I think design thinking is great when experienced professionals are using it to design a product, but when we leave the product realm, it may no longer be the best strategy for solving problems. The anecdotes of IDEO’s solutions for Gainesville and Kaiser Permanente really put into perspective how unfit design thinking can be for open-ended problems that do not require the development of a specific, tangible product. You might focus on the wrong things while ignoring others that deserve more attention and come up with a solution that exacerbates the issue or even creates new problems, and it would all be because design thinking is not the right “medicine” for the illness. Are designers even the most qualified people to solve certain issues? They may not have been trained in the most inclusive practices, for one, which may be why IDEO did not think of the marginalized and underrepresented communities in their Gainesville project.
If even professionals are unable to effectively use design thinking to create solutions that work, then what about non-professionals who are caught up in the illusion that they could learn to use design thinking in a matter of days to solve any problem they encounter? It’s a nice fantasy, but this compounds the issue and creates a picture of a baby trying to hold a hammer next to a tree that needs to be felled—the person using the technique is unable to use it properly, and the technique itself is incompatible with the task. IDEO and the Stanford d.school can try to teach these methods, which would be good to keep in mind for future projects, but experience and other kinds of training may prove more effective down the road.
