Talk:Design thinking

Wiki Education assignment: Digital Art History (Spring 2022)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 27 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): FantasyM7 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Anan lyz, Athenare, JinJane.

Distinguishing between scholarship of design thinking and design thinking as a set of resources

I've been appreciating the discussion on this thread but I feel like the current article leaves the reader remaining confused about the distinction between the decades of scholarship about how designers think (i.e., the work of Schon, Cross, Lawson, Dorst, etc.) and the packaging up of "Design Thinking" as a toolkit that has proven to have a lot of value for sharing designerly ways of approaching problems. The Section above, "Time to add a criticism/controversy section?", skirts around this issue so I thought I'd try and address it directly in a new section.

I'm citing myself here, which I think is okay on a talk page if I declare it? It seems helpful, given that I've just written this article (CC-BY-NC-SA, with John Gero) partly in response to this confusion:

Design thinking has become an overloaded and ambiguous term, but has its roots in the scientific study of design cognition and design methods. Design thinking is considered here to be the knowledge that has been developed relating to how people reason when engaging with design problems (Lawson 2006; Cross 2011; Dorst 2011), also described as ‘designerly ways of knowing, thinking and acting’ (Cross 2001) and as designerly thinking (Johansson‐Sköldberg et al. 2013). There are currently multiple discourses using the term design thinking, as is described in two papers tracing its origins (Kimbell 2011; Johansson‐Sköldberg et al. 2013). Johansson‐Sköldberg et al. (2013) trace the development of both a designerly and a management discourse on design thinking. Within the designerly discourse, Kimbell (2011) describes different accounts of design thinking as a cognitive style, as a general theory of design, and as an organizational resource. In a subsequent paper, Kimbell (2012) critiques the way that some of these accounts: (1) create a dualism between thinking and acting/knowing; (2) fail to recognize the (socially and environmentally) situated nature of design and (3) essentialize what it is that designers do, ignoring the diversity in ways of thinking and knowing...

Two further counts of disambiguation are required. First, design thinking is occasionally used in the public sphere as shorthand for the suite of tools, skills and mindsets that are well-suited for teaching nondesigners how to approach complex problems in a designerly way (e.g., Goldman et al. 2012). This notion of design thinking, which Kimbell (2011) refers to as ‘design thinking as an organizational resource’, is not what we are referring to here, as it focusses upon some of the useful outcomes from studying design cognition rather than the cognition itself. Second, claims about design thinking are sometimes made on the basis that they were developed by studying what designers do. It is true that seminal studies in design thinking were made by investigating the practices and habits of design professionals; yet it does not follow that the science of design thinking only applies to those who practice in professions that bear the label ‘design’. Rather, it applies to anyone who is engaged in design activity. NickKellyResearch (talk) 01:03, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@NickKellyResearch: Thanks for commenting and raising this issue. (I corrected what looked like some extraneous boldface formatting at the end of your comment.) I like how your quotation above succinctly summarizes some important distinctions. I agree that it would be helpful to make such distinctions clearer in the article. Perhaps you would like to take a shot at writing an "Overview" section just after the lead section that summarizes the distinctions? And add anything important that is missing from other sections. Biogeographist (talk) 23:05, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@NickKellyResearch: I agree with your opening sentence. There is some confusion here in the article, just as there is in the outside world. However, within the article, the split into two primary sections 'Process for designing' and 'Process for innovation' does try to separate the two interpretations or versions of design thinking in design discourse and management discourse.

In your own Design Science journal article, it seems clear that you are not addressing the 'packaging of Design Thinking as a toolkit' version; you are linking the other, scholarly design discourse version of design thinking with computational thinking to create a dual process model. (I haven't read your article in full yet.) The extract you quote here in this Talk section does attempt a disambiguation of the two versions; fine for the purposes of your article, just to clarify which version you are addressing, but I don't think it would be a great help (as it stands) here in the Wikipedia article. It needs something much shorter and more purposefully written for the purpose here, for a general reader. Perhaps just a few sentences, without necessarily a lot of external referencing. I'm not sure that it should attempt to be an 'Overview' section as Biogeographist suggests. Maybe just a few sentences at the end of the current lead, or a rewriting of the lead.

My view of the problem as manifest in this article is that the section on 'As a process for innovation' remains weak and unclear. It would help matters if the 'process for innovation' version of design thinking had quite a different name! Nigel Cross (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Nigel that the current lead section is short enough that a few extra sentences at the end of the current lead may be sufficient. Indeed, a fault of the current lead is that is doesn't sufficiently summarize the whole article (e.g., the history section too). In other articles, when the lead section has become too long and the topic permits it, I have sometimes separated a part of the lead into an "Overview" section, but we're nowhere near a "too-long" lead section in this article. Biogeographist (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@NickKellyResearch: I have now read in full your paper in Design Science, and like it very much. Section 2 ‘Design Thinking’ is a very clear exposition of the 'scholarship' version of the topic.

