Comstock's magazine 1119 - November 2019 | Page 73

THE ORIGINS OF DESIGN THINKING
Any discussion of design thinking usually circles back to Ideo,
the global design and consulting company cofounded in 1991
by Stanford professor David Kelley. Ideo is widely credited
with popularizing design thinking, and the company helped
spearhead the formation of the influential D.school at Stan-
ford, where the methodology is taught to college students
and professionals alike. The company says design thinking
has three essential pillars.
1. Empathy: getting to know the needs of those who
you’re designing for
2. Ideation: generating plenty of ideas
3. Experimentation: testing those ideas, most often via a
basic and inexpensive prototype of some kind
If it is well-executed, design thinking can lead to innova-
tive solutions. According to Ideo, you start with a key question,
then gather inspiration, and push past obvious solutions until
you arrive at a breakthrough. Design thinking is anything but
easy. It requires plenty of thinking and action, aka iterating.
Design thinking isn’t the only way to be innovative, and
there is no shortage of critics. In a recent essay on Medium.
com by Lee Vinsel, a professor at Virginia Tech’s Department
of Science, Technology, and Society, titled “Design Think-
ing is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your
Brains,” he writes that being confused about design thinking
“is a common reaction to a ‘movement’ that’s little more than
floating balloons of jargon, full of hot air.”
Responding to criticisms, Ideo partner Michael Hendrix
says in a 2018 Fast Company story that many people use the
methodology in superficial ways, and work cultures that
don’t foster trust are bound to fail somewhere along the
design-thinking paths. “There is a real need to build respect
for one another and trust in the safety of sharing ideas so
you can move forward,” Hendrix says in the story. “Know-
ing when to bring judgments is important. Cultures that are
highly judgy, that have hierarchy, that are rewarding the
person who is the smartest person in the room, don’t do well
with this kind of methodology.”
Linda Naiman, founder of Vancouver, British Columbia-
based Creativity at Work, recently was in Sacramento to
teach design thinking to board members of a professional
association, which she declined to identify. “They have chal-
lenges in their industry, and some of what they do is lobby
to the government,” Naiman says. “They have complex prob-
lems and are thinking about the future. They wanted to learn
about design thinking because it is future focused.”
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November 2019 | comstocksmag.com
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