sense making

DESIGN THINKINGand Its Impact on The Designer and Society

AN ESSAY BY IV Y LI

This paper/project is inspired by Cooper Hewitt Museum of New York, where design meets innovation and history.

This paper/project is inspired by Cooper Hewitt Museum of New York, where design meets innovation and history.

HOW DO WE THINK CREATIVELY AS A

DESIGNER?

DESIGN THINKING EMBODIES DIFFERENT IDEAS AND METHODS

IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS.

Design thinking becomes a popular concept in

management training by implying creativity and

innovation in its name. However, given that design

thinking is a necessary mindset of a professional

designer, it has been taken for granted in the design

discourse and no down-to-earth education has

been provided as part of design pedagogy. If

design-thinking course in management is basically a

step-by-step tutorial of “how to think creatively like

designers”, how, therefore, do we think creatively

as designers, and what is design thinking at its

core? Despite the urge to define design thinking

in the design realm, a social constructionist would

argue that design thinking embodies different ideas

and methods in different situations, and hence

has no essentialist and singular meaning to it. The

disparity and diversity of academic canon around

design and design thinking aims not to frustrate an

enthusiastic practitioner, though; in fact, analyzing

how design thinking is situated differently in practical

and theoretical contexts evokes a broader and more

universal application of it. Therefore, this paper strives

to forward the understanding of design thinking

on behalf of design students like me, by examining

several existing discourses around this idea.

INTRODUCTION

This paper benefits from a clear categorization of design

thinking by different epistemological roots in the article

“Design Thinking: Past, Present, and Possible Futures”.

Johansson, Woodilla & Çetinkaya categorizes the study

of design thinking — or distinctive “ways to describe what

designers do in practice” (1) — into five sub-discourses,

namely the creation of artifacts by Simon (rationalism),

a reflexive practice by Schon (pragmatism), a problem

solving activity by Buchanan (postmodernism), the

creation of meaning by Krippendorff (hermeneutics),

and a way of making sense of things by Lawson & Cross

(practice perspective). (3-7) Here I am not going to

further scrutinize each study, but to shift the gears to

a more approachable doctrine of design for students.

While their study traces the origins and sub-discourses of

design thinking in different epistemologies, I elaborate

on their study with a focus on the relation between

design thinking and designers, and to provide a both

theoretical and practical structure of how to think

creatively as a designer—which is not as self-explanatory

as it may seem. With this goal in mind, this paper is

divided into two parts: first, design thinking as a designer’s

mindset; second, design thinking as a cultural and

societal tool. The two as a unity tries to make sense of

design thinking regarding its nature and significance, in

order for a student designer as myself to understand,

varticulate and apply a synthetic way of thinking in

future study and career, a problem-solving manner that

is general enough to include all areas of design, and

specific enough to address particular design situation.

IntroductionIntroduction

Discourses Of Design Thinking

1. The creation of artifacts2. The creation of meanings

3. A reflexive practice4. A problem solving activity

5. A way of making sense of things

placem

ent

placem

ent

Design thinking standardizes the workf low and evokes self-ref lection, which is essential to the growth of a designer. In this part, I am going to introduce two philosophies that deal with the nature of design thinking, and a process-driving study that is based on theory. The two theories either focus on the contextualization of creative problems or the reflection upon creation. The process-based research aims to provide a practical framework for design synthesis through abductive thinking.

Buchanan believes that design is an activity to solve wicked problems, and therefore we may view design thinking as the manner to address creative problems. He points out that the foundation of problem solving is “placement”— a tool to identify problems, rethink the situations and determine the appropriate context for an entity. (8-13) Therefore, the unique approach of a designer is not simply based on his or her personal preferences and aesthetics, but is “a characteristic way of seeing possibilities through conceptual placement”(13), meaning the deliberate and innovative decision to frame and shape a design scene. The idea of “placement” shifts the attention from the classification of design professions to the positioning of design problems, as the ability of reposition is not specific to a single profession of design practice, be it graphic design, industrial design or architectural design; instead, Buchanan believes the branches of design practice are only “places of inventions” where designers consider the dimensions of design in the process of placements and problem solving. Since design is to solve problems whose situations should be reconsidered to yield new understanding, creativity is reflected in the behavior of placements and the ability to revalue the contexts in favor of discovering appropriate solutions; and this process of contextual-ization should play a vital role in the training of new designers in any areas.

