Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is Bullsh*t

Summary

The speaker, a practicing graphic designer, critiques the buzzword 'design thinking' for its lack of critical discourse within the design community. They argue that the popular five-step process is overly simplistic and lacks the essential critique phase. The speaker also criticizes the reduction of design to a single tool like 3M Post-Its and calls for a return to the evidence-based, iterative design process that leads to meaningful improvement and innovation.

Takeaways

• 🔍 The speaker is a practicing graphic designer who is critical of the current buzzword status and lack of criticism around 'design thinking'.
• 🔑 The term 'design thinking' is often visualized as a linear process with five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
• 🤔 The speaker points out that 'crit' or critical feedback is missing from the design thinking process, which is essential for improvement and evaluation.
• 📌 There is a concern that design thinking has been reduced to a single tool, the 3M Post-It, which oversimplifies the complexity and diversity of design tools and methods.
• 📚 Design thinking is traced back to its origins, starting from Herbert Simon and Robert McKim's work on visual thinking to its incorporation into various fields by architects and educators.
• 🛠 The Oxo Good Grips example illustrates the iterative process and tangible evidence necessary for critique and improvement in design thinking.
• 🚫 The speaker criticizes the use of design thinking in obvious scenarios, such as decorating an MRI room for children or rebranding a product for a younger audience, questioning the necessity of a complex process for such tasks.
• 📈 The speaker argues that design thinking has become a checkbox item rather than a meaningful methodology, and that it has been co-opted by adjacent fields opportunistically.
• 🏛 The historical context provided shows that renowned designers like Charles and Ray Eames and Steve Jobs did not rely on the current design thinking process but on intuition and learning by doing.
• 🗣 The speaker calls for a more critical approach to design thinking, urging practitioners to share tangible evidence and outcomes for critique and improvement.
• 👥 The speaker emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with evidence and engaging in critique as a means to elevate the quality of design work.

Q & A

What is the speaker's profession and how do they describe their practice?

The speaker is a practicing graphic designer. They describe their practice as extremely wide, ranging from Brand Identity Design to exhibition, publication, motion, and so forth.

What is the speaker's main concern about the term 'design thinking'?

The speaker's main concern about 'design thinking' is the complete lack of criticism on it in today's society and particularly in the design community.

How is design thinking typically visualized and what are the five steps involved?

Design thinking is typically visualized as five steps represented in a linear fashion, often as hexagons. The steps are empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test.

What is missing from the design thinking process as described by the speaker?

According to the speaker, the critical step of design criticism, or 'crit', is missing from the design thinking process.

What does the speaker find problematic about the current representation of design thinking?

The speaker finds it problematic that design thinking is now reduced to a single tool, the 3M Post-It, and that it packages the designer's way of working into a prescriptive step-by-step approach for non-designers.

What is the speaker's definition of design thinking in its current form?

The speaker defines current design thinking as a packaging of the designer's way of working for a non-designer audience, codifying their processes into a prescriptive step-by-step approach to creative problem-solving, claiming it can be applied by anyone to any problems.

Who are some of the key figures mentioned in the script that have contributed to the development of design thinking?

Key figures mentioned include Herbert Simon, Robert McKim, Bryan Lawson, Nigel Cross, Peter Rowe, Rolf Faste, David Kelley, and Richard Buchanan.

What example is given to illustrate the iterative process of design thinking?

The Oxo Good Grips example is given to illustrate the iterative process of design thinking, showing how the product went through many levels of iterations to accommodate different user needs.

What does the speaker believe is the outcome of reducing design thinking to a diagram?

The speaker believes that reducing design thinking to a diagram makes it difficult to understand the outcome, and without an outcome, it is impossible to critique how good the design thinking process is.

What is the speaker's view on the current state of design in the world?

The speaker believes that design has become a box that people just want to check off, and that designers need to be critical of this trend.

What challenge does the speaker issue to design thinking practitioners?

The speaker challenges design thinking practitioners to share the evidence, results, and outcomes of their work, allowing for critique and commentary to see where design thinking can improve.