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Design Thinking - Explained

What is Design Thinking?

Written by Jason Gordon

Updated at April 16th, 2022

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Table of Contents

What is Design Thinking?What are the Phases of Design Thinking in Innovation?

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.
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Back to: RESEARCH, ANALYSIS, & DECISION SCIENCE

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.

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