Directions:
Design Thinking continues to gain popularity with educators, designers, innovators, problem solvers, and more! This seminal article by Tim Brown provides an overview of Design Thinking along with a diagram that illustrates it as an iterative process. Please read the article and consider the parts of Design Thinking that you support while noting questions you have about it. When ready, add a comment below that shares one idea you learned from this article!
Access:
Direct link to Tim Brown’s article on Design Thinking.
86 Responses to “1.2 – Design Thinking Examples”
Kurs Agenta Nieruchomości
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Karen Vaughan
The more I learn about design thinking, the more I see that it is a collaborative and inclusive process that goes beyond the small team of traditional designers and engineers that develop “products.” It includes the community it is serving in the process in all stages of the design process. Instead of a group of avid bicyclists designing the Next Greatest Bike and hoping that the world will love its Next Greatest Bike, the design team looked at why people loved riding bikes during childhood but avoided them after adulthood. They talked to people, learned why an adult finds bicycling distasteful as an adult and worked on finding solutions both with designing the Next Greatest Bike, and with the larger issues around bicycling, especially here in the US like the danger many US roads present to bicyclists. They started community movements for more bicycle friendly roads and recreation areas. The design thinking process may have started with building a better bike but ultimately began grassroot movements to make communities better places for bicyclists.
Yulian Wang
Design thinking is an extension of innovation that allows us to design solutions for end users while keeping a single problem statement in mind. Not only does it impart valuable skills, but it can also help advance my career. It is also a collaborative effort that can only be mastered through practice with peers. As Datar said in his introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation: “Like learning to swim, the best way to practice is to jump in and try.” I hope to apply design thinking to real life and provide new ideas for solving real problems.
Zijun Wang
I think my major takeaway from this article is that design thinking is a process that requires cooperation and collaboration. As the example of Thomas Edison, the design thinking and creative ideas came from group, not just individual. And one part really impressed me is that characteristics features of a design thinker. Among them, I noticed there were many features that overlapped with those successful people we usually illustrated, like experimental and cooperation.
Zepeng Li
Edison’s Design Thinking: Innovation is driven by direct observation and a thorough understanding of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about how particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.
Edison’s view of innovation is learning something new from iteration, and innovation is hard work.
Today’s consumer market has changed from product-oriented to consumer-oriented, where products are designed to attract consumers’ attention and meet their needs. Referring to Nokia, the direct reason for Nokia’s failure was that they got the market orientation wrong, and they still believed that consumers had confidence in their products.
Design thinking requires a keen insight; you have to notice what others don’t. The starting point for most product design is to put yourself in the shoes of others (customers, consumers) and think about what they need most and whether it is new enough for them to be attractive. Design thinking also requires reflecting on the fact that at least one potential solution is better than the existing alternatives. Referring to Apple’s constantly updated system, whose entire releases are based on iterative updates, they always conceptualize convenient features for consumers.
Zijun Wang
My major takeaway from this article is that I learned the features of design thinking and design thinkers. I think the features listed in the characterists of design thinker had many similarities with successful people we usually illustrated. And the outcome of design thinking came from cooperation and collaboration. Nothing could really accomplished without a team.
Daniels Akpan
I have found this article to be very enriching. Even though I have an undergraduate Degree in Industrial Design and have taken graduate courses in Design Thinking, but this article was really thought provoking for me. For several reasons, I am now able to see the “Intentionality” of some individuals and companies as they exemplify the use of design thinking to improve their ideas and businesses. Starting with Thomas Edison, it is inspiring to see how the use of human-centered design in not just creating a product but shaping an entire industry – this is really inspiring!
However, in the wake of the 21st century and with a more woke consciousness to design thinking and its usage by the companies listed in this article, two things stand out for me:
1) I notice how intentional the listed companies in this articles were in engaging the use of design thinking, to the extend of engaging the services of a designer/design thinking specialist.
2) I also noticed that this intentionality, though productive can also pose some budget challenge to start-ups who might not have the resources to engage the services of a design thinking expert.
In summary, it is important that the Author mentioned that the principles of design thinking could be thought to non-design thinking specialist. in that way, start up founders who are not design thinking experts can still learn and use design thinking methods to birth their ideas.
Daniels Akpan
I have an undergraduate Degree in Industrial Design and have taken graduate courses in Design Thinking, but this article was really thought provoking for me. For several reasons, I am now able to see the “Intentionality” of some individuals and companies as they exemplify the use of design thinking to improve their ideas and businesses. Starting with Thomas Edison, it is inspiring to see how the use of human-centered design in not just creating a product but shaping an entire industry – this is really inspiring!
However, in the wake of the 21st century and with a more woke consciousness to design thinking and its usage by the companies listed in this article, two things stand out for me:
1) I notice how intentional the listed companies in this articles were in engaging the use of design thinking, to the extend of engaging the services of a designer/design thinking specialist.
2) I also noticed that this intentionality, though productive can also pose some budget challenge to start-ups who might not have the resources to engage the services of a design thinking expert.
In summary, it is important that the Author mentioned that the principles of design thinking could be thought to non-design thinking specialist. in that way, start up founders who are not design thinking experts can still learn and use design thinking methods to birth their ideas.
Emma Goldin
I enjoyed the reading and loved learning about the design thinking characteristics. I was particularly drawn to collaboration. Brown writes “The increasing complexity of products, services, and experiences has replaced the myth of the lone creative genius with the reality of the enthusiastic interdisciplinary collaborator. The best design thinkers don’t simply work alongside other disciplines; many of them have significant experience in more than one. At IDEO we employ people who are engineers and marketers, anthropologists and industrial designers, architects and psychologists” (pg. 3). This makes me think of my parents when they were starting their company, Hint water. They both had experience in the tech business and my dad had a chemistry and a law degree. Since my parents knew nothing about starting a water company, they collaborated with a bunch of different experts. One question that I have is how do you know what kind of people are the right people to work with?
Dannielle
One aspect of this article I found intriguing is how design thinking is not a list of steps you go through in a set order, but a process you circle through several times. This shows how in depth and time consuming design thinking can be. I think this ties in nicely with the idea of wicked problems because when you are solving something complex a simple solution will most likely not meet the needs of the people experiencing the problem. I think the example of India’s Aravind Eye Care system illustrates this nicely. They had to continually go back to their inspiration (the blindness) and ideate ways to improve the system. This is an ongoing and complex process that can continually be improved and reevaluated.
Jesse Hunt
I found this article interesting in the sense that some of the most successful entrepreneurs seems to be design thinkers. Elon Musk, for example, has the ambition to transition the world away from fossil fuels and into clean and renewable energy. Thus, he created Tesla and many other ventures. It has created, as Thomas Edison did, an entire industry around his product, that has been thrust into the limelight thanks to his compelling design.
