In the context of my teaching we talk a lot about Design Thinking. Recently me and my colleague held a seminar with 3rd year BA students on the theme of ‘Design Thinking is Bullshit’ based on a recently published article in the MIT Technology Review. In the article, Rebecca Ackermann (2023) criticises the clean processed of Design Thinking – invented by Tim Brown, IDEO – for the design thinking process resulting in unrealistic and ungrounded recommendations.
Design thinking tools are mostly geared towards the ideation, the start of a product or services development process but not to its conclusion or even its aftermath. Ackermann suggests to replace empathy with ‘make and care’. The discussion in class about this topic turned heated. Students are longing for the skills or frameworks to plan for effects of their work beyond a project’s completion.
During the discussion, one student refers to Natasha Jen’s Design Indaba talk with the title Design Thinking is Bullshit (2018). The student recognises, that design is not about problem-solving necessarily and that it would be too grand of a statement that them as design managers can save the world. Another student raises concerns that she researched the background of Tim Brown and feels that he is not inclusive in the way he speaks about people from different backgrounds and different genders and that she fails to see why she should follow a process which has been developed by someone who does not hold the same values as them.
In my own experience working with different design agencies I saw that each of them has their own process – their own way of selling their design strategy to their clients. Each of them compared next to each other is slightly different but at the core very similar, akin to the Design Council’s (2019) double diamond. Students find these individual differences of approaches important. They want to learn and create their own identity and find their own process to design. It was a valuable lessen to reconsider what standards we teach.
Ackermann, R. (2023) ‘Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?’ MIT Technology Review. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/09/1067821/design-thinking-retrospective-what-went-wrong/ (Accessed: 23 March 2023)
Design Council (2019) ‘Framework for Innovation: Design Council’s evolved Double Diamond’. Design Council. Available at: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/skills-learning/tools-frameworks/framework-for-innovation-design-councils-evolved-double-diamond/ (Accessed: 23 March 2023)
Jen, N. (2018) ‘Design Thinking is Bullsh*t’. Design Indaba. Available at: https://youtu.be/V8gjDsW3lsY (Accessed: 23 March 2023)