In the following, two operating models of design expertise are presented: design thinking and human-centered design. Other models are e.g. Value-Sensitive Design, Design for Wellbeing, Systems Intelligence Tactics, Responsible Design – Life-Cycle Analysis and Experience Design.
DESIGN THINKING
Design thinking is a human-centered innovation process focused on collaboration, iterative problem-solving, rapid learning, prototyping and simultaneous business analysis. According to Brown (2008) design thinking is “a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.” It is characterized by creativity and innovation, user-centeredness and user involvement, problem solving, iteration and experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration, visualization, but also acceptance to tolerance of ambiguity and failure. It is also closely linked to approaches such as human-centered design, participatory design, co-design, empathic design. Design thinking is widely spread in academia, industry, governmental organizations, education and within and beyond design communities. The benefits of design thinking are related to both outcome such as innovations and their quality, improved user experience and customer satisfaction and process such as performance improvements and improvements in innovation culture, empowerment of people to decision making, practical tools and business benefits. Design thinking creates a strong base for designing for desirable futures, but there is a space to extended in towards sustainability thinking.
Typical parts of design thinking processes are:
• empathizing and understanding users
• defining focus
• creating ideas
• generating prototypes
• testing with users
Further reading and tools:
An Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide, Institute of Design at Stanford
Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg, Institute of Design at Stanford
DesignkitEnterprise Design Thinking
The Design Thinking Toolkit: 100+ Method Cards to Create Innovative Products
References:
Brown, Tim. (2008). “Design Thinking.” Harvard Business Review 86 (June): 85–92.
Carlgren, Lisa, Maria Elmquist, and Ingo Rauth. ”Design thinking: Exploring values and effects from an innovation capability perspective.” The Design Journal 17.3 (2014): 403-423.
Dell’Era, Claudio, et al. ”Four kinds of design thinking: From ideating to making, engaging, and criticizing.” Creativity and Innovation Management 29.2 (2020): 324-344.
Liedtka, Jeanne. (2014). “Innovative ways companies are using design thinking.” Strategy & Leadership 42 (2): 40–45.
Liedtka, Jeanne. (2015). “Perspective: Linking Design Thinking with Innovation Outcomes through Cognitive Bias Reduction.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 32 (6)
Lindsay Cole. (2022) A framework to conceptualize innovation purpose in public sector innovation labs. Policy Design and Practice 5:2, pages 164-182.
McKinsey, (2018) https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design#
Micheli, Pietro, et al. ”Doing design thinking: Conceptual review, synthesis, and research agenda.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 36.2 (2019): 124-148.
Panke, Stefanie. ”Design thinking in education: Perspectives, opportunities and challenges.” Open Education Studies 1.1 (2019): 281-306.
Waidelich, Lukas, et al. ”Design thinking process model review.” 2018 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE/ITMC). IEEE, 2018.
HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN
Human-centered design (HCD) is about facilitating communication and cooperation, jointly learning, and creating new technical solutions. It covers a broad range of approaches such as user-centered design, participatory design, design for user experience, the lead user approach, co-design, ethnography, contextual design, and empathic design. In HCD, ISO 9241-210 (2019) standard has been widely spread in academia, industry, governmental organizations within and beyond digital design communities.
According to standard (ISO 9241-210), HCD is an approach to systems design and development that aims to make interactive systems more usable by focusing on the use of the system and applying human factors/ergonomics and usability knowledge and techniques. HCD is an iterative process containing an active user involvement in the whole development activities from design to development as well as multidisciplinary approaches, skills, and perspectives. In addition, design is based on an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments and it is refined by user-centred evaluation.
In HCD, typical design phases are:
• understanding and specifying the context of use
• specifying the user requirements
• producing design solutions
• evaluating the design
The benefits of HCD are better user satisfaction, acceptance of products to use, improved quality of product and efficiency in development, productivity, and increased participation in decision-making within the organization. HCD, and especially ISO 9241-210, has been criticized by its narrow focus for nowadays’ needs. For example, meaning, hedonic aspects of user experience, security and sustainability are not addressed in depth.
ISO 9241-210: Ergonomics of Human-System Interaction – Part 210: Human-Centered Design for Interactive Systems. 2019.
References:
Steen, M. The fragility of human-centred design, PhD dissertation (Delft University of Technology, 2008).
Steen, M. (2012). Human-centered design as a fragile encounter. Design Issues, 28(1), 72-80.
Keinonen, T. (2008). User-centered design and fundamental need. In Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges (pp. 211-219).
ISO 9241-210: Ergonomics of Human-System Interaction – Part 210: Human-Centered Design for Interactive Systems. 2019.
Thomas, V., Remy, C., & Bates, O. (2017, June). The limits of HCD: Reimagining the anthropocentricity of ISO 9241-210. In Proceedings of the 2017 Workshop on Computing Within Limits (pp. 85-92).
Kujala, S. (2003). User involvement: a review of the benefits and challenges. Behaviour & information technology, 22(1), 1-16.
Damodaran, L. (1996). User involvement in the systems design process – A practical guide for users. Behaviour & Information Technology, 15, 363–377
Muller, M. J., Hallewell Haslwanter, J., & Dayton, T. (1997). Participatory practices in the software lifecycle. In Helander, M. Landauer, T. K. & Prabhu, P. (Eds.), Handbook of Human–Computer Interaction (2nd ed., 255–297). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
McKinsey, (2018) https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design#, visited 27.1.2022
Hassenzahl, M., Burmester, M., & Koller, F. (2021). User Experience Is All There Is. i-com, 20(3), 197-213.
Thomas, V., Remy, C., & Bates, O. (2017, June). The limits of HCD: Reimagining the anthropocentricity of ISO 9241-210. In Proceedings of the 2017 Workshop on Computing Within Limits (pp. 85-92).