What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is the cognitive process associated with new concept development. It looks at problems collaboratively to garner a deeper understanding. The objective of design thinking is to address difficult problems through:

• Framing Problems – Exploring the problem, recognizing the context, and reorganizing and restructuring the problem in pursuit of a method of addressing the problem or a solution.
• Focus on Solutions – Solution-focused cognitive strategies are distinct from problem-focused strategies (scientific). This allows an alternative approach to understanding the problem at hand.
• Abductive Reasoning – Inferring solutions to a problem from information, experience, and non-deductive methods of thinking. This generally includes elements of emotion or affect in the reasoning process, rather than just logic.
• Modeling – This concerns the translation of abstract concepts to fixed, concrete objects.

Note: Creative designers go back and forth between their understanding of the context and their focus on solutions to better understand the problem at hand. The effect is a deeper understanding of the problem and the generation of more ideas as solutions. There is a heavy focus on observation and inquiry. Design thinking concerns such processes as:

• Context analysis
• Problem finding
• Ideation
• Creative thinking
• Modeling
• Prototyping
• Testing and Evaluating

What are the Phases of Design Thinking in Innovation?

Researchers Plattner, Meinel, and Leider developed a 5-phase model for the design innovation process:

• Redefining the problem
• Needfinding and Benchmarking
• Ideating
• Building
• Testing

Interestingly, these steps make up a system for design thinking, rather than a step-by-step approach.