Design thinking is not just about creating beautiful objects but also about problem solving

by Makarand Kulkarni

Most often, designers are seen as crafting good looking things, with the primary task of increasing sales. Increasingly, design thinkers are challenging this view.

IDEO’s David Kelley, one of design’s known faces, has spent a lifetime demonstrating the power of design as an approach to problem solving and organized innovation. The application of strategic design tools to solve seemingly complex problems of humanity is now called ‘Design Thinking’.

How is it different from a scientific method of arriving at solutions?

The latter is based on defining the parameters to come up with universal rules that will dictate the solution. In the former, a large diversity is brought in and supported through collaborative groups. This way the problem itself gets restated, always bringing about out-of-the-box solutions.

Everyone talks about human centered design but what does that really mean?

When design and innovation evolve around what humans really need, businesses prosper. Well, what is so new about this? Businesses are meant to service what people want. The answer lies in how businesses really use design. In most companies, design comes towards the end of the product development process where a designer finally puts a nice cover on an idea that is ready. Contrast this with a situation where designers, along with marketers and business managers, observe people and help redefine the need. This leads to completely new paradigms on solutions.

Why do designers need to come in early in business strategy?

Kelley, in his interview in a Stanford publication says, ‘When we think of software designers, we picture them in front of the screen. When we think of product designers, we think of them making prototypes. When we think of fashion designers, we picture them cutting out the fabric and making a dress. The key point of design takes place before any of those activities occur, and it requires making an uncomfortable leap, uncomfortable even for the most fluid and flexible people. This leap is the act that needs to come before implementation’. Designers are very comfortable with handling the messy part that comes with deciding what is to be done in a solution based approach rather than ‘definition-of-theproblem’. In Kelley’s words, ‘The designer has a dream that goes beyond what exists, rather than fixing what exists’.

What is the potential of design thinking and how will it change the world?

This is just the beginning of design being accepted as a strategic business tool and potentially, design thinking can bring about a radical change in the ways organizations innovate and governments run. Kelley’s colleague at IDEO and one of the biggest exponents of Design

Thinking today sums it up: What’s missing from the debate right now is that much of our discussion is about what we have to give up, or how we have to make choices among unattractive alternatives. The role of design thinking is to put new choices in the world. We look at people and their needs, and create new ideas and insights. Imagine if we could get government thinking that way --- not just to serve but to innovate, to make the world a better place!

The author is Design Director at Ether Design, Bangalore