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flection

Besides the ability to contextualize design problems, design thinking is also the selfreflection of creative activities. However, it is still under debate where the reflection takes place—is it before or after the design practice? Schon would say neither. Departing from a conventional view that regards practice and reflection as two distinct phases, Schon argues that design thinking is “reflection in action”, (55) and “when someone reflects in action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case.” (62) This idea allows the practice and theory to go hand-in-hand and benefit each other. A practitioner’s reflection in action forces him to correct his existing knowledge, reconsider the norms around decisions, revalue his strategy and revolve around the unique situation of a particular design scene. Then the reflection is immediately tested and presented in the process, which initiates new rounds of reflections until the desired outcome is achieved. This instant reflection-in action helps to establish the mindset and knowledge that evolve in the activity of making design.

reflection

Unlike Buchanan and Schon who discuss design thinking through philosophical analysis, Kolko takes a practice-driven perspective to build a teachable model of abduction, which is at the heart of design thinking. Derived from philosophical accounts, he introduces design as the synthetic process of sense making, and that design synthesis employs abductive reasoning within the constraints (logic premises) of design problems, in such manner that specific actions are constantly taken and thus can be learnt. Design synthesis consists of three actions—“prioriting, judging, and forging connections”. (21) He then breaks the three acts into corresponding methods — framing, concept-mapping and insight combination — and each method includes several steps. Framing entities under different situations allows new perspective to form; and then concept map serves as a visual tool to judge the hierarchy of gathered information and link related subjects; and finally, insight combination constructs unique connections to produce new knowledge. Abduction is the vital leap throughout design synthesis, the “step of adopting a hypothesis as being suggested by the facts… a form of inference”. (19) The systematic tree structure of Kolko summarizes the actions and methods of design synthesis, which is a pragmatic definition of design thinking that provides a concrete framework to help emerging designers untangle the fuzzy thinking process of design.

abduction

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Despite different perspectives — either theoretical or practical — taken by above studies to analyze design thinking, they are similar in their goal to clarify the chaos for designers to learn and articulate about their profession. Instead of parallel and independent reasoning, these studies complement each other to some extent. Buchanan’s notion of “placements” functions as a possible subject of Schon’ “reflection upon creation”, as “[a practitioner may reflect] on the way in which he has framed the problem he is trying to solve”. (Schon 62) Similarly, Kolko’s method of “framing” to solve creative problems can be seen as a direct follower of Buchanan’s concept of placements and reposition. Also, an instant reflection on the current situation and existing knowledge (based on Schon’s reflection in action) may arrive to positive outcome using abductive logic from Kolko. In general, understanding and application of these reciprocal discourses reinforces a designer’s ability to produce and reproduce.

However, the practice-driven analysis of design thinking is sometimes criticized, as people believe design is a creative and personal artistic outcome, and there is not or should not be a universal framework to approach creative solutions; and any attempt to clarify the process is only to suppress creative minds. A metaphorical counterpart of design structure is the writing template from They Say, I Say, in which the authors prove in depth that creativity shines in the original use of the structure, and that the structure doesn’t presume the content. (Birkenstein &Graff, 10-12) In the sense of design thinking, similarly, the creative part lies in the intuitive utility of placement, reflection, and abduction around every unique case. To be more specific, abduction is related to insights in that in order to make an abductive argument, one has to take a logical leap and make the “best guess” to arrive to a plausible explanation, and through changing the constraints in different ways for enough times, an insight appears by virtue of the flexibility of inferential leap. Eventually, by understanding these philosophies and applying these methods deliberately, one may become fluent of “how inferential leaps…systematically drive innovation’. (Kolko 13)

Design Thinking As

Design thinking plays a role in the society on two levels. The first and most

physical is the creation of design products, which manifest thinking process in their functions; the second is

the creation of meaning that enters the public conversation of design. A designer should be equipped with design

thinking in order to situate him/herself in the design community and forward social economy through design.