Emma Goldin
I enjoyed reading about the characteristics of a design thinker. One trait I found interesting is collaboration. Brown writes “The increasing complexity of products, services, and experiences has replaced the myth of the lone creative genius with the reality of the enthusiastic interdisciplinary collaborator. The best design thinkers don’t simply work alongside other disciplines; many of them have significant experience in more than one. At IDEO we employ people who are engineers and marketers, anthropologists and industrial designers, architects and psychologists” (pg. 3). I’ve seen this with my parents’ company, Hint water. When creating hint, they both had no experience in the food and beverage industry (my dad had a chemistry and law degree and my mom had a communications degree) so they collaborated with a lot of people who worked in the food and beverage industry i.e. bottlers, execs, stores, etc. in order to build a successful brand. One question that I have is how do you know what kind of people are the right people to collaborate with?
Xinjuan Liu
I was inspired by the fact that in business we often talk about targeting our precise customer segments for marketing and other activities, but for designers, we also need to be looking for new ways to think about the problem. Shimano was a great example for me. When the company hit a bottleneck in the traditional high-end road-racing and mountain-bike segments, the design team looked beyond that particular segment to the larger market of the problem, which is why 90% of American adults don’t ride.
I was impressed with Edison’s approach too. It said that his approach was intended not to validate preconceived hypotheses but to help experimenters learn something new from each iterative stab. The initial idea and the final idea may be seen as innovation, but the constant testing in between, and the new ideas that emerge through constant testing, are also invaluable and part of the innovation. And through constant testing, we will get more refined results. This is the importance of testing in the design process.
The problem I have is how to coordinate when the designer team disagrees with the team they are helping. On the one hand, it is the team who are very familiar with their field and are already very professional in their field, and on the other hand, it is the design team who thinks they have provided a proven solution to the problem. When disagreements arise, there may be not enough corresponding research or data to support them in some specific cases, so how to collaborate at such times?
Daniels Akpan
I have an undergraduate Degree in Industrial Design and have taken graduate courses in Design Thinking, but this article was really thought provoking for me. For several reasons, I am now able to see the “Intentionality” of some individuals and companies as they exemplify the use of design thinking to improve their businesses. Starting with Thomas Edison, it is inspiring to see how the use of human-centered design in not just creating a product but shaping an entire industry – this is really inspiring!
However, in the wake of the 21st century and with a more woke consciousness to design thinking and its usage by the companies listed in this article, two things stand out for me:
1) I notice how intentional the listed companies in this articles were in engaging the use of design thinking, to the extend of engaging the services of a designer/design thinking specialist.
2) I also noticed that this intentionality, though productive can also pose some budget challenge to start-ups who might not have the resources to engage the services of a design thinking expert.
In summary, it is important that the Author mentioned that the principles of design thinking could be thought to non-design thinking specialist. in that way, start up founders who are not design thinking experts can still learn and use design thinking methods to birth their ideas.
Austin O'Connor
One idea I took away from the reading was the importance of the design thinker’s personality profile. The five personality traits are empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and collaboration. These really stuck out to me because Tim Brown’s company IDEO really encompassed all of these traits and demonstrated how they could lead the company to success. The company would hire people that had a real connection to the problem and these people would brainstorm how to fix them and through trial and error they would eventually become successful. For example, the nurses were able to come up with a more efficient way to manage their time and get the notes they need and the surgeons were able to come up with a new device for sinus surgery. Overall, this demonstrated the role that a personality profile could play in innovation.
Seb Schacht
This article changed my entire perspective on what it means to be an innovator. For whatever reason I have seen it as simple, linear and easy. Likely because we only see the end product. As consumer we only ever see what the final product is and how it is delivered to us. We see the electric car, the new clothing brand or the entertainment. But we don’t see the entirety of the process that goes into creating and delivering that product. I found the Kaiser example to be relevant. They were able to bring a people focused, holistic approach to their problem. They took the whole picture into account and were able to bring a diverse team together to look for a solution. Because it was a service, the eventual product wouldn’t be physical however, it still has to be tangible. Overall, I really liked the way Kaiser approached their problem and I learned a great deal about how design thinking looks in the real world.
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Jackie Russo
One thing that really struck me from this paper was the idea that iterations need to happen quickly and often. I find this interesting because I feel it goes a bit against human nature. In my opinion, I more often see groups focusing in on one proposed solution and trying to make it work, even if it doesn’t truly work. From this article, I see now that groups need to continuously be going back to the problem and the target audience to see if the proposed solution is sustainable and pivot quickly to a new idea if it is not. I also appreciate Brown’s idea that innovations do not need to be tangible products. I find this incredibly insightful as the article was written in 2012 and many of our most dramatic innovations in the decade since this article was written are intangible, like DoorDash, TikTok, and Wag.
One question I have is how to create the collaborative teams like those described in the article. Most of the exemplified innovation teams incorporated design thinkers from IDEO, or people who are well-versed in this way of thinking and designing. I question how this process can be disseminated quickly to team members without a design thinking except available. Perhaps the answer lies in incorporating individuals who possess the design thinker’s personality profile Brown outlined in the design team.
David Russo
The purpose of Design Thinking is to solve an existing problem with the input of those who experience the problem. If I wanted to solve a problem, the best way to lead to a product that would lead to value creation and capitalize on a market opportunity would not be for me to make something, make it look pretty, and then hope it works. My notions of the problem and its solution may differ greatly from the target audience or consumers. The testing and feedback should drive the idea (solution) and its formulation from start to finish from those who it is meant to help, and then this process may be needed to start again. One thing that I had not considered before reading this article is that the design thinking process can be applied to both a product or process as well as the “pretty wrapper” to make it appealing. While just updating and improving an existing product’s aesthetic appeal won’t be enough; applying the DT process to both the product and its aesthetic could help an innovator succeed.
Megan Byers
Two ideas mentioned in this article that I found particularly interesting were the systems view and the human-centered design thinking approaches. Problems that require design thinking and innovation processes are rarely isolated to one person or group. Rather, effective solutions to such problems require that cultural and socioeconomic variations are taken into account. I enjoyed reading about the example of India’s Aravind Eye Care System and how Aravind created a solution to a dynamic problem within the boundaries of extreme geographic, economic, and resource constraints. It was amazing to me that they discovered a technology that could make lenses for eyeglasses for $4 per pair, and it made me think about how the best innovations can be born out of needs arising from challenging conditions when accounted for properly from the beginning. Additionally, I appreciated the attention the article gave to human-centered design. Before joining the MEITE program, I worked for a financial company that was transitioning to a more human-centered approach to the design and delivery of its products, and I believe that this transition and focus will be critical to their (and other innovators’) success in continuing to solve relevant problems for their customers. Combined with a systems view, more holistic ideas and solutions to problems may be discovered.
