bplusd

So chatting with a friend yesterday about the differences between design thinking and ‘analytical problem solving’. She pointed out that analytical solutions are deductive - working towards a solution based on inputs from different sources (user research, business plan, etc.) while design thinking relies more on abductive thinking - thinking about the possibilities of what could be. This leads to multiple models, a wide range of prototypes that lend themselves to iteration, instead of narrowing in on one solution. It also means that there’s discontinuous jumps - from a solution, back to a situation before iteration occurs. It’s not a smooth incremental improvement - but that’s why it works better.

I think this is a good formal core for design thinking - the other core I’d look at is framing, not solving. There’s more power in defining the problem than in solving it. I think Design As Framing is the greatest advance beyond form and function that design thinking can bring to design practice. The trap is that so many practitioners assume that because they are practicing designers, they are design thinkers. This is a dangerous assumption - but also an opportunity for design thinking to elevate design practice, and not just theory.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 at 11:33 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.