On Oct 7, 2007, at 6:48 PM, Christopher Fahey wrote: > The theory behind design thinking & d-schools is, to me, this: > "Design is important. Too important to be managed by those fuzzy > people who actually do design. It's time for designers to step aside > and allow themselves to be led by a new generation of MBAs who have > taken a couple of courses about design (but who don't do design)."
This is the most cynical take I've ever seen on "design thinking." I approve, although I doubt it was as insidious as this. It was likely, "Our numbers are flat. Hey, those design folks have neat ideas and a different process than what we do. How can we get some of that?" And thus, "design thinking" was born. And I don't begrudge them this. If more business people become aware of design and use its processes to come up with new ideas, more power to them. But this is not design, and what I think you are reacting to is the promotion (and teaching) of design thinking as design, or, worse, as better, more refined, than design itself. I've said it before and I'll say it again: thinking is only one (essential) part of design. Divorcing "thinking" from "making" reduces design to "concepting." And while concepting is valuable, the detail work in making a concept come alive is equally so. Concepts are much easier to have than finished, designed products. Design thinking advocates seem to think some Morloch will finish the concept for them, outsourcing the details somewhere. But it is in the detail work that design really happens, that the clever, delightful moments of design really flourish. Those are as important, if not moreso, than the concept itself. Beautiful typography, smooth animations and transitions, logical interactions...these are where we earn our money and our respect. Dan ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