Kelsey Cotter
This article helped me break down the complexity of design thinking and consider it as a process that should be considered an asset rather than an afterthought in any venture. Rather than thinking of design as a “late-stage add on,” successful ventures consider the customer experience first and design based on their considerations. Understanding design thinking as a blend of art, craft, science, and business savvy while giving consideration to a user’s needs and preferences is helpful, especially in the section on prototyping. I appreciate learning more about prototyping as an iterative process meant to gain feedback and only take the time and effort necessary for that feedback to positively impact the product (or system) before continuing to the next stage of design. One question I have is how much time is too much time when it comes to prototyping? If, as mentioned in the article, the goal of prototyping is to gain useful feedback, how does a creator know or come to terms with the idea that it’s time to move to the next part of the design and truly leave that part of the design behind. This seems like it would be a challenging part of creating a product, and I would imagine many creators could lose momentum at this stage if caught in the cycle of feedback at one stage.
Marina Shallcross
One thing that stood out to me in this article is the importance of taking a human-centered approach to design thinking rooted in empathy. In practice, this means speaking directly with the community impacted by whatever problem it is that you are trying to solve, gathering quantitative and qualitative data, and drawing out common themes from your interviews and research. I am curious about how this approach is modified if design thinkers tackling the challenge do not have access to the affected community, or do not have time to go through this process of gathering anecdotes and data, aggregating it, and refining it. How does this change the design thinking process? What are alternative ways in which they can connect and empathize with the community?
I also was intrigued by the idea that prototypes should only command as much time, effort, and investment as are needed to get to the next step in the design process. I did not know that prototypes are not supposed to reflect even a draft of the finished innovation, but rather different skeletons of ideas as innovators move through the iterative design process. Essentially, a prototype cannot be a prototype if it does not offer room for questions and feedback. This is helpful context for me as I continue at my internship at the City of Raleigh, as we are using a design thinking process to re-envision their professional development courses for City employees and will be prototyping class outlines and formats in the coming months.
Grace Willard
This article highlights how innovative thinkers’ process works. Not only do designers need to consider what their product does, but how it solves a problem, what it takes to get to scale, and how innovative ideas are what can make or break a business. The prototyping section was of particular interest to me as a fail-first, fail-often approach is one that is scary to consider but helps designers become more comfortable with the idea of iterations. So often we want our first design to be our best, but innovation comes from rethinking. I was surprised that the author suggested being less polished with prototypes as they led to fewer overall changes (Psychology pops up everywhere I suppose). I am curious where the line is on iterations being visually/functionally appealing vs. too polished to critique. How do designers balance this when looking to investors for funding?
Andrea Melendez
I appreciated how the article disseminates the design thinker, and how the genius idealization of a person creates the misconception of it being immediate and rare. While a sort of innate ability and vision could be part of the conception of an idea, it really takes time and effort and a bunch of other skills to make the simplest idea work. The part that struck me the most was this iterative process of rethinking from a collaborative perspective, where we try often, seek help, and find talent. I think that if we were more prone to being collaborative and listening to harsh feedback, prototypes will more often be different because ideas are not static products, ideas are ways to solve a problem, and we should be committed to the idea and not the product. And when I say we, I am obviously not talking about me (at the moment) but talking about products in the market that I’ve used that are not very receptive to criticism and forget the goal of the idea.
Nate Orecchio
I really vibe with the idea of creating innovative teams that incorporate talent from different domains and doesn’t necessarily require foreknowledge in design principles to be an effective team. I really like working with people in my classes that come from different career and personal backgrounds, because it helps create a more comprehensive and rich experience. I imagine that this would translate well to an innovative team as well. I’m also really intrigued by the concept of Feng Shui and how this could apply to innovative working spaces. For example, is there any research or would the author have opinions on the best working space/environment for getting the best out of the innovators? Is this best done in a hybrid, 100% in-person, or virtual environment? How incorporated should the innovation team be with the rest of the production and development teams in the same physical space (if applicable)?
Hilli
This article changed my perspective on what it means to be an innovator. Innovation is more than just creating a cool new product. In order to be a design thinker, you have to take a human centred approach, and consider people’s needs, and how that can lead to a viable business strategy and convert into customer value and market opportunity. Additionally, the idea of the creative genius resonated with me; we often think that innovation is the result of a great idea popping into the head of a genius; however, it is actually the result of a meticulous human-centered discovery process and followed by iterative cycles of prototyping, testing, and refinement that required tons of hard work.
Hilli Goldhar
This article changed my perspective on what it means to be an innovator. Innovation is more than just creating a cool new product. In order to be a design thinker, you have to take a human centred approach, and consider people’s needs, and how that can lead to a viable business strategy and convert into customer value and market opportunity. Additionally, the idea of the creative genius resonated with me; we often think that innovation is the result of a great idea popping into the head of a genius; however, it is actually the result of a meticulous human-centered discovery process and followed by iterative cycles of prototyping, testing, and refinement that required tons of hard work.
Aidana Zhumabekova
This article reminded me of the book we used in “Design Thinking for Public Good” class – Field Guide to Human-Centered Design by IDEO.org. I appreciate that the article proves that embracing human-centered design means believing that all problems, even the seemingly intractable ones like poverty, gender equality, and clean water, are solvable when you have a good approach and keep the phases of your design thinking process clear.
I love the idea that being a human-centered designer is about believing that as long as you stay grounded in what you’ve learned from people, your team can arrive at new solutions that the world needs. Moreover, the examples that are provided in the book are very helpful to become well-watched in design thinking and collecting ideas, and inspirations (especially I liked the story of the Bank of America with a new saving account idea). Also, I like that the article promotes immersing yourself in their lives and communities because there is no better way to understand the people you’re designing for than doing that.
Julia Thompson
How design thinking happens really caught my attention. There are three main components in this process. The first one is inspiration. Designers need to look through different lenses to see the world. They have to determine what will benefit people, but also what will hinder their designs. When finding inspiration, it takes collaboration between many different people with various backgrounds to create a full picture. The next step is Ideation. This step requires brainstorming. Designers develop their prototypes and test them. They need to communicate with customers and with their team to continue to develop their prototype. The final stage is Implementation. This is when designers take their work and set it to the world. They come up with marketing to grab the attention of others. Afterwards, the process repeats itself.
Design thinking is a long process with many caveats and people. The world influences what will take off and what will sink. Using the design thinking process to implement new innovations takes time and I commend people who put everything into something they are passionate about.
Izzete Encarnacion
I believe the cycle of inspiration, ideation and implementation works really well, and it reminded me of the book “The ice cream maker” by Chowdhury, and the steps he followed and described in the book to transform his company and deliver better quality goods. I also find fascinating the fact that it encourages to include other disciplines, get people involved and update them with the progress of the implementation and the project. However, I have some questions about design thinking. First, how you predict or plan for cycles, like how you know how long it would take or when you would transition from one phase to the other, when it is the right time to do so. Second, how you include “valuable ideas , assets, and expertise hiding inside the business if they do not want to take part. Finally, how you know when to stop, when it is good enough.
