Design Thought Leader

Put simply, in order for ‘design thinking’ to be effective (i.e. make the transition from abstract theory or philosophy to a meaningful process of adding value), it has to be applied or limited to a specific relevant context. This might sound incredibly obvious, but my own experience and some of the intellectual discussions recently in the blogosphere indicate that a lot of designers are reluctant to pragmatically constrain the scope or ambition of their thinking. It is this reluctance and the spiralling intellectual gymnastics that follow that leads to ‘design thinking’ becoming esoteric or sounding overly ‘expert’ to novices or non-designers.

Design comes from the latin word ‘designato’—‘to mark out’, thus marking out the boundary or scope of a design problem. To focus creativity has always been a fundamental part of ‘design thinking’ or the design process, perhaps even the fundamental part.

Continued reflection and discussion on the design process and its terminology is particularly important in a new discipline such as service design, however, when it comes to engaging others we also have to contextualise how our ‘design thinking’ is actually going to make things better for people.

Fergus Bisset
Design Researcher