Design Thinking: IDEO's Ever-Expanding Survey
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 7:12 am
In the 1960s, interest in the systematic and intuitive methods that the disciplines of industrial design, engineering and architecture use in their design activities grew . The “soft systems” that Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall developed to address the problems of everyday life were one of the first results of this reflection. By identifying the recurring patterns underlying human activities, these cyclical learning systems allowed us to explore the real world in all its complexity, to interpret the perceptions of the various actors involved and to decide, on the basis of these preliminary considerations, which actions to implement.
In their Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning (1973) Horst Rittel and Melvin israel whatsapp resource Webber demonstrate how design and planning problems are in fact “ wicked problems ”, particularly complicated and difficult to solve, very different from the tamed (“tame”) problems that are treated by individual scientific disciplines. Design Thinking, which uses its own methods, different from those with which science and academia traditionally think and communicate, is recognized with a different status but equal dignity, identifying its specific field of application in everyday obstacles.
In the 1980s, a concept of human - centered design emerged alongside an idea of business management that exploited the artistic and intuitive processes typical of design thinking to pursue business objectives.
In the twenty-first century, Design Thinking is gaining popularity and finding ever greater space in the specialized press. Topics such as the creation of design-focused workplaces , the adaptation of the design approach to services, or the development of innovation strategies are explored both by sector research and by dedicated courses organized by management schools and by companies themselves. In universities, Design Thinking is adopted as the privileged way to produce the conditions that are most likely to allow the development of technical and social innovation.
“Design thinking is not just a process. It’s an ever-expanding inquiry.” So says Sandy Speicher, CEO of IDEO, the company that created the Apple mouse forty years ago and has since set the design thinking guidelines that organizations around the world still follow today.
In their Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning (1973) Horst Rittel and Melvin israel whatsapp resource Webber demonstrate how design and planning problems are in fact “ wicked problems ”, particularly complicated and difficult to solve, very different from the tamed (“tame”) problems that are treated by individual scientific disciplines. Design Thinking, which uses its own methods, different from those with which science and academia traditionally think and communicate, is recognized with a different status but equal dignity, identifying its specific field of application in everyday obstacles.
In the 1980s, a concept of human - centered design emerged alongside an idea of business management that exploited the artistic and intuitive processes typical of design thinking to pursue business objectives.
In the twenty-first century, Design Thinking is gaining popularity and finding ever greater space in the specialized press. Topics such as the creation of design-focused workplaces , the adaptation of the design approach to services, or the development of innovation strategies are explored both by sector research and by dedicated courses organized by management schools and by companies themselves. In universities, Design Thinking is adopted as the privileged way to produce the conditions that are most likely to allow the development of technical and social innovation.
“Design thinking is not just a process. It’s an ever-expanding inquiry.” So says Sandy Speicher, CEO of IDEO, the company that created the Apple mouse forty years ago and has since set the design thinking guidelines that organizations around the world still follow today.