Ron Bush
It makes sense to center design thinking/thinkers into the innovation drill mainly because of their ability to experiment, and their optimism but largely too because of their empathy. Mainly the innovation drill requires you to have a human centered approach so it is ripe for them to have empathy here early in the process. Also their ability to experiment fits well with the need to try early and often to see what works and their optimism allows for them to not be discouraged by extreme failures in the progress of the cycle.
I’ve seen many “good” ideas get pushed to market only fail wonderfully because while yes, it “solves” a problem it does not solve how humans actually work the problem naturally so it can create more problems in implementation requiring many more cycles to solve. observation is key to the figuring out the root cause of a problem that needs solving.
Steven Llewellyn
One thing that I appreciated about this article about design thinking is that it focused in multiple ways on the user experience for the project. It talked about the design thinkers personality profile using empathy. it talked about making the end result pleasant to the user of the iPod, and included a human-centered approach. These are things that sometimes might be missing when we want a specific problem. The management might think about an innovative idea that helps them, but not the employees or the customers.
One thing that I have a question about is if this is a comfortable method for someone that is not used to being taught abstract processes. I have seen other processes about design thinking that seem a bit more concrete. I appreciate the need for general guidelines because creativity can be stifled by too much concrete, process-minded thinking, but I am not sure if this would be accessible or overwhelming to people.
Sanji Datar
I enjoyed reading about Edison’s focus beyond his light bulb invention and his ability to conceive a fully developed marketplace and creating an ecosystem for his invention. The Kaiser Permanente example reminded me of the time I used to work with the customers in my Tech sector job. My employer, a tech services Cloud company, had signed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with their customers and was bound to provide continuation of service (be it a website or an enterprise on-site application). I find the idea of applying that metric to continuation of patient care interesting. It is a great example of how Empathy guides Design Thinking. The example also stretches the idea of innovation beyond the design of product and technology and applies it to human centric process.
Jess Schultz
I really enjoyed the background knowledge on Edison’s approach to using each iteration to learn something new rather than prove a preconceived notion. It illuminated for me that while the formal framework for design thinking has only gained popularity as a course of study in the past couple decades, it’s been around as a concept for a long time. Arguably as long as humans have. The collaboration described around experimental investigation with varying perspectives at the table is also what drew me into learning about design thinking as a concept.
A fun concept for me to think about in terms of possibilities was the shift from the industrial economies everywhere to knowledge-based economies. Suddenly the marketing I grew up with is flipped on it’s rhead and designers are innovators using the same process you might assume for a potentially boring product to address and iterate on wicked problems. I first heard of design thinking through the international development context, so this is a different way of looking at how it has evolved.
Paige Hofstad
I really enjoyed reading Brown’s insights about Design Thinking. I found his examples of Thomas Edison, Kasier, Shimano and Aravind. These examples gave me a better understanding of design thinking in action. The biggest takeaway from this article is the element of collaboration within design thinking. From the outside, design thinking can seem separate and specific. Yet, design thinking is highly collaborative and interactive. To solve a problem and design a product requires the insight of multiple disciplines. This makes the design process complex and difficult, but results in the most best overall product, that doesn’t sway towards one discipline while neglecting another.
Brian
This article really helps me understand design thinking and the purpose of what we should be learning to become future innovators in education. It is inspiring to know that plans, designs, or creative products can be created by a group of individuals with the same goals in mind. Another interesting fact is the article breaks down the profile of a design thinker. This design thinker has one main goal: what human-centered design will be beneficial to assist people.
Jianing L
I like the idea that “Prototypes should command only as much time, effort, and investment as are needed to generate useful feedback and evolve an idea.”(P3)
The prototype does not need to be close to the result, but should reflect the idea itself and determine the further direction. Just like the example in the article, the prototype customizes simple data for each nurse. Nurses can transfer information more effectively and reduce their preparation time by inputting patient information during shifts. This model has updated the shift system and produced a huge change.
Like this group, if teachers in public schools and institutions have the right to dig problems, what will happen? The mission of the medical team is to pursue innovation and improve patient experience, so can teachers also consider the learning experience and feedbacks based on the learning situation of students, and use relevant models to improve learning efficiency?
Shiqi Tao
What draws my attention in Brown’s article is the innovation design process of the Coasting bike. The Japanese cycling company mainly wants to open a high-end marketplace to create a new bloom in business. However, after the innovation team broadly researched, they found why Americans don’t like ride bikes. According to these specific reasons, they discovered a new untapped market. The team focused on customer’s needs and designed a new bike more for pleasure than sport. Although the team’s design out of the company’s core customers, the result shows their design made a huge success. I like human-center thinking since exploitation with target audiences will give us a new look at our surroundings and help us think outside the box. In the past, I gave a class to students only focuses on the curriculum standard. I took much time in the surface knowledge for the test. Many students didn’t like to have my class because they felt bored and useless. The human-center exploration reminds me that I can use human-center thinking in class to explore students’ needs and what they want to learn in the course.
Rebecca
One particular idea and theme in Brown’s article stuck out to me: the idea that design thinking is a process. I believe that often times complex issues are normed and accepted into society because there is an acceptance of “it just is what it is”. When I first started encountering design thinking in the MEITE program, I’ve been struck by the intelligence and creativity of their solutions. However, what I think Brown did particularly well is lay out the process of which those solutions came to light. When faced with an overwhelming task, its easy to not know where to start. Brown showed that you can tackle smaller issues at a time within the larger issue, grow those solutions in various ways to have a larger impact, and rely on team members for different perspectives. In the article is showed that Aravind grew from 11 patients to 2.3 million patients; that did not happen over night. He started with a big problem “needlessness blindness in a complex large poor nation.” There is no easy solution to that. He SLOWLY solved various aspects of that problem through a non overwhelming process. He started with screening in pop up eye camps, then added transportation for rural patients that needed surgery at an urban center, he then started offering his solution to a larger set of of the population, and then invented his own material at a significantly lower cost for his patients. He did this as a slow process and with teams of experts.
Taylor Moreno
What drew me in most about Brown’s article was the idea that “the most successful brands create breakthrough ideas that are inspired by a deep understanding of consumers’ lives and use the principles of design to innovate and build value”. This idea resonated with me most based on the the deeper understanding of consumers’ lives to essentially create value. This concept of value is so important to innovation, marketing, and consumers because it helps to create a belief that is really meaningful to your company. This belief system drives action and gets consumers excited about a brand or product. By establishing this value through your understanding of the consumer, companies can establish that belief system to drive engagement and success. Every consumer is going to be different because they come from such different cultural and societal backgrounds. However, as Brown mentioned, “design thinking can suggest creative alternatives to the assumptions made in developed societies”. Challenging and testing what consumers really want can help build and establish meaningful value that conjoins the belief systems of both the company and its consumers.
