Rationale

This “Nightline” documentary about IDEO’s design process makes a great point

Everything we use that’s not natural is designed.

This means that almost everything we use and do has been designed.

Big Idea: We can design things that are excellent, and we can redesign things that are not yet good enough and improve them.

Design Thinking (Improvement)

Examples

• Problem: Some people complain about meetings.
• Design Thinking: Design a better method for running meetings.

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• Problem: Some people don’t like the culture in their company.
• Design Thinking: Design a better culture.

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• Problem: Some people don’t like a particular computer program
• Design Thinking: Refactor the code.

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• Problem: Not enough customers and sales for a business.
• Design Thinking: Redesign the marketing and sales methods or the products.

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• Problem: Some people don’t like how the US Government is working.
• Design Thinking: Redesign the government so that it works better

The Concept of Design Thinking

1. Recognize that human created things—bridges, buildings, books, classes, products, governments) are designed

2. Thus, these things can be made better (improved) by application of skilled design.

Design thinking is about recognizing opportunity. However, we also are highly selective about what we choose to design or redesign because design requires high amounts of resource and focus.

What Is Designed

Physical Good:

Everything a plant or animal was designed by someone! It just means almost everything around us, from your fork to your phone, was thought up to make our lives easier or better in some way. This shows how huge design is, and how it affects how we experience the world.