As with many Wikipedia articles, this one has evolved (through mostly small mutations) over a very long time. But it is now in a state where if one wanted to write a decent article on Design Thinking, it would be much better to “not start from here”! An expanded or new lead could help to better set the scene for a general reader and summarise the article. Or even a new ‘disambiguation’ section might not be a bad idea, if it could be brief. Nigel Cross (talk) 14:28, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks @Nigel Cross:, that sounds like a good plan. I'll draft an expanded lead or disambiguation section sometime in the next week and see how that goes. NickKellyResearch (talk) 03:24, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nigel Cross this took me a year to come back to, but I have a proposal for you. The current lead is:

Design thinking is a term used to represent a set of cognitive, strategic and practical processes by which design concepts (proposals for products, buildings, machines, communications, etc.) are developed. Many of the key concepts and aspects of design thinking have been identified through studies, across different design domains, of design cognition and design activity in both laboratory and natural contexts.

Design thinking is also associated with prescriptions for the innovation of products and services within business and social contexts. Some of these prescriptions have been criticized for oversimplifying the design process and trivializing the role of technical knowledge and skills.

My proposed lead is:

Design thinking refers to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems . It is elsewhere described as ‘designerly ways of knowing, thinking and acting’ and as ‘designerly thinking’ . It has roots in the scientific study of design cognition and design methods.

Design thinking is associated with tools, terms, and methods that were developed by studying the practices and habits of design professionals and then subsequently shown to be of value for anyone engaged in designerly activity (across many different domains and useful for both professionals and laypersons). The term design thinking has been used to refer to a specific cognitive style (thinking like a designer), a general theory of design (a way of understanding how designers work), and a set of pedagogical resources (through which organisations or inexperienced designers can learn to approach complex problems in a designerly way) .

NickKellyResearch (talk) 05:19, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

@NickKellyResearch:: Many thanks, I think this looks good. Below I have suggested an edited version (minor edits of text and formatting) and added the old bit about innovation/business (because it’s a major section within the article).

Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical processes used by designers and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems.[2][3][4] It is also described as ‘designerly ways of knowing, thinking and acting’[5] and as ‘designerly thinking’.[6] It has roots in the study of design cognition and design methods.

Design thinking is associated with tools, terms, and methods that were developed by studying the practices and habits of design professionals. It has been shown to be of value for anyone engaged in designerly activity (across many different domains and useful for both professionals and laypersonspeople).[citation needed] The term design thinking has been used to refer to a specific cognitive style (thinking like a designer), a general theory of design (a way of understanding how designers work), and a set of pedagogical resources (through which organisations or inexperienced designers can learn to approach complex problems in a designerly way).[7][8]

Design thinking is also associated with prescriptions for the innovation of products and services within business and social contexts.[3][4]

Many thanks, I've put your amended version (with citation added) into the article page now.

NickKellyResearch (talk) 01:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

References

University of Connecticut course assignment

I find it difficult to understand why Design Thinking has been included in a course on Digital Art History. The edits made to Design Thinking in recent days have been nothing to do with Art History, digital or otherwise, rather clumsy and inaccurate. Designergene (talk) 10:34, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Differentiate from similar concepts

I think design thinking needs to be differentiated against similar modes or processes which it immediately reminds me of. First off, the basic idea is that of design, which is not simply an issue of art or aesthetics, but rather means a context that requires to be analyzed and how particular items work within it.

• The first mode this reminds me of is that of Gestalt. Just like design, it's a notion that originated with aesthetic shape or form and the activity of shaping something, but was borrowed into English mainly as a word for a whole that determines the function of its constitutent parts.

• Secondly, it reminds me of totality within Hegelian dialectic, Marxist dialectic, and especially in Theodor W. Adorno's thought. Just like design thinking, they all emphasize the primacy of the totality (aka environment) over its individual constituencies and their functions, which requires a thorough analysis of totality (context analysis) and how this totality is mediated through interaction with its consitutient parts and collaboration among those parts as well as challenges faced by the constitutents. Design thinking puts feasability and action over theory, just like historical materialism and Critical Theory put material conditions and co-operation over ideology and emphasize that theory, above all, must adaequately resemble material reality, along with kindling a sense of practical, materialistically feasable innovative potential for change (Adorno terms this sense (transcending) metaphysics) as opposed to thinking-inside-the-box, only in traditional, ideological modes that blind people to realistic potentials. The iterative, non-linear approach of design thinking is close to the concept of dialectical materialism as well as Hegel's original dialectic (which, as Hegel emphasizes in Phenomonology of the Spirit, is only remotely related to the ancient Greek logos within dialogos of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, but rather consists out of totality and interpendency analysis, including an analysis of changes over the course of past history, in order to deduce the function of its constituents, tell a thing's Wesen (nature) from its Erscheinung (appearance), and reveal the (polar, spectral) commonalities of seeming contradictions). Design thinking puts empathy where Adorno puts the act of Einfühlen or Mimikry. The main difference is that design thinking puts customer demand as the object of desire to be unveiled where dialectics seek the understanding of material, social reality (Marxist) or its ever-refined mental representation within the human spirit (Hegel), and its progressive, emancipatory, humanitarian critique. --2003:DA:CF09:6000:605E:C1B3:BC22:9454 (talk) 16:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Re: I think design thinking needs to be differentiated against similar modes or processes which it immediately reminds me of. Why? In theory, design thinking could be connected to or differentiated from just about anything that's human, but that doesn't mean that we should do so in this Wikipedia article unless there are reliable sources showing that the distinction or connection is widely considered to be important. Biogeographist (talk) 17:52, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Criticisms