The surface relationship between a designer and society is the tangible design objects generated from design thinking. Simon differentiated design from natural science for it is the creation of artifacts, while natural science deals with existing objects. In this case, he doesn’t separate engineers and designers as in our common perception, whereas to define their mission as a whole: “The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be in order to attain goals and to function.” (Simon 5) Therefore, a designer’s interface with a society is reflected in the function of design objects, plus his/her responsibility to the clients. Consequently, design thinking—a productive and synthetic manner of thinking concerning “the inner and outer environment”

of an artifact (7)—is in need to achieve the functionality and to shape the artifact to its form. Also, design thinking serves to visualize the synthetic

process not only to designers, but also to clients, so that they know their money is well spent on some reliable and professional

mechanism that will guarantee desired outcomes—after all, an abstract “blue sky” is too risky for clients. Design

thinking is crucial to reflect the most visible contribution of designers to the society.

artifacts

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A Cultural ToolWhile Simon believes that artifacts are the central social products of a designer, Krippendorff, who views design as the creation of meaning, might argue that an artifact is only a medium of its intention through design activity. According to him, designers are endowed with more responsibility than creating commercial goods; instead, artifacts are constructed and left behind, and only the articulation and reflection around the objects enter the design community, with regard to constitute the language, forward the community, and communicate to the users. Similar to Schon, Krippendorff is concerned with the reflection of design process, but he takes it further to consider how the “continuous re-articulation and evaluation within the design community amounts to a self-reflective reproduction of the design profession”, (209) which underscores the reflection on design practice from the perspective of the community (as opposed to the perspective of an individual in Schon’s notion). Design thinking in the semantic perspective, therefore, is the textual and inter-textual discourse that eventually pushes forward the visual language of design culture.

community

Analogous to Krippendorff ’s take on the social responsibility of a designer is Tim Brown’s TED talk “Designers—think big!”. Brown is the CEO of IDEO, and likewise, he suggests designers to “focus less on the object and more on design thinking as an approach”, by which “we actually might see the result in a bigger impact.” (Brown) He believes that design thinking is a human centered process that involves prototyping as a vehicle, and with the goal to engage everyone—both the designer and the audience—in order to achieve the balance of “desirability, what humans need”, “technical feasibility, and economic viability.” (Brown) Brown illustrates a cheerful blueprint for designer to forward the economy of society using design thinking as a collaborative and participatory tool.

human

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However similar Krippendorf’s book and Brown’s speech may seem in their intention, they exemplify very different analytic approaches. As implied in the name “the semantic turn: a new foundation for design”, Krippendorf enters a very philosophical and intellectual conversation that embodies linguistic and semiotic analysis. What concerns him most is the vocabulary and language of visual culture created in design practice, and the textual meaning generated from the connection among artifacts. Brown, on the contrary, takes a “pragmatic turn” and adopts a variety of his personal anecdotes and practical examples, in order to give a very clear set of definition and instruction on design thinking. Informative as they appear to be, these two approaches are deficient to some extent. Semiotics as a tool to analyze design thinking is undoubtedly an interesting discourse in the design canon, but it is a very theoretical standpoint that let an extremely integrated subject fall into an insular account; Brown, meanwhile, offers the audience definitive and singular answers based largely on personal experiences that may not be statistically accurate. That being said, they are still both credible discourses that accentuate the role of designers as well as design thinking in contemporary culture.

CONCLUSION

This paper has examined the nature and value of design thinking in different discourses, and has proved that creativity of design can be achieved within an pragmatic action-framework; design thinking is manifested in the process of placement, reflection, and abduction. Besides the constitutive effect on the individual, design thinking also drive our culture and society through creation of artifacts and meaning. It evokes human-centered communication, and connects designers with the public. My research on the topic functions tentatively as a methodology for me to learn and reflect upon the process of design, and eventually arrive at continuous recreation and self- developmtent. However, my academic exploration on the canon of design thinking is far from being complete; and my initial purpose to bring design thinking back to the design realm might have actually narrowed down the possibilities of the term. Thus I would like to encourage more researches on how design thinking has on how design thinking has influenced management discourses and other professions.

Conclusion

Conclusion

WORKS CITED

Buchanan, Richard. “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.” Design Issues 8.2 (1992): 5. Print.

Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birken-stein. They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

Johansson-Sköldberg, Ulla, JillWoodilla, and Mehves Çetinkaya. “Design Thinking: Past, Present and Possible Futures.” Creativity and Innovation Management (2013): 121-46. Print.

Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1996. Print.

Citations

Citations

Kolko, Jon. “Abductive Think-ing And Sensemaking: The Drivers Of Design Synthesis.” Design Issues (2010): 15-28. Print.

Krippendorff, Klaus. The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design. Boca Raton: CRC/Taylor & Francis, 2006. Print.

Schön, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic, 1983. Print.

“Transcript of “Designers -- Think Big!”” Tim Brown: Designers. 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. <https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_urges_designers_to_think_big/transcript?language=en>.

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