Is Design Thinking Dead?

NATASHA JEN OF PENTAGRAM famously declared that “Design Thinking was bullshit.” This October, IDEO laid off a third of its staff.

Yep, Design Thinking is dead.

NO! Scream the zealots. Critics smugly rejoice.

I read it differently.

Don’t know WHAT to think?

It’s all splinters off the same tree.

Consider the top ten design ‘frameworks’:

• Design thinking

• User-centered design

• Double Diamond

• Lean UX

• Herbert Simon’s process

• DeepDive Methodology

• 3-Stage Design Thinking

• AIGA

• Human-Centered Design

• Collective Action Toolkit

Which one is the best? Which is ‘it’ right now?

Who cares! It doesn’t matter!

The Family Tree

The key is to know that all derive from Human-Centered Design (1958), which is known for its quality and rigor, and its great outcomes for customer adoption, satisfaction, and retention.

Each framework claims uniqueness: UX, Design, Innovation, or Customer-Centric.

However, they are all based on Human-Centered Design and share similar steps and goals. They may apply their own tools or templates, but they are not very different from each other.

What matters most is the effort you put into understanding your user and their problem. If you work hard, research, and avoid guessing, you will get better product outcomes and results.

Use what you’ve got.

But, again, which model?

Like exercise equipment, use what you’ve got. Use the framework you know and what’s best for your culture. Then get buy-in.

Start doing it early in the process. Consistently. Build your competency. Don’t stop.

Because the best human-centered-framework™ is the one that you use. The rest is bulls**t.