I added a section on "criticisms" because I see that many critiques of design thinking are unrepresented or underrepresented in the article. If others have suggestions for additions or modifications, I would welcome feedback. Another user raised the possibility of integrating the critiques into existing sections of the article, but many of these critiques apply to design thinking as a whole, so I feel the more straightforward solution is to place critiques in their own section. Owunsch (talk) 18:17, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Most of the material that you added has already been discussed on this talk page in the past: see Talk:Design thinking/Archive 1. I initially supported the addition of a criticism section then, as you can see in the past discussion, but the decision was made to integrate the material into the article for good reasons. You shouldn't ignore past consensus. The big problem with a general criticism section is that the critiques do not apply to all meanings of "design thinking". All the criticisms you mentioned are about the popularized application and not about the academic study of how designers think. Creating a general criticism section would just foment more confusion about the various meanings of "design thinking", which we have taken care to try to separate over years of editing (and which you have not acknowledged). That's part of the reason why a criticism section was nixed in the past.

Your objection that the criticism applies to more than business can be resolved by putting the criticisms in the more general "Application" section. I hope you find this to be an acceptable compromise with the prior, well reasoned, consensus. Biogeographist (talk) 22:01, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't seen the archived discussion of a criticism section. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I didn't realize that I was contradicting an earlier consensus. I like your solution. Thanks for taking the time to integrate my edits.

I do think there's some ambiguity about whether the critiques of design thinking are merely criticisms of popularized applications of the concept. Some of the critiques, such as Vinsel's arguments about the "common sense" equivalents of design thinking, are meant to question the coherence of design thinking as a conceptual category. But I want to read the archived discussions on this talk page more carefully before suggesting that we reopen that conversation. In the meantime, I think your edit is a very good compromise. Thanks again. Owunsch (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. Re: I do think there's some ambiguity about whether the critiques of design thinking are merely criticisms of popularized applications of the concept. Some of the critiques, such as Vinsel's arguments about the "common sense" equivalents of design thinking, are meant to question the coherence of design thinking as a conceptual category. My distinction in my previous comment between popularized application and academic study of how designers think is too simple, but my point is that the critics like Jen and Vinsel and Iskander are not criticizing all the meanings of design thinking that this article tries to cover; they are making polemical interventions in particular contexts. For Jen, "design thinking ... packages the designer's way by [of] working for a non-designer audience by codifying their processes into a prescriptive, step by step approach". That's the meaning of design thinking that is the object of her critique, and it's very different from descriptive studies of design thinking in design studies. As for Vinsel: the fact that he doesn't give a coherent definition of design thinking seems to me to say more about him as a writer than about his subject; any lack of coherence seems to be more in his own thinking than in his subject. I would even say he misrepresents Jen's view by attributing to her the view that "design thinking is largely a meaningless buzzword"; that's not true—she says it's a buzzword, but not that it's a meaningless one, and her point is to critique what it means. (In previous discussion, one reason Nigel Cross didn't want to cite Vinsel was the low quality of his writing, and this is an example: there is a meaningful difference between "a buzzword" and "a meaningless buzzword"!) Our problem as Wikipedia editors is not that the subject of design thinking is incoherent or has no meaning; it is that it has various meanings. The fact that this article does not have a good exposition of all these meanings is a different problem that doesn't help; nobody (myself included) has been able to summon the effort required to make this a good article. Biogeographist (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. You have persuaded me that Vinsel's article paints design thinking with an overly broad brush. Vinsel might be guilty of conflating different definitions of design thinking precisely because he wants to undermine the coherence of design thinking as a conceptual category. Even so, I still think a case can be made for including his arguments in a general criticisms section, since he aims to make a broad critique of the concept. He may not be entirely successful in achieving this goal for the reasons that you cogently identify, but narrowing the scope of his claims based on which elements of his argument we find persuasive seems to run the risk of undermining neutral point of view. The right choice doesn't seem totally clear to me, though, and I still think your current edit works well as a compromise. Owunsch (talk) 15:43, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

It also occurred to me that the idea that design thinking is continuous with common sense and everyday activity isn't new, so it's not clear to me why Vinsel's expression of that idea should be considered noteworthy. For example, this paragraph from Horst Rittel comes to mind:

Everybody designs sometimes; nobody designs always. Design is not the monopoly of those who call themselves "designers". From a downtown development scheme to an electronic circuit; from a tax law to a marketing strategy, from a plan for one's career to a shopping list for next Sunday's dinner, all of these are products of the activity called design.

