Sunday, January 17, 2016

User Experience Design vs Design Thinking: What's really the difference?



I've been hearing a lot of talk about "Design Thinking" as a "thing" but every time I look up information on it, it seems to be exactly what we do in UX design but just in other areas.


A definition floating out there is "Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for clients. Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore possibilities of what could be, and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (the customer)."


An additional article in Forbes that talks about it and sounds exactly like UX. http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2015/05/10/what-is-design-thinking/


Again, sounds pretty much like what we do in UX. Am I missing the point? Have any of you dealt with this or had thoughts on differences/similarities between UX and Design Thinking?



Answer



User Experience Design shares a lot in common with Design Thinking. e.g. understanding the users using research methods, ideation, rapid prototyping, testing with users. The differences are subtle. Design thinking is more systems-level and deals more with "wicked problems". It is more suited to service design scenarios. It is also more about the creative process and validating ideas before they are implemented in the real-world where implementing the wrong product or service can have dire consequences. Finally, the creative process is done in a group with multiple stakeholders present at the same time. The shared understanding happens synchronously. UX often goes further into the details of the design, like human/computer interfaces, graphics design, interactions, and a whole lot more.


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References: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking


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