Year 4

Design Thinking

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Design Thinking Quote

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Design thinking:

When individualized and broken down it forms segments and compartments that fit together to create its process. Unlike the Design Process, Design Thinking can have multiple aspects that contribute to its process. After reading articles from Harvard Business review and the Creative Works Community and onward, i’ve begun to see a pattern. Like puzzle pieces, Design Thinking fits pieces together to create an overall image and or solution. But what is unique about these pieces is that they can be folded and shaped to fit almost any scenario a designer is confronted with.

A way that I see design thinking being utilized is by breaking it down into usable, specific and portioned pieces. These pieces when not fitted can be rearranged in and out of a process and considered as tools. Similar to a tool box, Design thinking is like a tool box in which each of these tools reside. And then used when applicable to build certain things.

For example: If I were to create a website I would categories where each tool of design thinking would be applied. I would utilize user insights and thoughts before building the layout and I would make a Web canvas, showing all the detailed design considerations, before I start laying out my designs. Exactly how a mechanic would gather his parts before building a car.

Overall I think designers could approach design thinking as a tool box. With tools that can be replaced, upgraded and or retired based on what they’re building.

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“The Rise of Design Thinking...”

This reading was not only thoughtful but also detailed attentively to what a person would need to understand Design Thinking at its framework. I think it was efficient in explaining a process that outlined the best practices and also the theory behind Design Thinking and why it’s needed. But what was most interesting to me was the insights from the ShiftX questionnaire. When Chandra Allison explained the reshaping of how they focus on client projects it gave a real-world context to how design thinking shapes industries. “...canvas spaces such as our expo halls allow for community villages to be built...” This quote was a strange puzzle that came together in my mind once the goal of Allison’s words had been further explained. Her goal was not purely based on a singular experience but a developing hub that clients can use to create their own experience. Which in a way to me explained how we, as design thinkers, are changing our client’s role within Design and how they interact with the overall experience of our Designs. 

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Three Weeks of Branding

To say that designing to create a brand is complex would be a profound understatement. Over the past three weeks, while designing a brand for my Graphic Design Grad Class, I’ve realized that branding for any market is exceedingly complicated. But having to define an environment that you personally interact with but don’t critically think about is a whole new can of worms. Finding the balance of inputting useful concepts while filtering through unnecessary ones was like trying to take thirteen puzzles and combining them into one... (good luck!). An idea would come to mind and then be thrown into the bin because it wasn’t encompassing enough of our group personality. Or an idea would sprout up and after working on it for a few hours I would realize it was entirely too generic. Having to narrow down the key message, aesthetic, considerations etc. to a standard design identity had me severely critiquing my process of accessing my work and the goal of my designs. I think this was a project that pushed me out of my comfort zone as a designer and that to me was terrifying and great at the same time.  I look forward to more projects that challenge me similarly. I think that growing out of comfort zones and stepping outside the box is a big part of Design thinking.  

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Design Thinking Thoughts

Over the last few weeks on learning about Design Thinking, I have come to see that each step within the process has its merits. Now, this seems obvious, but when you design within the process of these steps it becomes clear that there is a detailed complexity to each one. The process at first seems like a 1 + 2 = 3 equation. But what I’ve discovered is that the equations outcome is not dependent solely on the attributed values you place within it. There can be undermining factors that you don’t think of, UX considerations that are left till further along in the process, mishaps within the user or client process of using your product, etc. Design thinking as a methodology can help people approach problems but the moral of this post is that Design Thinking won’t always give you an equation that will solve the specific problem your working on. Perhaps this isn't its purpose, potentially I have begun to see it as the intention of problem-solving not the steps of problem-solving.

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Design Thinking

The video was eye opening and inspiring in a lot of ways. Design Thinking wasn’t necessarily defined or spelled out, but more so explained via the processes its used for. Each interviewed persons’ account is different from the next yet similar to each other. The video does a great job in highlighting this by jumping form one interview to another and accentuating the similarities in the conversations.

Hearing what professionals had to say about the processes and systems they use in order to create solutions was at moments relatable and humbling. Understanding that their process’s were at times “meant to define the question” and not necessarily the solution, built a better understand for me of what Design Thinking is. Not only did it generate an understanding but it also constructed, in my mind, the differences between Design Thinking and the Design Process. One highlights the path towards a solution while the other works to define a problem worth solving. We as designers, potentially, should use one before the other and that one would be Design Thinking.

Overall the video initiated new considerations that I will add to my own Design Process and promote different forms of research I wish to pursue. The clarity found will discussing and exploring Design Thinking has become invaluable and I find that it is extremely applicable to many aspects of work and life. The Design Process is a tool in order to (hopefully) generate useful solutions, Design Thinking is a way to approach worthy problems within experiences.

“…Now when the government came to us and asked us to redesign the ballot we said we wouldn’t redesign the ballot. But what we would do is redesign the election experience…”

This quote instilled, what I believe to be, the Design Thinking principles and values to a relatable experience. It became an example that I now use when analyzing experiences and hoping to find the bigger picture behind the problems I see.

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Is Design thinking BS BS*

After watching and then proceeding to read both authors input on design thinking I’ve come to the conclusion that both have valid points. Each author, Natasha Jen and Richard Banfield, had crucial points on how design thinking has effected the design community. But when discussing the terms as to whom I agree with more I believe I hold more interest in Bandfields response. While critiquing the Design Thinking process, Jen, spoke out against many subjects within the Design thinking process with what I believe was a bias. Due to her having work in a firm that was renowned for its thinking I believe she made some general statements that weren’t all out true. And her persuasive argument was hinted with statements that sounded as if she were stating how proper design is to be implemented. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are principles and standards in which need to be followed and met, but I also believe that the very basis of design calls for a uniqueness of process that each designer decide. Overall I call bull p** on Jens talk and but I don’t believe it was completely sh*t.

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Design Thinking

When illistrating the design thinking project I wanted to incorporate simplicity and fun. I also wanted to encourag curiosity so that a viewer would be interested in what these images meant, hence no text. This illustration demonstares the design thinking process;

1. Inspiration

We begin most projects by being inspried while our heads are in the clouds.

2. Ideation

Ideation is where we use our brain power to manufacture processes and accumulate information.

3. Implementation

This is where we launch our ideas into progress towards finding and design solutions.

This three step process is part of the foundation to any design solution.