— Rittel, Horst W. J. (1988) [1987]. The reasoning of designers (PDF) (Technical report). Stuttgart: Institut für Grundlagen der Planung, Universität Stuttgart. OCLC 75157251. A-88-4.

I also disagree that Vinsel is saying something that applies to everything in this article; his polemic is focused on the business/consulting strain, and he appears to be unfamiliar with relevant swaths of design studies. He doesn't cite Rittel in any of his writings, for example. I don't think his critique aimed to include the scope of this article, but if it did then he failed miserably in achieving that aim. Biogeographist (talk) 21:04, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

It was a good idea to introduce a criticisms section (referring to the popularisation and even mis-use of the term) but it looks as though Vinsel's opinions are given too much weight, and the section could be more tightly edited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigel Cross (talk • contribs) 08:32, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for unsigned comment! Nigel Cross (talk) 08:35, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

My interpretations of the principal criticisms are:

1. Design thinking is ‘sold’ as a simple panacea or technique for profitable innovation. But consultancy selling of dodgy expertise occurs widely, so it’s not unique to, or a particular criticism of design thinking.

2. Popularized interpretations downplay or actually ignore the knowledge, skill and expertise of designers.

3. Popularized ‘design thinking’ confirms the status quo and is not powerful enough for addressing really serious problems.

Of the works cited in our current Wiki article:

Kolko’s paper is cited several times in the article and it provides a reasonable overview and good argument. Kimbell’s paper is also good.

Jen’s “bullshit” conference presentation was interesting and engaging, but not a particularly strong critique, it’s lightweight and not a serious work to be worth citing (I say that not just because she referred to me as ‘a journalist’!). Transcript here: https://99u.adobe.com/videos/55967/natasha-jen-design-thinking-is-bullshit

The quotes from her used in our article are all via Kolko’s paper.

Vinsel’s diatribe on selling design thinking is scatter-gun, but if it does have any focus it is on loose versions of design thinking being taught in higher education – but that would not quite be the same thing as serious design-based learning.

Iskander’s article is serious and original.

I’m going to offer a new edit of the Criticisms section – more tightly edited and based on the above comments. I hope it will be acceptably OK. Nigel Cross (talk) 09:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

In general the changes look fine to me, though I changed "wide-ranging" to "diverse", as more concise and perhaps less ambiguous (if I understood the intended meaning correctly), and added first names of people since when people are first mentioned in this article full names are generally used. Biogeographist (talk) 01:27, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I think the streamlined criticism section works well, except that it strips out the claim that design thinking serves as a kind of Trojan horse for consulting and uses "scientific-sounding jargon" to repackage "common sense" (Vinsel's words). Those points are central to Vinsel's argument, and they aren't represented anywhere in this article. I understand the importance of not giving Vinsel's claims undue weight, but they shouldn't be deleted simply because editors of this article find him unpersuasive. Vinsel's article clearly meets the standards of a reliable source, and its main points ought to be covered. Owunsch (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I understand and appreciate Vinsel’s general views on innovation (e.g. ‘The Innovation Delusion’), but I find his ‘Boondoggle’ article not to be a very serious contribution. It’s a diatribe, an angry opinion journalism piece. He refers to his own “informal survey” and quotes various people but doesn’t give any reliable evidence or citations. His article has received very few citations itself.

Your summary of his ‘central argument’ is not quite correct. What he actually wrote was: “Design thinkers use scientific-sounding jargon, like the ‘five modes’, to push the idea that they have some special technique.” “It is common sense tarted up in mumbo jumbo. It is common sense tarted up by design.”

To call upon ‘common sense’ is never a very strong argument.

His article is meant to be about design thinking in higher education. It’s published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, so aimed at an education audience. It’s title is:

“Design Thinking Is a Boondoggle: Its adherents think it will save higher ed. They're delusional.”

So what he has to say about higher education should be the relevant content; it shuld be the focus of his central argument. But he doesn’t present much of any argument or discussion about DT in higher education. What he seems to be angry about is the introduction of DT in higher education, outside of professional design education. But there can be a case for that (e.g. ‘design studies’) just as there is a case for design in general education. Nigel Cross (talk) 14:20, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we ought to be debating whether Vinsel presents a "strong argument." The question is whether his article qualifies as a reliable source, and whether we are accurately representing its key points. If we eliminate his point about jargon and common sense because you don't find it persuasive, then we are violating NPOV. Owunsch (talk) 15:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Owunsch that the central question about Vinsel's opinion piece is whether we are accurately representing its key points, but I don't see why it's a key point that design thinking serves as a kind of Trojan horse for consulting and uses "scientific-sounding jargon" to repackage "common sense".