Savita Madan
One perspective from the Brown article that particularly stood out to me comes from the quote, “The more finished a prototype seems, the less likely its creators will be to pay attention to and profit from feedback. The goal of prototyping isn’t to finish”. I thought this was a jarring contradiction to the conception of innovation people typically tend to hold. This viewpoint places the emphasis of innovation not on the product but on the process, which is more conducive to the principles we have been discussing in this program, like designing with the user in mind.
I also think this quote, and the article in general, does promote a lot of skills that are not typically promoted in our educational curriculum. It was interesting to me that, farther down in the article, empathy is the first skill Brown asserts that design thinkers need. The concept of learning empathy is interesting to me, because it is a skill that could arguably benefit almost every career field, and is often treated as an afterthought, if its thought of at all, in schooling. Likewise, a few of the other skills of design thinking that are highlighted in this article, like optimism or integrative thinking, seem like great skills to incorporate into earlier education.
From my prior experience as a student in the health humanities, we often discussed the role of these skills in education, and how they are qualities employers want and people benefit from in the career field, but are not often required during schooling in general. I think this article provides further evidence that employing these skills and encouraging students to think from these perspectives early in their educational career would be beneficial to success in the real world. I am personally very drawn to this approach and line of thinking because I feel it would be conducive to greater success in this field as well as many others.
Sanji Datar
Savita: I couldn’t agree more about the ubiquitous need of empathy. A few years ago, as I trained to be a Software Engineer, I could not have imagined saying ‘Empathy’ and Engineering in the same breath. It is fascinating how the Design Thinking paradigm cuts across domains and disciplines, never losing sight of the user (or learner) at the center of it. As a parent, I could not say enough about the magic an optimistic teacher can bring to the student’s learning experience. As a data-driven, analytical-leaning person, I did not always see the key hidden aspects of the problem and missed forest for the trees. But I have seen the difference unconventional integrative thinking has made in my son’s education.
Alisha Neblett Thompson
What really impressed me about Brown’s article was how Kaiser Permanente approached the nurses they were trying to help. They were not trying to create a solution FOR them but a solution WITH them. They treated these nurses like partners in the project so that rapport was strong enough that they received specific enough feedback that actually served them in real time. This approach to interviewing and researching your target audience / users really resonating with me because in education, teachers often feel like those offering educational solution are patronizing or out-of-touch because they are not in tune with the many pressures that they face within their classrooms. Even worse, teachers feel like their classroom experience is belittled. I think it was helpful to remember that part of the design process is that being a designer does mean you have to be open to all of the directions that the interview, research, and collaboration take you…which means that there is a lot of humility and listening that have to be part of the process.
Alex Conte
I enjoyed reading about how a designer’s role has shifted overtime. Looking back, I have always used the old definition of a designer’s role, so I thought it was quite interesting to picture designers as the creators of ideas rather than the polisher of a finished product. That being said, I do question whether it is always possible for a designer to match the needs of consumers with and a viable business strategy in an optimal manner. In some scenarios it is certainly possible, take for instance the example of Aravind in the reading, but I expect designers are often forced to take shortcuts in order to protect the profitability of their design.
Emily Trabert
I found this sentence from Brown’s article to be interesting: “The more ‘finished’ a prototype seems, the less likely its creators will be to pay attention to and profit from feedback.” I’ve used prototyping in software development to verify different components work (or don’t work) together when coming up with a system design. I often tell others not to check in their prototype code. If you check it in, you’ll be tempted to continue building on its scrappy base for the initial production implementation, so I am aware of its limitations as a foundation. However, I hadn’t thought about the consequences of over-developing a prototype to the point that it looks like it could be a final(-ish) product and how that psychologically affects the creators’ abilities to build upon it.
Mariana Pineda
It was very interesting to learn about the different ways in which design thinking can be implemented. We often associate design thinking with a physical product, when in reality it encompasses much more than that. Design thinking can be used to address much more complex problems, just as Aravind did in India. Guatemala has a lot of similar problems and constraints, such as poverty and lack of access to expensive solutions, and it would be extremely interesting to try to address one of these problems utilizing design thinking.
One of the things I liked the most about Tim Brown’s article was his emphasis on the “human – center” aspect of the design thinking process. Truly understanding people’s needs and desires is essential for success. Another aspect I really appreciate about design thinking is its interdisciplinarity. I think it’s extremely important to work alongside other professionals to efficiently address issues, design problems, innovation projects, etc. As someone who is deeply interested in many topics (which was definitely a challenge when I graduate high school), I love learning about different situations and scenarios in which people with complete different backgrounds work together towards the same goal.
Erica Harreveld
What struck me most about this article is how Brown frames Design Thinking as very approachable. Brown makes it a point to stress that one does not need to have a certain credential to be a designer, but rather experience in your given field and a willingness to try the design thinking process is valued. Browns states that engineers, marketers, anthropologists, industrial designers, architects, and psychologists work for his company and each are able to bring a set of expertise. There is no one credential to make oneself a designer. In the Kaiser example, nurses were a part of the design thinking process and they were able to come up with effective solutions based on their experience in the field. This is crucial when we are discussing design thinking in the realm of education and valuing the experience of teachers. Often, especially in education, the knowledge of teachers is undermined by policymakers, so it is important that teachers are valued in the design thinking process. Brown stresses the needs to consult experts and have an empathetic view for whom you are designing a product. Even if teachers do not take an active role in designing the product, Brown would still council designers to interview teachers and value their opinion.
April McKinley
One thing I learned from the article is to design for the cycle. Knowing that design projects take longer than 12-18 months, it is important to plan assignments to allow design thinkers to go from inspiration to ideation to implementation so they can experience the full cycle of the design process. I am often guilty of generating ideas (inspiration) but not seeing those ideas through the whole process.
I agree that creative people surround themselves with gifted thinkers, experimenters, and improvisers. The article suggests that a design thinker does not need to attend a special university, but instead, needs to have personality characteristics which allow creative thinking to flow such as collaboration, integrated thinking, empathy, optimism and be willing to experiment. This reminds me of Dr. Sawyer’s research on collaboration and his strategy to keep thinking moving which he calls, Yes, And. Simply, this Yes, And strategy allows musicians, improvisational comics, teachers and inventive thinkers to continue the flow of the sketch, song or thought. Once the word NO comes into play, it stops all the creative momentum, which unfortunately occurs all the time in our daily lives. Finding talented thinkers any way you can and surrounding yourself with those you can collaborate with, bounce around ideas, and think thoughts (even if they seem silly), I believe is the special sauce in a design thinking recipe.
Jaelynn Murray
I really enjoyed reading this article by Tim Brown and it opened my eyes to certain ways of thinking that I never knew about. One thing that really surprised me was the different processes that were improved. For example, look how far we have came from the invention of the light bulb. Brown makes us look at thinking in a design aspect while relying on innovation and feasible technology to go hand in hand together. He also touches on a point that I thought was very beneficial to me which was the Design Thinker’s Personality Profile. I think that I fall under the Empathy personality because I always tend to put others before myself. On the contrary, I also have some characteristics of other personalities such as optimism.
