Design Thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Design Thinking - Essay Example Design thinking most commonly occurs in the artificial or built environments. It occurs in artefacts. Design thinking differs with the analytical, scientific methods of solving problems. In essence, the analytical, scientific methods start with a thorough definition of the parameters surrounding a problem in the process of creating a solution to that particular problem. On the contrary, design thinking investigates and identifies with both ambiguous and known aspects of the current problem to discover the hidden parameters and open up alternative courses that may lead to the goal. Design thinking is iterative in that; the intermediate solutions can form potential starting points for the alternative paths. Such intermediate solutions could include redefining the initial problem. Design thinking can be contemplated as a process for problem solving. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking as a process includes the build-up of ideas with no or few limits on the scope of its brainstorming phase (Ingle, 2013). The nature of the brainstorming phase helps to encourage participation and input from a wide variety of sources and reduces the fear associated with failure in the participants in the ideation phase. The goal of the brainstorming phase in design thinking has been likened with the phrase ‘thinking outside the box’. The approach is a significant contribution at the brainstorming stage since it can help in the discovery of hidden ambiguities and elements of the situation and subsequently identify the faulty potential assumptions. There are several versions of design thinking. However, a commonly used version has seven phases. These are definition, research, ideation, prototyping, choosing, implementation and learning. It is within these seven steps that problems are framed, the right questions are asked, ideas created and the selection of the most satisfactory answers done. The seven phases of design thinking are not linearly