As for the question of whether Vinsel's opinion piece is a reliable source overall, I will point out that it is an opinion piece that was originally self-published as a blog post, so it is not necessarily a reliable source for facts. It is a reliable source for Vinsel's opinions, but the subject of this Wikipedia article is not Vinsel's opinions. For example, it is not a fact that design thinking uses "scientific-sounding jargon"—that is just how the jargon sounds to Vinsel. Vinsel's opinions could also be seen as contradictory: he says that design thinking is "delusional" and that it's "common sense": does that mean he thinks common sense is delusional? If he thinks he's using common sense, then does he think he's delusional? Inquiring minds want to know! NPOV does not obligate us to include opinions that are trivial or obviously absurd.

In a blog post, "There's So Little There There: A Response to the Stanford d.school's Defense of Design Thinking", Vinsel described the origin of the article:

Last fall, I published a long piece on Medium called "Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It's Contagious and Rots Your Brains." With a title like that, you can bet my goal wasn't to win over DT fans. The origins of the essay were simple: At the time, I felt like I was working too much for other people. I decided that I needed to write something for the sheer pleasure of writing and, most of all, to make my friends laugh. Overblown claims about Design Thinking, including the idea that it was the "new liberal arts" or that it could be used to reform all of higher education, had recently gotten up my nose. I felt it would be worth exploring where DT was coming from, why it was surrounded by such ridiculous hyperbole, and how it was connected to the worst current trends in higher education, which is the part that actually concerns me. I meant my analysis seriously, but mostly I hoped a few friends would find what I wrote cathartic. I gave the essay a completely over-the-top and goofy title because I knew my colleagues would find it funny and because I didn't expect anyone else to see it. But I was wrong there. I wrote the Medium post for about 5 friends, and, to date, 56,000 people have read it. I guess it struck some nerves. When editors at the Chronicle asked if they could publish an abbreviated version of the piece, I was all for it.

This passage seems to me to confirm Nigel's statement above that Vinsel's focus "is on loose versions of design thinking being taught in higher education", or as Vinsel put it, "as a reform for all of higher education". Biogeographist (talk) 13:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

The blog post about the origin of the article is interesting. Thanks for sharing. The way I read it, Vinsel states pretty clearly that he had multiple goals: "exploring where DT was coming from, why it was surrounded by such ridiculous hyperbole, and how it was connected to the worst current trends in higher education." I don't think we can separate the claims about jargon and common sense from the claims about higher education. Vinsel says design thinking harms higher education because design thinking itself rests on the empty promises of management consultants. I also don't agree with Biogeographist that Vinsel's "delusional" and "common sense" points are contradictory: design thinking can be delusional in seeing revolutionary power in common sense ideas. And I don't think the origin of Vinsel's piece in a blog post somehow discredits the fact that a reputable publication saw it worthy of transformation into a published article. But if I am in the minority in my opinion, then I am happy to drop the issue. Owunsch (talk) 00:53, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your initiative in starting this discussion and for pursuing it in a considerate way, and for your contribution to the article. I think we now have a balanced improvement to the article. Nigel Cross (talk) 13:56, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I was being a flippant and wrong with my delusional/common sense contrast. I knew this but was interested to see what the counterargument would be. But Owunsch's response didn't quite identify what was wrong with what I said; Owunsch countered: design thinking can be delusional in seeing revolutionary power in common sense ideas. This would be true if it said: "certain people" (and then we named who they are) "can be delusional in seeing revolutionary power in common sense ideas". And Vinsel did that in the article when he said: "What Miller, Kelly, and Hennessy are asking us to imagine is that design consulting is a model for retooling all of education." A few sentences later he said: "In other words, we should view all of society as if we are in the design-consulting business." OK. But as soon as we start saying that "design thinking" is the problem, we run into problems because of the multiple meanings of "design thinking", especially the descriptive/prescriptive divide that's in this Wikipedia article. The "design thinking" that Nigel studies, for example, is not what Vinsel is attacking in his article; Nigel's expertise in this area allows him to see what Vinsel doesn't acknowledge. Every time Vinsel talks about "design thinking", he shows zero acknowledgment of the multiple meanings of the term, for example:

• "design thinking is a boondoggle"
• "design thinking, in other words, is just a fancy way of talking about consulting"
• "design thinking is largely a meaningless buzzword"
• "design thinking gives students an unrealistic idea of design"
• "design thinking's roots in consulting are instructive"
• "there is nothing new about design thinking"
• "design thinking ... is iCrap"
• "design thinking is not about design"
• "design thinking could just be millennial entitlement all hopped up on crystal meth"
• "design thinking's hucksterism"

