Design Thinking Blog

Overview: Tim Parsons gives us a look at some of the implications of the ‘everyone is a designer’ thinking that is becoming more and more popular.

Thoughts: I can see some validity to his position.  He is coming from the perspective of a professional designer. The skill set and training that this group brings to a design project is vital.  However, when it comes to designing things or products – to say that the end user should be ignored is a bit short sighted.  Many product designers have gone through the soul killing process of creating a beautiful work, only to have it changed over and over again until it can be produced for the masses.  Why not talk with those you are designing for from the beginning and bring beauty to a collaborative process.  Very few designers have the luxury of behaving like highly paid artists. Most have to live in the practical world of making a living.

Original Post and Comments HERE at BlueprintMagazine.com

The Myths of User-Centred Design

Tim Parsons

The extent to which members of the public not trained in design should be involved in the design process has become something of a hot topic over the past few years. Before the emergence of user-centred design, except for consulting market research reports or focus groups, designers were largely left alone to channel their predictions of the public’s desires and behaviour into their creations. Today in many areas of design and architecture, seeking the opinions of the public, and even designing with them, is now considered good practice. Global design consultancies such as IDEO expound the virtues of the designer acting as a facilitator, working in teams with non-designer stakeholders. Co-design has become a business model, both for companies selling research insights and as a means of enabling the public to have a more direct impact upon the look of the products they buy. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Video: This is an interview with Nadja Schnetzler of the BrainStore…an idea design firm located in Switzerland

Thoughts on this video: This is a solid company that is using the ideas of Design Thinking to make better products and services.  This video gives several good looks at tools and techniques used by the team.

Overview of Post: Helene Cahen gives a real world look at using Design Thinking in her consulting business, and breaks it down into three main areas of focus.

Thoughts on Post: I always like to see how people are able to apply the Design Thinking concepts and principles to their work.  Helene gives a good breakdown of the process, but also show the continued “grayness” of defining the difference of Design Thinking and Human Centered Design and User Experience.

Original Post at Creative Problem Solving Institute website

Posted by: Helene Cahen

Design Thinking is best defined as applying the principles and mind-sets used by designers and architects, in other fields that require innovation. Non-designers can learn to use and apply the mind-sets and process to those challenges that require innovation. Design Thinking presents a creative problem solving approach that is somewhat similar to CPS, but focuses on areas that CPS does not fully articulate given its origin in the design world. In the past couple of years, I have integrated design thinking not only into my consulting business practice (I do training and facilitation around innovation) but also as a different way of thinking. Here are the three mind-sets that have made the deepest impact for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Overview of Video: This is a talk from the LIFT Conference 2008. Fabio Sergio, Design and User experience strategist and creative director at frog design, focuses his presentation on Design Thinking and its role in creating habitable and desirable futures. He shows various examples to explain how people-centred design goes beyond usage or consumption and should be about culture and seeing people how people react to things within their own culture.

Thoughts on this Video: Really interesting look into the way that Design Thinking can be applied to issues well beyond products.  This focus us on the delivery of service, and how to make that effective using DT.  I think this may be more of a UX (user experience) talk than a DT process talk.  A bonus is some cool designs that may appear in the future.