Michael Roller

Mixed Media Visualization: Did I Use Design Thinking?

I recently gave a demonstration to my Design Communication students at the University of Cincinnati. I wanted to show them how to combine their 2D and 3D skills to create some new types of visualization. Designers (especially consultants) are often challenged to create concepts that are quick but visually impactful. Oftentimes, I can more quickly create a 3D model rather than sketch the form. However, 3D renderings look too refined or sterile when presenting during the middle of the design process. Combining 2D and 3D techniques creates a new tool for creating impactful, conceptual work. Here’s what I presented:

Did I just use design thinking? According to Roger Martin’s definition, I did. I had two options for visualizing concepts, neither of which were acceptable solutions for the specific problem. Instead, I developed a new option that worked around all the individual problems of a purely 2D or 3D visualization.

This example of design thinking is extremely tactical, but it is very easy to understand. Sometimes design thinking is presented in such a mysterious, complex way that we designers don’t even know when we’re practicing it.

Tags: definitions, design thinking

Roger Martin Defines Design Thinking

From Diego Rodriguez’s Metacool comes this interview with Rotman’s Roger Martin. In a video interview with Businessweek, Martin describes design thinking (integrative thinking) as a way of thinking that develops knew models. To paraphrase, if a design thinker doesn’t like option A or option B, they have the ability to come up with option C.

Click here to watch the video.

Tags: definitions, design thinking

NY Times on design thinking

The New York Times wrote a nice piece describing design thinking and how it helps solve business problems. For me, design thinking is still very challenging to define, but this article and Tim Brown’s blog have done a great job.

‘It’s the designers’ version of the scientific method,’ explains Greg Galle, co-founder and managing partner of the C2 Group, a consulting firm based in Half Moon Bay, Calif. ‘It’s sloppy and messy and not nearly as disciplined as the scientist, but we do trial and error and we hypothesize and test and we see what we learn and then we go back and try again.

Tim Brown points out that design thinking can easily be confused with good design or business practices:

I find it very easy to slip toward describing what is simply good design (based on a relatively conventional brief) or what is good business using normal convergent processes. A test is perhaps whether the business (or organizational, or societal) outcome is significantly different than would have been the case if design thinking had not taken place.

While I wait for a universal definition of design thinking, I tell people that design thinkers have the unusual ability to develop solutions despite a clear definition of where they should start. It’s this ability to arbitrarily dive in and then use trial and error that positions design thinkers to solve problems with complicated backgrounds or incomplete information.

Tags: design thinking