Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hello. My name is
Meg Konkel and I am
an Associate Professor of
Design Thinking at
Radford University.
0:10
Today I want to talk with
you about design thinking.
It's actually quite
tricky to pin
down exactly what
design thinking is,
how we do it, and
what it does for us.
In this talk, I'll
give you a range of
definitions of design thinking
from leaders in business,
innovation and design,
and use those definitions to
explore core
underlying principles,
not only of what one does
when practicing design thinking,
but how it shapes how we
think about problem solving.
0:39
We'll start with
a definition that
is grounded in business
and innovation.
David Kelley is an
American designer,
business person, and educator.
He co-founded the innovation
and design firm IDEO,
and he was integral to
the establishment of the d.
School at Stanford University.
He and his brother Tom define
design thinking as
"a way of finding
human needs and creating
new solutions using the tools
and the mindsets of
design practitioners."
They follow by saying
"design thinking is
a methodology that
when we follow it,
can address a wide
range of personal,
social, and business challenges
in creative new ways."
In this one definition,
we can see the complexity
of design thinking.
It is a toolkit or
a set of methods.
It's a mindset or a way
of looking at the world.
It's also a methodology
or a process
that has a certain structure
and sequence to it.
1:36
Lucy Kimbell makes
an important point
in this definition
of design thinking,
that it is a human
centered practice as
opposed to a technology or an
organization centered one.
Let's think about that a bit.
In design thinking,
the human experience
drives decision making.
This is crucial to understanding
what design thinking
is all about.
It centers itself on the human,
more so than on the particular
limitations or opportunities of
technology or the
organizational characteristics
that distinguish one
company from another.
Design thinking is human-
centered, creative
problem-solving.
Yet despite this complexity,