So it's no surprise that Owunsch would follow Vinsel in saying something like "design thinking can be delusional in seeing revolutionary power in common sense ideas". That sentence perfectly reflects Vinsel's rhetoric, but is not a good analysis of what design thinking is. In this article we need to be less polemically rhetorical and more carefully analytical, I submit. Biogeographist (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@Owunsch:@Biogeographist: Following (somewhat) on from our discussion of criticisms, I have just published a short article that might be of interest in Design Studies titled 'Design Thinking: What just happened?' It discusses the growth and changes in 'design thinking' and some of the criticisms, tries to clarify the different meanings of 'design thinking' and suggests the emergence of a new interpretation. It's in Volume 86 (May 2023, forthcoming), open access at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X23000285 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2023.101187 Nigel Cross (talk) 15:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

This looks excellent and clarifying. Looking forward to reading it more closely later. Thanks for sharing. Owunsch (talk) 15:57, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Criticisms overlook Rittel's "Second-generation design methods" (1984)

@Nigel Cross and Owunsch: I just enjoyed reading Nigel's new article "Design thinking: What just happened?". While reading it, the thought occurred to me that some (but certainly not all) of the recent criticisms of design thinking recapitulate what Horst Rittel and others in the 1970s called the criticism of first-generation design methods and formulation of second-generation design methods. Rittel's widely cited chapter on the subject appeared in a volume edited by Nigel: Rittel, Horst W. J. (1984). "Second-generation design methods". In Cross, Nigel (ed.). Developments in design methodology. Chichester, UK; New York: Wiley. pp. 317–327. ISBN 0471102482. OCLC 10751646.

The earlier criticism by Rittel et al. is especially relevant to Natasha Iskander's HBR article "Design thinking is fundamentally conservative and preserves the status quo", but Iskander doesn't cite the earlier criticism, and judging based on a quick search of her work on Google Scholar, she may not even be familiar with the earlier first-generation/second-generation design methods debates. That's a shame, because it would make her work richer if she had cited it and would make even more clear that some of these criticisms were not "born yesterday" (nor in the last decade) and had already been absorbed by earlier research on design thinking such as Rittel's. (That's not to say that Rittel anticipated all of Iskander's views, but there were similar issues at play.)

I just did a Google Scholar search for "design thinking" "rittel" "second-generation design" OR "second-generation of design" and here are some of the results (I apologize for the "wall of text"; I've added boldface to passages that mention Rittel on second-generation design, so you don't have to read it all):

