Friday, December 7, 2012

Adopting Design Thinking

I was scouring old information and decks today and found some slides/decks that, although fairly basic and targeted at the design thinking initiate, were still pretty relevant to the practice of trying to get non-believers to understand why design thinking matters, and what kind of difference it can make.


Traditional vs. Design Thinking
The first was this slide from an Innovation & Delight slide deck that sums up the differences in simple terms:

Of course, it's one matter to understand the concepts here, and another one entirely to actually be able to act upon these every day. Or, better yet, inspire others to start behaving like a design thinker.


How Design Thinking is Different from UX Design
The second is this deck from Sylvain Cottong on the differences between UX design, service design, and design thinking:


Overall this isn't anything that is new to a UX or design thinking practitioner, but looking at it from the lens of someone whose organization is not converted or equipped just yet to convert to using design thinking as a matter of course, it had some clear details about what is and what isn't different facets of design, and why one should care.

It was published in 2009, so there are certainly some things in there that I wouldn't agree with (particularly some of the definitions of design thinking on page 53), and some things that have definitely withstood the past 3 years (slide 58).

Particularly worth a skim for anyone thinking about doing UX (the first section on UX is pretty comprehensive), and understanding how design thinking is gradually moving forward business.


Why Design Thinking Matters
Finally, another deck, this one from Jan Schmiedgen, focused on introducing design thinking to the business-minded (he calls them "convergent thinkers" -- haha):


A great summary, I thought, of arguments for design thinking. (I bet there were several illustrative stories told to accompany this presentation.) Toward the end, starting on slide 74, he gets into highlighting the differences between traditional business thinking and design thinking. I particularly liked the quote on page 89; it really highlights the gap we have today and where we could be.

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