Design Thinking: Process & Methods

by Robert Curedale

This edition includes more than 60 additional pages of content including charts, images, exercises, templates, methods, re-edited and simplified content with new sections on innovation, the double diamond process model, what if questions, the groan zone, ocean strategies, Lego workshops, integrative thinking, circular economies, slow design, definitions of design thinking, why to use design thinking , and much more. Design thinking has become the new design doing that is sweeping the globe. Design thinking’s impact on how organizations go about solving problems, has been profound. Design Thinking has the power to transform nearly everything. It is a human-centered approach for finding innovative real solutions to tough problems. Design thinking combines the approaches of design, management, and science to solve a wide range of difficult challenges. Design thinking can be used to develop products, services, and experiences as well as design and business strategy. Design, engineering, and business management students need to be equipped with design thinking to manage and lead innovation in organizations. There is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates that the application of design thinking to business provides greater ROI, increases employee and customer satisfaction, and creates more innovative and differentiated products and services. Chapters cover history, trends, case studies, what is design thinking, applying design thinking in your organization, design sprints, process overview, the planning phase, warming up, the discovery phase, the synthesis phase, Point of View, ideation, the prototyping phase, testing and iteration, implementation, applying design thinking to your own life, visualization, templates, glossary, dozens of proven methods, and an Index. This is the 5th edition of this popular guide that is used as an indispensable reference and has been specified as a text by some of the world’s leading design schools, and corporations.

Genres: Design

666 pages, Paperback

Published February 20, 2019

Reviews

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Curedale has written this tome of design thinking, and while it's packed with goodies, it is maybe packed with too much. You get the impression that design thinking is actually all kinds of thinking. While this might be very true, that design thinking, today encompasses a lot, and has taken methodology from sociology, to engineering, to marketing, to philosophy, it is still lacking. As someone who studies and has worked with design and innovation, I find that massive areas have been omitted. Actor Network theory, socio-technical analysis and likewise get very little attention, which is odd, because most other alternative ways of thinking are included, even a mention could have been helpful. And that is where it fails, because it attempts to circumvent the entire genre but in doing so realizes how challenging that in fact is.

Though it is packed with plentiful of methods and processes, and many are probably useful, it may be hard for someone with little experience in design thinking to be able to operationalize anything, but if for the novice who has some experience, they will hopefully be able to recognize some of their own methods and processes, but also find inspiration in new areas which they have not experienced.

I do like many of the industries examples that Curedale has found, but occasionally felt that he was propping up his argument, primarily on quotes from famous people. Is Curedale attempting to launch himself into a job at IDEO? It feels like every section has at least one quote from top tier design management from IDEO. While they are great and have done tremendous amounts of good work for the world, and for design thinking in general, there is a lot of research that is less trendy but still could have been included. And yes Stanford d.school are also at the pinnacle of the research area, but again, Curedale, your book should not be an almost dedication to get that senior research position at Stanford. I might be too harsh, but it jarred my eyes a lot.

Curedales book is almost too packed and too selective in what he thinks design thinking is, which is odd because it's so dense and heavy and at the same time lacks both depth and breadth. I wouldn't attempt to write something like this, so kudos for training.

[Cathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really not a lot more than a series of lists. I find this a good resource at the early stage of planning a workshop to think about what tools I might not have used for a while which might be better than the ones I've got used to using.