1. From "'Models of man' in design thinking: the 'bounded rationality' episode" – R Bousbaci – Design Issues, 2008: "Design thinking—'the study of the cognitive processes that are manifested in design action'[1]—has been mostly described, from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, in terms of what is largely accepted today as the 'generation game' (i.e., first-, second-, and third-generation design methods).[2] Proponents of the first generation, based on a strong reaction against the intuitive, artistic, and 'beaux-arts' vision of the design process, which was largely diffused since the nineteenth century in design professional education, have supported, between the late 1950s and 1967,[3] a very logical, systematic, and rationalist[4] view of design activities (see figure 1). However, difficulties and a huge resistance met by this rationalist and logical trend led some major proponents of the design methods movement to fundamentally change their theoretical perspective from 1967 to the early 1980s. Horst Rittel proposed the idea of second-generation design methods[5] oriented towards more participatory and argumentative design and planning processes."
2. From "Product differentiation by aesthetic and creative design: a psychological and neural framework of design thinking" – M Reimann, O Schilke – Design Thinking: Understand–Improve–Apply, 2011: "In design research, the 'first generation' of design theories and methods predominantly leveraged the fields of operations research for its optimization techniques and cybernetics for its systems thinking approaches (Beckman and Barry 2007; Rittel 1972, 1984). However, these purely mechanistic approaches to the design process frustrated followers who were unable to reconcile the methods of the 'first generation' with the complexities of real design problems, especially once values of social equity and pluralism were considered (Beckman and Barry 2007). Therefore, the 'second generation' of design theories and methods was initiated, focusing on design as a social process (Bucciarelli 1988; Rittel 1972, 1984)."
3. From "The enduring challenge of 'wicked problems': revisiting Rittel and Webber" – K Crowley, BW Head – Policy Sciences, 2017: "It is clear that Horst W. J. Rittel was the principal architect of the 'wicked problem' conception (Churchman 1967; Protzen and Harris 2010). He was a design theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, who taught rather than practised design and architecture; and he also had interests in broader design aspects of planning, engineering, and policymaking. As a 'design planner', he linked the fields of design and politics and, with his University of California team, instigated 'first-generation' and then 'second-generation' design methods, the latter drawing critical attention to the politics of design and the political argumentation needed to tame wicked problems (Rith and Dubberly 2007). He first proposed the notion of wicked problems in a seminar in 1967 to refer to 'that class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision-makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing' (Churchman 1967, B-141). [...] Some of Rittel and Webber's pessimism was generated by their critique of the intellectual fallacies of addressing wickedness and complexity through the lens of rationalist systems theory. They announced the need for second-generation systems thinking which was based on argumentative methods. The modern policy sciences literature has moved well beyond old-style systems theory and today pursues a broad range of argumentative, deliberative, collaborative, and network-based approaches to resolving problems and improving outcomes (Head and Crowley 2015). [...] Rittel's 'second-generation' design method, based on the notion that all design and planning should be seen as a process of transparent political argumentation, was not widely taught, although his design rationale became very influential with colleagues in niche fields (Rith and Dubberly 2007, pp. 73–74). [...] There is a bright future for wicked problems research, not simply in redefining wicked problem analysis in contemporary terms, and expanding solutions-oriented empirical research, but in revisiting Rittel and Webber's fundamental engagement with rationalism, closed and open systems, politics in society, pluralism and challenges to the efficacy of professional expertise. If researchers do not appreciate this, then they do not understand wicked problems at all."
4. From "Design thinking, wicked problems and institutioning change: a case study" – B Matthews, S Doherty, P Worthy, J Reid – CoDesign, 2022: "This invites us to return to some of the issues that, following Rittel and Webber (1973) originally tied design so closely to wicked problems. With respect to the kinds of social and professional domains that design thinking is now being applied, such as community healthcare, we are very much in wicked territory [...] This has as much to do with the social, collaborative process of design—how designers facilitate participation with stakeholders—as it does the concepts that are generated as design propositions. In politically charged domains, any externally imposed design recommendations, however brilliant they may be, are in as much danger of alienating stakeholders as they are of convincing them that change is desirable. And the marginalisation of any set of stakeholders who have partial ownership of the problem domain will only diminish any chance of a proposal's ultimate success. This reality was clearly foreshadowed in Horst Rittel's work in the 1970s. In articulating an agenda for design education, Rittel emphasised the inescapably political nature of design, insisting that all design outcomes 'are political by necessity because they are based on [people's] images of how the world is and how it ought to be' (H. Rittel, 1971, p. 9). In defining 'second generation' methods, Rittel (1984) advanced an idea of design as being argumentative and rhetorical (in the classical sense of rhetoric); a new generation of design methods needed to focus on 'participation of the affected parties' (p.322) in an argumentative design process.[iv] But interestingly, these are not the emphases that have been retained in the current discourses around design/erly thinking. [...] design thinking, whether taken as an academic body of knowledge about how designers think and work (e.g. Buchanan or Dorst), or understood as something more like an applied toolkit of practices loosely derived from that body of knowledge (e.g. Brown or Kelley), are valuable but ultimately insufficient to genuinely address the vested wickedness of embedded, institutional problems such as those we encountered in our common law case. This is in spite of Rittel's original identification of wicked problems as the province of design, belonging to the purview of 'second generation' design methods. The emphasis of the discourses of design thinking have not foregrounded politics and participation. Yet politics and participation are precisely what design/erly thinking processes must take as their fundamental province if design approaches are to make any headway in genuinely wicked problem spaces such as our case in common law claims."

Biogeographist (talk) 17:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for this. Perhaps I could/should have referred to Rittel's work in my article. It is an important part of the history of design methods and relevant to how design thinking might extend beyond the designer-centric, design cognition and processes version of design studies. Actually, when I submitted the article, the journal editor suggested I might be writing about 'second-generation design thinking' but I didn't pick up the idea because it might seem that I was casting DesignThinking 2 (the business variety) as the 2nd generation, which would be inappropriate because it is not (to me) a development from nor improvement on DesignThinking 1.

I am not surprised that some other current writers on the topic (e.g. Iskander) are not aware of it - they think 'design thinking' only started way back in 2009!

Nigel Cross (talk) 10:13, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

In education

@Gardenjoy: Thanks for your edit to rearrange the sequence of paragraphs within 'In education'. However, I propose to delete the sentences on the MIT program. It sounds like a good program with links to design education (re. invention and entrepreneurship) but inserting it here could set a precedent for a large number of other programs to be added. It would need to have some special notability - as the Stanford d.school does for being (possibly) the first of its kind.