Yeeva C
Tim Brown’s thoughts on “taking a systems view” felt very salient for me this week. I’ve been dipping my toe in the research world for part-time work, where we broadly research adolescents’ (with emphasis on girls’) health, reproduction and education in low-and-middle-income countries. One of the challenges that the organization has been responding to has been the silo-ed nature of research and how different disciplines or academic foci need to be in continued conversation with each other as well as practitioners–which, in my opinion, is why researchers and program/innovation designers are respectively dead-ended with broad-stroke policies or interventions that don’t fully encapsulate the scope of intersectional problems. Brown makes a particularly important point about how innovation must account for cultural and socioeconomic differences and contexts–a lot of what we assume in “developed” societies might not apply or are manifest differently in other societies.
To give a specific example: In our work, we have assumed that education (formal schooling) is the answer to improving girls’ lives and improving their agency–but what does that even mean or look like? A chain of events/reactions below that show us how education, infrastructure, water management and healthcare systems overlap in presenting problems–AND responses:
1) Policy reaction: If education is the answer, then let’s create indicators to measure girls’ and boys’ enrollment (yes, it’s problematic that gender identity is binary here). 2) Data: Wait a minute, enrollment is dropping off at the secondary education level for girls. 3) Researchers: Hmm, what’s going on during this period in life for girls? (pun intended) 4) School admin and interventionists: Wait, so part of the answer is infrastructure…clean, safe, separate sanitation facilities and access to water? 5) *donors spend tons on school bathrooms* 6) Data: We are still seeing enrollment dropping off. 7) *Years of more research and small-scale interventions that identify and respond to menstrual hygiene management as a social taboo, menstruators feeling shy to ask to go to the bathroom, gender-based violence occurring at isolated bathrooms, lack of access to water, other hygiene or personal materials or information…all of which inform United Nations WASH programs*
What I most appreciate about Tim Brown’s article is the section on How to Make Design Thinking Part of the Innovation Drill. “Expect business units to drive and fund incremental innovation, but be willing to initiate revolutionary innovation from the top” really resonates. It helps me think constructively (instead of cynically) about how research, innovation and policy can be in conversation with each other on responding to large projects, implement these ideas through small projects, which may later inform systems view approaches from the top.
Jeremy Dickerson
“Find talent any way you can.” – This quote from the article by Tim Brown really hits home for me. I believe that we are in a “talent war” and the most important thing any organization can do is look for people with the talents and skills needed by the organization. There simply are not enough highly skilled, properly trained and educated people to support the technologically driven growth of our society right now. Technology is advancing so quickly all around the world, and we need people from all backgrounds to support this advancement. This wicked problem is compounded by the retirement of the baby-boomers from the workforce, and years of experience walking out the door. We have to improve our talent acquisition processes and our employee training/re-training and advancement processes if we intend to have a workforce which has the talent needed design the technologies of the future.
Taylor Redmond
I enjoyed reading this article and believe it provided design thinking concepts that are tangible and can be applied to a variety of contexts. One idea that stuck out to me is how design thinking teams are often comprised of people from interdisciplinary backgrounds. I believe this is essential to receiving well-rounded opinions that possess less bias. However, I hadn’t necessarily thought of a single individual on that team having multiple areas of expertise. Brown brought this up in his article by saying, ” At IDEO we employ people
who are engineers and marketers, anthropologists and industrial designers, architects and
psychologists”. This was quite interesting to me because I wonder how common it is to find individuals who have a lot of experience in different areas. Unfortunately, the education system often forces us to choose one interest, such as a major in college, and dedicate all of our time to that subject. Then when we get a job, we are expected to stay within that realm for the full length of our careers. But if we are thinking about innovation, we should allow learners of all ages to explore all of their interests, even if these interests appear to be completely unrelated. I agree that the most innovative ideas would come from someone who has a grander perspective due to their myriad of experiences; but I can not help but wonder how feasible that is with how our education system and workforce are structured. I believe we would need to make some major changes to enable people to gain expertise in more than one field and bring those insights to the table to spark more innovative ideas.
Jeremy Dickerson
I can certainly identify with the “pick your major” comment! My daughter is applying for college this year, and they already want her to state what she wants to have as a major. She barely knows where she wants to go to school, let alone what major at 17 years old! It’s scary to think about her “choosing the wrong path” at this age! I definitely think the IDEO example of employing different experts from different fields sheds light on the needs of modern workplaces. I also think young people need to read these examples so that they can see how they can fit into the workforce in different ways.
Jane McDaniel
One aspect of Tim Brown’s article that resonated with me is how the design thinking process is actually very people-centered. I really appreciate the importance he places on collaboration within the design process, especially when it comes to soliciting honest feedback from the consumers who will be most impacted by the innovation itself. The example he provided from Kaiser Permanente’s nursing shift change hits close to home because in my experiences in education, it often feels that teachers are left out of the design process; it is much more difficult to get on board with, learn, and utilize a new educational tool when it does not address relevant needs within the classroom and it is obvious that educators have been excluded from those design conversations. With that being said, it was awesome to read how IDEO involved various stakeholders, even in such a large healthcare system, to address an issue that has many trickle-down effects, but, most importantly, the team did not just guess or anticipate the details of the problem without consulting the nurses, who would feel the most direct impact of the addition to the shift change software. With their experiences and expertise in the field, the firm was able to create an impactful solution, which actually has an even greater system-wide impact, as well.
Additionally, this particular example debunks a misconception I originally had about design thinking in that it is generally product-focused. Yet, this example, along with the that of Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” program reinforces that effective design thinking can result in both innovative products AND services. Going forward, I will be interested to learn more about other ways that design thinking can be applied as services and not just physical products.
Jeremy Dickerson
I appreciate your focus on people-centered design. This speaks to the need to use empathy and human observation in our design and development processes. Useful tools and technologies are the ones which solve people’s problems and which may be implemented quickly and simply. The involvement of stakeholders is crucial – and the stakeholders are typically people who need support!
Todd Cherner
This is a test comment, 8/23/21
Jagger
I think Design Thinking is going to be useful for my career as instructional design because of the empathy involved.
Erika
This article by Tim Brown had one concept that just kept jumping out at me: HUMAN-CENTERED design. In all of the varied examples of design processes and innovative ideas, the user and the humans that were going to be using the products were always involved in the first steps. Even in the Design Thinker’s Personality Profile section, the first characteristic was empathy. They can imagine the world from different perspectives and empathize with the needs of the users. In all of the examples I saw that as the center of their designs. I liked seeing how, with every innovative idea they had various processes and outcomes that were fluid and ever changing, but always have the uses in mind.
