Converting Ideas into Actions
How design is as much about making as it is thinking
Welcome to The Design Loft!
Today, we’re going to explore the relationship and tensions that exist between thinking and making. More specifically, we’re going to address the issues many have with the concept of design thinking.
You’ve probably heard of design thinking. It might be why you subscribed to The Design Loft.
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking has a history that dates back to the 1960s. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the California-based industrial design firm IDEO began using it to frame its work on innovation, which extended beyond product design and led to broader adoption. Three of the more widely cited definitions of design thinking are:
Tim Brown (IDEO, 2008): “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
Nigel Cross (2011): “Design thinking is the cognitive processes and strategies that designers use during the process of designing, including abductive reasoning, problem framing, and solution-focused thinking.”
Jeanne Liedtka (2015): “Design thinking is an innovation process that emphasizes user needs observation, collaborative brainstorming, fast prototyping, and iterative user feedback to develop novel solutions to complex problems.”
With these definitions, we begin to see where some of the challenges with the term lie. It’s a way to think, an approach to innovation and addressing unmet human needs, a strategy, and a process.
The term design thinking (as opposed to just using design) is meant to denote a stance and a set of activities, skills, and methods that are found in the practice of design, but can be adopted by non-professional designers. IDEO offers a certificate in design thinking for anyone interested. (more on this, later)
What’s in a Name?
At the core of design thinking is a belief that everyone is a designer. This stance has created much controversy among professional designers and academics. Some believe that reducing a craft, learned and practiced by skilled professionals, to a name disrespects and neglects what good design requires. Others believe that much of what professional designers do is simply an extension of what we all do in devising solutions to problems we face and creating new things.
My take? Both arguments have merit. The Design Loft is founded on the belief that we are all designers and that there is a craft and skill in doing design well. This recognizes that skilled design comes from study and practice — much like any craft. However, it’s not just the provenance of those who’ve sought advanced training in professional design disciplines who can create great things. We all can, if we’re given the knowledge, tools, and support to use it.
That’s what this project is all about. Think of the Design Loft as the design school for busy people who care to make things better.
There are times when you need a professional, and there are times when knowing what you’re doing and creating with intention and a few techniques is enough. By learning design, you’ll gain the appreciation for the craft, skills, processes and capabilities needed to make great things — and know how you can do that.
The Design Helix
Another issue facing design thinking is the name itself. Some argue that the emphasis on the thinking part neglects the making part of design. Thus, if we have people who can think creatively but don’t make things, are they actually designing?
It’s a worthwhile question.
The Design Helix is a conceptual model of the entire design process, reflecting both the thinking and making aspects tied to design. It recognizes that an imaginative component is woven into making and that these are — as the visual metaphor suggests — like the building blocks of design. This is what is required to design for living systems — the services, products, and ecosystems where we live and work.
It begins with us being curious, perceiving what’s out there in the world, and then asking questions — and doing research into answers. Rarely are our answers straightforward, so we often require a form of sense-making to understand what we see and what it might mean.
This leads us to envision what we might do — bringing our ideas to life. We transform our ideas into prototypes (working models, visuals, concepts) that we can refine, edit, and tinker with as we put them out into the world.
The Design Helix was created as a means to teach design to both professionals and non-designers. The Tamarack Institute hosted a series of events focused on using The Design Helix to support design for social innovation and community change. I’ve used this as part of the curriculum in training graduate-level designers at OCAD University for many years.
The Design Helix is a conceptual model — it’s meant to be a means to articulate the general activities involved in design, while avoiding focusing on any specific technique or tool. It’s intended to encourage thinking about making and the various stages we undertake when we apply design thinking in our work. It’s cognition to craft.
Just like the ‘double helix’ DNA model, however, the product of going through the Design Helix is a product - a thing. It’s anchored toward action.
Action as Outcomes
The reason why implementation and sharing are the two final parts of the strands of The Design Helix is that design only works when we put our imagination and production skills into use. Our designs might have many purposes — including inspiration — but if they aren’t put into the world and shared, they become creative exercises.
That’s not a bad thing. It’s still helpful to learn how to think creatively, but unless we can convert that creative energy into something valuable to us, we won’t gain the full benefit of design thinking.
People want to learn design to make their world better. That might mean designing for their lives and families, improving their workplace or community, or transforming their frustration at a problem into a solution that addresses an unmet need.
Walk through the steps of The Design Helix. We’ll dive into the model and process further in future issues. Paid members will also get access to coaching sessions and more detailed programs to support your learning, which is a great reason to sign up if you haven’t already.
Thank you for reading. Go out there and become the designer you want to be.