Designergene (talk) 12:26, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, your feedback makes a lot of sense, and I was curious about mentioning a particular program and if that might be problematic. One thing I like about their program is the intentional outreach to diverse populations. There is a small mention within the article: "To achieve divergent thinking, it may be important to have a diverse group of people involved in the process." Of course while that is not always possible, I also think there are some programs and organizations that are doing this type of work and outreach toward being more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. I'm just not sure how best to incorporate that. Thanks again! Gardenjoy (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

And thank you! As I wrote, the program does sound good. But I'm sure an awful lot of people would want to add their own courses or programs - it happens! - so I would say it's best to avoid listing separate ones. Maybe if there is an umbrella organisation that covers and promotes such courses (having a special aim or purpose) it could have a link given? Designergene (talk) 16:02, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Criticism section

I started this conversation on the talk page of @Designergene, but I'm moving it here for the record:

Hi @Designergene, I saw you undid a couple of my edits to Design thinking. The reversion struck me as counter to the spirit of Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary. If you feel that I mischaracterized the source, then you should feel free to improve what I said. But deleting information from a new, high-quality source strikes me as counterproductive, and it makes me worry about a general tendency among editors of the Design Thinking article to delete or minimize any of the critical sources on the topic. We need to be careful about violations of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Owunsch (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree that what you cited was a 'high-quality source' - it was an opinion piece, not an academic article, in the online MIT Technology Review.

I don't agree that my reverts were against Wikipedia spirit or guidelines. I reverted the edits because they were not based on a reliable source and did not even represent the general view presented by that source - despite the click-bait headline of the source piece it was a more nuanced appraisal of the history and possible future developments for design thinking than you represent it to be.

You seem to confuse discussion of two separate IDEO 'school lunch' projects and claim that the cited piece: 'detailed the failure of an IDEO initiative to increase school lunch consumption in the San Francisco Public Schools', while the full quote is: 'An analysis a few years after IDEO’s 2013 engagement showed that about the same number of kids or even fewer were choosing to eat school lunch, despite a continuous increase in enrollment. This may have had several reasons, including that the quality of the food itself did not significantly improve' - and the food itself was outside IDEO's remit.

You added to the Timeline section: 'by 2023, the phrase "design thinking" is removed from the d.school's undergraduate and graduate program materials', while the full quote from the cited piece is: 'the phrase “design thinking” does not appear in any materials for the d.school’s revamped undergraduate or graduate programs—although it still shows up in electives in which any Stanford student can enroll (and a representative from the d.school claims the terms “design” and “design thinking” are used interchangeably)'. Your statement is very partial, and inappropriate in the Timeline section.

I don't agree that there is 'a general tendency among editors of the Design Thinking article to delete or minimize any of the critical sources on the topic'. There is a substantial section on Criticisms. I consider that your addition to that section was a flawed mis-representation of the cited piece. I consider that your addition to the Timeline section is inappropriate because it strays away from historical factual statement and in its partiality is itself potentially against Neutral Point of View guidelines. Designergene (talk) 11:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

The MIT Technology Review is a bi-monthly periodical that is published both in print and online. The article that I cited is not an "opinion piece." It is a piece of reported journalism, not the author's "reflections." In any case, it clearly meets the Wikipedia:Reliable sources standard.

If you disagree with my summary of the source, you should improve it, not delete it wholesale. I confess that I do not understand the criticisms you are making of my summary. The article indicates that IDEO's recommendations had limited impact on school lunch consumption, stating that "it’s clear that only after IDEO left the project did the real work begin." It suggests that IDEO's main benefit was that it "helped sell the value of improving school cafeterias to the decision makers."

Any time that I have added a mildly critical source to the design thinking article, I have faced immediate opposition. There was no criticisms section in the design thinking article until I added one last year. It was immediately deleted, then subsequently reincorporated after a long discussion on the talk page. Owunsch (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I see your point about the timeline section. It's hard to tell from the article what the status of design thinking is at the d.school. So I took my addition out of the timeline. Owunsch (talk) 15:21, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding. I think that your sentence on IDEO and school lunch should also be deleted as it may not be a fair representation and stylistically does not belong in the section or add to the general criticisms made in the cited source - i.e. it is over-egging the point. Designergene (talk) 12:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Owunsch: The opposition to your criticism section last year was for good reasons, and we did eventually work out something acceptable to all. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make by referencing that discussion here other than expressing your annoyance at being reverted again (which we all feel sometimes). Biogeographist (talk) 15:45, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Biogeographist Yes, annoyance surely played a role in my comment. But I do think the point stands. Reversion is a last resort, generally not something to be used for good-faith edits.

@Designergene I'm fine with condensing or deleting the reference to the school lunch initiative. I thought it helped clarify what Ackermann meant about the importance of context-specific expertise, but I think you're right that it's more detailed than other parts of the section. Owunsch (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:BRD is an acceptable procedure for moving toward consensus, and that's essentially what happened here. Perhaps in retrospect Designergene would choose to edit instead of revert, but we moved toward consensus either way. Biogeographist (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Biogeographist@Owunsch Thanks to both of you. I'm going to make an edit re Ackermann's essay to clarify, expand and link it to the previous Criticisms. I hope it's acceptable. Designergene (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I like your clarification. Owunsch (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Academic Writing II (Spring 2024)

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 March 2024 and 13 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CHERMEL.AUS (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Leenlovesreading.

— Assignment last updated by Leenlovesreading (talk) 08:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)