Demystifying Design Thinking: On the origins, applications and implications of how designers think, by Michael Eckersley, PhD

1. Jun 2013
Michael Eckersley, PhD
Demystifying Design Thinking:
On the origins, applications and implications of how designers think

2. “demystifying design innovation”
who doesn’t love a good mystery?
especially one close to home?

3. •when did design get interesting
to people other than designers?
•when did the uniqueness in how
designers think and act become
somehow sexy?

4. •World War II

5. •RAND
•SRI
•war gaming
•Mutually Assured Destruction
•equilibrium
•standoff

6. •problem structure
•design problems tend to be“ill-
structured”, messy problems
with ambiguous givens, goals,
obstacles
•such complex problems and
such complex problem-solving
came to be of great interest to
researchers working on
complex Cold War gaming
scenarios

7. Herbert Simon
•“Design is a complex
problem solving process
whereby artifacts are
structured to attain goals”

8. •creativity research
•creative characteristics
•fluency
•flexibility
•advertising industry
•Synectics

9. •mind as black box
•impenetrable
•exotic
•mysterious
•capricious
•irreplicable

10. •my research:
•controlled
•empirical
•results:
•not just more fluency
•nut just more flexibility
•better ideas
•better results

11. •design thinking combines
characteristics of empathy,
integrative thinking,
optimism, experimentalism,
and collaboration (Brown,
2008). To think like a
designer, one must
demonstrate these
characteristics in order to
create for others within
parameters, given a specific
deadline.

12. 1. The ability to understand the
context of circumstances of a
design problem and frame them
in an insightful way
2. The ability to work at a level of
abstraction appropriate to the
situation at hand
3. The ability to model and
visualize solutions even with
imperfect information – Chris Conley, IIT
Design thinking is design activity embraced
by a broader group.

13. 4. An approach to problem
solving that involves the
simultaneous creation and
evaluation of multiple
alternatives
5. The ability to add or maintain
value as pieces are integrated
into a whole
– Chris Conley, IIT
Design thinking is design activity embraced
by a broader group.

14. 6. The ability to establish
purposeful relationships among
elements of a solution and
between the solution and its
context
7. The ability to use form to
embody ideas and to
communicate their value
– Chris Conley, IIT
Design thinking is design activity embraced
by a broader group.

15. Tim Brown, IDEO
What is design? It can be material
or conceptual, and is experienced
as beauty, value and meaning.
Unlike the fine arts, design has an
everyday use, so it must excel at
both form and function. It's also
intellectual property and cultural
capital, which is why it ladders the
entire economic value chain.
Patrick Whitney

16. Tim Brown, IDEO
•so why does any of this matter?
•the past is “solved”
•the future is a mystery, not a
puzzle
•solving for efficiency is easy
•solving for innovation is hard
•innovation takes a different
mindset

17. Tim Brown, IDEO
The future catches us short
because we don’t have good
stories to tell about about it. And
because the future conceals
answers to big strategic
questions, our ability to shape
the future is dependent on our
ability to tell powerful,
penetrating stories.
–Daniel Kahneman

18. •“design thinking” isn’t
“magical thinking”
•its integrative
•design isn’t mystical
•done well it can shape the
future of things, sometimes
in magical ways

19. •on design school
•advanced design practice
•the shelf-life of professional
training
•getting/staying in the game

20. Business schools focus on the
analytic. Engineering focuses
on the specific. Design
focuses on the visual. A new
kind of professional is
needed. What would it be?
–Chris Conley

21. •what do designers want?
•what do you offer the world
that others don’t?
•are you prepared to deliver
what’s needed?

22. Michael Bierut in DesignObserver:
It was September, 1981, when design critic Ralph
Caplan first unveiled the phrase. He was speaking
at a Design Management Institute conference in
Martha’s Vineyard. His talk was titled “Once You
Know Where Management Is Coming From, Where
Do You Suggest They Go?”
“I want finally to address in some detail,” Caplan
said toward the end of this talk, “a role that I call
‘the designer as exotic menial.’ He is exotic
because of the presumed mystery inherent in
what he does, and menial because whatever he
does is required only for relatively low-level
objectives, to be considered only after the real
business decisions are made. And although this is
a horrendous misuse of the designer and of the
design process, it is in my experience always done
with the designer’s collusion.”
It’s 25 years later. Has anything really changed?
•for a long time–and still today
for many–design was deemed
peripheral, an “exotic menial”

23. “There is a huge river of misunderstanding between
the design world and the business world. You have
to start building a bridge between them.”
“What designers need to learn–and this is the most
important thing– is the language of the business
world. Only by learning that language can you
effectively voice the arguments for design.”
–Peter Gorb, London Business School, 1993
•business has an fundamental
problem with the future, while
design is almost entirely
about the future
•this yin-yang relationship
makes for strange bedfellows

24. As designers, realism and practicality are survival
skills. But we don’t have to cynical about the ends of
design. Cynicism is the great enemy. I was originally
trained as an artist, and then later on I discovered
the world of business, and I liked it, because I could
see it as a form of conceptual art, like that of
Duchamp or Baldessari. Done well and imaginatively,
it’s powerfully beneficial to many interests. Done
poorly, it’s stultifying and rapacious.
Design blends aspects of art, science and the
humanities, and therefore has the capacity to
humanize the world of things: products, services,
systems, and experiences.
Design’s rising influence raises the stakes for
designers, bringing greater responsibility and
accountability. Are you up for it?

25. Jun 2013
Michael Eckersley, PhD
Demystifying Design Thinking:
On the origins, applications and implications of how designers think