairly straightforward presentation of Design Thinking. I think one problem is the "cultural impact" of DT beyond the basic framework, a mentality of "Design Thinking benefits everyone, everywhere, all the time!!" The trendiness in business today draws people to the article, which doesn't address any potential limitations of the DT framework. With the exception of the Education section, I don't find today's version to be flamboyantly enthusiastic. I disagree with the strongest critics because my view is organizations and technology are complex enough that end users, "product owners", application developers, and "data science" people exist in separate domains with non-overlapping language and world-views. Design Thinking is useful as a process to step out of those domains. It's one of many tools (like Java and C++ are tools; or Agile and TQM are tools with their uses). I agree that nobody should overpromise the uniqueness or benefits of Design Thinking. Six Sigma isn't useless, but it was way (way, way, way) oversold.

My view is Design Thinking is the new Six Sigma: useful in the right context. The article should go there. --Ishu (talk) 15:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ishu: Thanks for your feedback, but do you have reliable sources (perhaps sources that are not already cited in the article?) to support what you're saying? We want to avoid original research. Biogeographist (talk) 18:22, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ishu: @Biogeographist: Thanks for the comments. I think Ishu is saying that the article is OK ('a fairly straightforward presentation of Design Thinking') and does not need further critical viewpoints added with respect to DT in business innovation management, and I agree. The main contents of the article are more about the 'cognitive, strategic and practical processes' of designers than about DT in business. Six Sigma is about something more technically specific ('identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes' according to Wikipedia) so I don't follow the suggestion that 'The article should go there'. Nigel Cross (talk) 10:58, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for adding too many words to my useful points. I was responding to the suggestion that criticisms be worked into the article. My take: Yes, let's add more criticism, but be careful. My personal view is that DT is most effective when functional groups are interdependent but don't interact well and have distinct cultures and jargon. Likewise, my view is Six Sigma is most effective when an organization has no data or lots of data used poorly. The Six Sigma approach provides a common roadmap that is "good enough" to provide metrics and improvement.

But both DT and Six Sigma have their limitations. I've talked with Six Sigma "green belts" who can't explain DMAIIC or even explain what they're measuring. Somebody wasted money and time on a certification. For DT, if you're just checking the boxes, what do you gain? Add criticism, but don't go overboard ("syphillis"). --Ishu (talk) 01:39, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ishu: I agree with Nigel Cross that what you've said about business process improvement is of little relevance to the subject of this article, which is "more about the 'cognitive, strategic and practical processes' of designers than about DT in business" (as Nigel said), and certainly isn't about "just checking the boxes". Biogeographist (talk) 04:13, 20 July 2019 (UTC)