Katie Bourque
I really enjoyed reading Design Thinking by Tim Brown. This article was able to demystify the design process and shed light on how world-changing inventions don’t just come out of nowhere. The design process often seems very clean and deliberate from the outside, yet that is rarely the case. Trial and error and trial and error again are the steps that many great thinkers go through in order to create even just one good idea. I also loved the section on a “Design Thinker’s Personality Profile” this profile was helpful in highlighting the traits that make good designers. The two traits that I think are the most important are collaboration and empathy. Working together with others can double and triple your chances of coming up with a novel idea. I also think that empathy is a huge part of the design process because it requires you to imagine the world from outside of your own perspective.
Claire
I really appreciated the varied examples of design thinking applications. For me, Aravind was the most interesting of these and seemed to reflect most the idea of successful application of design thinking toward a “wicked problem” — as Brown points out, the problem was systemic and the solution fully took into account that systemic, complex nature. As a cyclist, I was actually really skeptical of the Shimano case study, and I consequently did a bit more digging. It turns out the “Coasting” product/initiative failed just a couple years later (see https://bicycledesign.net/2010/03/no-longer-coasting/). While it’s not 100% clear why it failed, there are a number of possibilities: people who don’t bike really have an issue with road safety rather than bike design, the company failed to take into account the findings about bike shops being intimidating (just focusing on the product instead), Shimano was a bike technology company looking for a bike technology solution in a situation where that might not be the most helpful. I actually think the failure to some extent reinforces some of Brown’s points about design thinking, since it seems whatever happened it was in part because of failure to truly understand the problem from the user perspective.
Taylor Dansby
I’m always curious to read articles on the design process. The article’s design choices convey the knowledge it is attempting to share and can impact the author’s credibility. The way core concepts are conveyed graphically illustrates the depth of understanding and competence.
In this case, I was so distracted by the article’s design, layout, and graphics that I found it to be less useful than the author intended. The chart on page five is a great illustration of how confusing the author is on this subject. A quality graphic should be able to communicate to the reader in a few seconds effectively. They should not distract from the content of the text, or worse, undermine credibility.
Joe Pickering
I enjoyed this article by Tim Brown. The design thinking process highlighted in the article emphasizes the importance of a human-centered approach. We cannot create a product or a service unless we truly understand the customer’s needs and motivations. Once we have an understanding of the target audience needs and wants, it makes the innovation process a lot easier. However, this cannot be done without “a great deal of perspiration.”
The bike analogy (Shimano) resonated with me. Rather than guessing what the consumer wanted in a bike, they got out there and spoke with the 90% of Americans who didn’t ride a bike. Through this process, they learned the problems that customers faced and factors preventing them from buying a bike. Suddenly, it becomes an awful lot easier to innovate a new design when you know what the target audience is after.
The traditional concept of an innovator was broken down within this article, and Brown did a good job of breaking down the key characteristics of what it actually takes and how this is achievable. Empathy was a crucial part of this process as it related to understanding the customer. Collaboration was also worth mentioning as this process cannot be achieved successfully alone. Finally, optimism was another characteristic. Failure is an inevitable and necessary component of the design thinking process. Optimism will prevent innovators from quitting before they reach their success.
I also think the graphic provided in the article broke down each step in a very simple and understandable way. This clarity helped me visualize the whole process much easier.
Ahmed Ali
This article does a great job of inspiring the inner design thinker in the reader. I liked the example that was given about nurses and the simple changes that were made to improve their shifts as well as the clients they serve. It supports my big take away from the article od debunking the “myth of the creative genius.” I believe society makes us believe that innovators are born with this ability to innovate when in reality, they may just have a better understanding of the design process. Adding to that point is the idea of collaboration when innovating. Brown begins by sharing an example of Thomas Edison, and how the inventor surrounded himself with skilled experimenters. This again breaks the traditional idea of the “lone genius.”
Melissa Lobosco
Several items in the design thinking article attracted my attention. The idea that a prototype’s function is to “elicit feedback and evolve an idea”, but that it doesn’t need to complex and expensive, resonated with me as I begin my own design thinking processes. Additionally, I appreciated the Kaiser case study for its demonstration that an innovation’s degree of impact is not directly correlated to its process size. Through human-centered design, the Kaiser nurses were effectual in increasing their “productivity, satisfaction, and their patient’s experiences”, without implementing large process changes.
As a read the different examples of design thinking, I continue to reflect on how it remains so challenging to bring innovative change to our K-12 school design. The systemic view of school’s purpose is largely instructionist in nature and its calendar is based on an antiquated set of societal needs. Innovation at the macro level elicits strong resistance for a myriad of reasons.
Elyse Smith
I think what it important for me to keep in mind when thinking about contributing to these large problems is that there isn’t one grand idea that will strike in the middle of the night. There is a lot of brainstorming and group work that goes into developing solutions. There will also be parts of our ideas that fail and need to be re-evaluated. That is a difficult idea for me. We are trained to think that an initial failure is a permanent failure, and that isn’t true. This also goes with the personality traits needed to participate in a design thinking team. These were an interesting thing to keep in mind when thinking about how we can best serve our fellow students and colleagues when in the class and in our careers. It certainly made me think about times when committees I have participated on have captured some portion of this process.
Laketta Jackson
I enjoyed reading about how collaborative design thinking seems to be. Not only is a collaborative spirit one of the characteristics of design thinkers, the examples given in the article mention how collaboration was often key to success. Perhaps the most interesting thing is how the collaboration is interdisciplinary. It makes sense to consult with people from various fields that may have expertise in some facet of your project. When looking to design a new bike, Shimano consulted designers, engineers, marketers, scientists, etc. to ensure the success of the product. The depth of knowledge that comes from interdisciplinary collaboration is significant, and is simply not discussed enough when we talk about the success of products and companies. The American ideal of individualism seems to shun this type of teamwork, but it is always relieving to hear as an educator that many fields still look heavily to working with and alongside others.
Petra
I really enjoyed reading about the design thinking process. In the past, designers used to work on basically finished products, while today they are asked to come up with ideas. Here are some points I really liked about the process
– it is more about hard work and focus on human needs rather than ‘’a sudden breakthrough or the lightning strike of genius’’
-the process doesn’t necessarily have orderly steps – it goes through spaces
– the bank example – ”Keep the Change creates an experience that feels natural because it models behavior that many of us already exhibit.” This shows that focusing on human needs is extremely important. They didn’t specifically come up with a new idea, they just used it in a different way.
Amanda Luz
I really would like to highlight the part where Brown tells us a design thinker’s personality profile. Usually, when we hear the fascination about design thinkin, we like to talk about geniuses or people with a lot of tech and design experience. It seems intangible. But it takes, as he says, empathy, integrative thinking, experimentalism, and collaboration. And these are characteristics that are not a given, but it is a result of constant practice.
Diane Boswell
I thought the quote by Daniel Pink about how “abundance has satisfied the material needs of millions – boosting the significance of beauty and emotion and accelerating individuals’ search for meaning” really resonated with me. Coming from a corporate background the “customer experience” was always the driving force when it came to customer engagements of any kind.
