Week 3 Design thinking and process - part 2 - Design Thinking

This week's reading discusses possible definitions for 'design thinking'. However it could not finalise one meaning for it because 'design thinking' is different for people in different professions, who also design.

Reading:

Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I

Christopher Alexander suggests design thinking as the application of tangible objects and practical and traditional skills and methods to produce a final physical product (tangible and intangible). This product could be for fashion, furniture, buildings, and more. Herbert Simon considers design thinking more so as using knowledge and abductive reasoning to come up with possible solutions to ill-defined problems. This methodology applies to various occupations such as management and engineering, where the professionals have to solve relative problems based on their knowledge, and seeking different possible ways to manage the problem. He sees design thinking as having the mindset to generate a 'desired state of affairs'.[1]

Buchanan believes that design thinking is putting consideration into 4 orders: signs, things, actions, and thoughts.[2] This perhaps suggests the ability to evaluate and analyse of how a solution should look like, what meaning it carries, how the end-user could interact with and think about the product. In other words, the designed artefact's meaning and effectiveness depends on the end-user. [3]

Robert Bauer and Ward Eagan think that design thinking is not being analytical and making judgements of the situation, but rather representing the epistemology of creative work. The designer has to be knowledgeable to how their end-product can make good use of. Therefore creating an organisational resource.[4]

The video "Design and Thinking"[5] states that designers are good at exploring alternatives and different ideas to reach the best solution to a complex problem with many constraints.The world is constantly changing and they need to adapt to their designs to current situations. They need to think of solutions using intuition. All of this require practical skills and physical workshops to create prototypes for testing, and environment for designers to work together and with others to get inspiration from different disciplines, and to understand the problem better. Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO defines ‘design thinking’ as

“applying methodologies and approaches of design and designers to a broader set of issues and problems in business, and society.”[6]

From the reading, Brown also describes it as human centred. It is responding to challenges with innovation and dealing with public issues using explorations. Design thinking involves the iterative process of combining inspiration, ideation , and implementation to create opportunities within problems.  Design thinking requires empathy and understanding of different perspective of end users and the problems. Successful design considers: desirability from users’ perspective, convenience of product, and practicality for organisation.[7]

A really interesting part from the video was the bridge example; the idea of a bridge is different for someone needs a bridge to walk across a physical body of water, compared to someone wanting to send a message across. Therefore it is important to understand and consider the end-user's needs.

The video also reinforces that designers should travel and go to places in order to experience different cultures, so that they will know how to make meanings of their designs, and appropriately introduce them to their target audience.[8]

Tutorial:

We discussed that a design can have as much value as the product which it's embedded on. For example, a small 'Tommy Hilfiger' logo on a plain t-shirt increases the value of that t-shirt. This is because people put values on things depending on the brands. These values are determined because of how people are cultured and advertised to think of the brands.

We then discussed how 'design thinking' was applied to the bike-share initiation in China.[9]

We discussed 4 questions:

What problem Is being solved?
More efficient way of travelling. Can just rent and leave it anywhere, not obligated by responsibility to care for it. If the bike breaks the renter is not responsible.
Economical issue- cheaper for people who can’t affect to buy and maintain a bike. They can just rent it for whenever they need to use it.
Can be independent. Can rent it whenever and can return it whenever, no timed obligation.

What solution has been provided? 
Scooters, mode of transport available everywhere for any time.

How was the solution implemented?
An app to rent the bike on the mobile devices. Tracker of locations places to rent the bike.
What are some of the biggest issues regarding this solution and what hasn’t been considered?
Only one per scooter.
Weight limit.
The bicycles were dumped anywhere and everywhere, on footpaths and at places that are dangerous to others.

What to learn as aspiring designers from this activity: designers have to consider how to implement their design and monitor their design artefacts so that it fits into the specific culture, and that it does not develop worse problems. Culture affects how a designer should come up with solutions.

Writer: Megatron

____________________________

[1] Lucy Kimbell, ‘Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I,’ Design and Culture 3, no. 3, pp. 291,
https://doi.org/10.2752/175470811X13071166525216.

[2] Ibid., 292.

[3] Ibid., 300.

[4] Ibid., 295.

[5] "Design and Thinking," Muris Media, Kanopy, 2012, accessed April 6, 2020,
https://unisa.kanopy.com/product/design-and-thinking.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Kimbell, "Rethinking," 294.
[8] Kanopy, "Design and Thinking."
[9] Alan Taylor, "The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles." The Atlanic, 2018, accessed April 12, 2020,
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/.

Bibliography

Kanopy. "Design and Thinking." Muris Media, 2012. Accessed April 12, 2020.
https://unisa.kanopy.com/product/design-and-thinking.

Kimbell, L 2011, ‘Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I.' Design and Culture 3, no. 3, pp. 285–306.

Taylor, A. "The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles." The Atlantic, 2018. Accessed April 12, 2020.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/.