Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving

by Jon Kolko

It feels like our world is spinning out of control. We see poverty, disease, and destruction all around us, and as we search for ways to make sense of the chaos, we’re turning to new disciplines for answers and solutions. New, creative innovations are needed, and these new approaches demand different methods and different theories. This book is presented as a handbook for teaching and learning how to design for impact. In it, you’ll learn how to apply the process of design to large, wicked problems, and how to gain control over complexity by acting as a social entrepreneur. You’ll learn an argument for why design is a powerful agent of change, and you’ll read practical methods for engaging with large-scale social problems.

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a research project. It's a solid resource for educators or design students; for others, a bit irrelevant.

[Ninakix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jon Kolko is one of my favorite designers and thinkers. There are similarities in content between this book and his others, but there are lots of interesting thoughts in this book on the nature of solving wicked problems, social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general, as well as design culture and education. I feel like quite a few of these ideas and principles would be useful to designing social software: the kinds of approaches to designing for complex human social needs seem universal in this sense. It's always been my goal to design social software that is meaningful and ultimately creates good, so.

[Calee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I would have read this book before last semester. This outlines all of the things we did in a class I took last semester and if I would have known about this book I would have been better equipped to work in that class. I will, however, be able to use this text as research to boost the textbook I'm writing based on that class.

[Christine Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid methodologies and inspiring excerpts.