This quote reminds me that until the basic needs of ALL students are met (to feel seen, known and secure), we will be less effective in creating learning environments that allow them to discover how to construct their own knowledge.
Savannah Windham
One thing that struck me from the article was the mention of “optimism” as a strong trait for a designer thinker (listed on 3 under “A Design Thinker’s Personality Profile.” The reason for including optimism was that if you’re optimistic, you believe at least one potential solution for a design problem can be found. This seems like a simple or obvious statement, but this resonated with me because it reminded me of the incredible amount of negativity present in my colleagues when I taught for 5 years in a public high school. I think it’s important for educators AND designers, regardless of their circumstances and resources available to teach or solve problems, to remain optimistic, otherwise why are you in the profession? We need to truly believe we can solve complex problems so that the possibility of solving complex problems can exist.
Alexandra Lewis
I like how the article presents Design Thinking as something that can be taught and utilize across careers and institutions. The experience of Kaiser nurses’ made me rethink what Design Thinking means. It does not only apply to a tangible product, but also to service. To me, it seems that the most important part of the Design Thinking process is the culture in which the process takes place. In a normal hospital, nurses aren’t typically the ones making administrative or structural changes even though they are the ones that would benefit from such changes. Design thinking seems to work best when there is no hierarchy of power.
Devon Young
I think this article does a great job unpacking the mystery of design thinking. At its core, design thinking is a natural way of working for most people. However, when I think about empathy I think about understanding someone else fully. What makes them tick, what do they love, what do they value – these are questions you should be able to answer if you’ve done thoughtful empathy work. If your empathy work is rooted in understanding that person as a consumer (i.e. to design something to make a profit), is that actually empathy? Design thinking asks people not to jump to a solution – but if your intended outcome is purely capitalistic, is that authentic empathy? I struggle with design thinking used for capitalist pursuits, and think it might muddle the meaning behind human-centered design. Let’s say you are designing something for Bank of America, and you have an amazing innovation that would help customers. However, this innovation would cost lots of money and make BofA miss their quarterly target or fiscal goals. What then? If you’re in a profit-generating business, what gets left behind in the design thinking process?
Michael Berro
The article did a good job highlighting the evolution and potential benefits of applying design thinking. In the case of nursing, both patients and nurses had better experiences, but were there other groups, IT that now had more work, or would the increased efficiency of nurses lead to potential layoffs due to perceived overstaffing. I would like to believe in the rosy picture presented in the article and hope that’s the case, but I guess I’m a bit cynical. I did notice that none of the case studies took on “wicked” problems or at least they did not address what new costs and drawbacks that would appear in the design process. In that regard, I’m curious to see examples in which the designers have to weigh the benefits of a new inventions or systems against its costs when approaching “wicked” problems.
Marvin Espinoza
1. Don’t just build a product. Build an experience
2. The people affected by the decision-making, or processes, or product–they should be involved in the designing and change
3. Design-thinking empowers people, because they have a say in decisions (#2)
4. Design-process is inherently collaborative and interdisciplinary. No such thing as lone-wolf. It’s so limited.
Bronwyn manley
What always jumps out at me when I read about design thinking and innovation is ‘collaboration’ yet we continue to do this so poorly. “Innovation should factor in behaviour, needs and preferences” and it “will capture insights and produce innovation that more precisely reflects what consumers want”. It has been 4 months since covid shut the USA down and disrupted the education of billions of people. Schools and universities jumped to make contingencies yet for majority of classes at well regarded University I attend outside of UNC the solution to covid is “synchronous study via zoom”. A complete lack of design thinking and wrought with to issues relating to educational design, student motivation, leaning and learning outcomes, quality, access, equity, zoom fatigue, mental health, privacy, engagement. As an outsider looking in I’m listening for the student voice . I’m also looking for designers, educators, ed tech specialists, lecturers and faculty. Design thinking happens quickly and perhaps during covid it would be unreasonable to expect a polished product in 4 months however perhaps if the principles of design thinking were adopted from the start the interim solution would be a solution meeting both student and faculty needs. Perhaps to the high std of remote education we are experiencing in this seminar which clearly has included a human centred approach.
Taylor Brown
I really liked how this article tried to make design thinking actionable for readers. On page 8, the author listed 8 ways to make design thinking part of the process, and I was really drawn to a few of their points. It was interesting to me how the author mentioned the importance of the human factor in design thinking. I think we often try to solve problems algorithmically, and that leaves out super important factors. At my job, we always talk about technology is only as useful as it feels to users – even the simplest platform won’t be implemented if it feels too hard or obsolete. So even the “best” solution can be ignored if it isn’t the best solution for the people. Which would mean it isn’t the best solution. I like that design thinking considers that.
Ebenezer
I really enjoyed reading about the different processes that people working on the ground improved upon. It reminded me of the Shopping Cart IDEO video we watched in Dr. Ryoo’s class. The CEO of IDEO gave a nod to the people who experience the products innovators create because they have the most information about those products, and have the best idea of how to improve them. The team who thought to create a more efficient process, like collecting change, ended up creating something that made people’s lives better, and that made Bank of America more money in the process.
This references and allusions towards Steve Jobs (the iPhone and the “guy in the turtleneck sweater”) give me the thought that we are both blessed and cursed for living through the invention of the iPhone. While Apple makes amazing products (I’m currently typing on my MacBook Pro with an iPhone in my pocket, and my iPad close by), I also think he set a high precedent for innovation, so much that it might give us the wrong definition of an “innovator”. An innovator doesn’t need to be someone with a deep knowledge base in coding and programming. They can be career teachers, medical professionals, an 8-year-old using Scratch.
Susan Elwood
The “Design Thinker’s Personality Profile” best attracted my attention. I agree with and have experienced empathy, optimism, experimentalism, and collaboration. The “integrative thinking,” as defined, speaks deeper to me:
“They not only rely on analytical processes (those that produce either/ or choices) but also exhibit the ability to see all of the salient—and sometimes contradictory—aspects of a confounding problem and create novel solutions that go beyond and dramatically improve on existing alternatives”
This takes open-ended solution invitation to a deeper level through “novel solutions” that “dramatically improve on existing alternatives,” much like the current education field’s world state of doing business within the “new normal” context. I’m excited about entering the innovative possibilities era of education!
Sheri
I greatly appreciate the Design Thinker’s Personality Profile. In my current context of experimenting with my future teachers finishing their tutoring lab with an elementary student online rather than in our Reading and Math Center, most are excited and optimistic, even though they are nervous about how it might work. But two (of 18) have already decided it will not work and shouldn’t even be attempted. So, the personality characteristic of optimism jumped out at me right away! I am excited by this wicked problem!
Aaron
I like the look at the characteristics of a design thinker. They remind me, and I feel are aligned with Deweyan characteristics for educators – specifically experimentalism and integrative thinking – seeing the classroom not as a separate content focus, but one where all knowledge is used to solve problems.