The problem with bad design thinking seems to be that too much emphasis is placed on the thinking, rather than the designing. From what I know, design should be about struggling with real problems and solving them for people in functional and aesthetically pleasing ways. There is real engineering & artistry going on. Bad design thinking, however, falls neither between these poles. It promises a framework for doing with no actual reinforcement. Worse yet, it provides the illusion that progress is being made (something in the vein of: I’ve done this workshop, I clearly know what I’m talking about).
This is not to say true design thinking is useless or even nefarious. People who embody the principles of design thinking can change the world, but this whole-body adoption can only come about through spaced repetition & calibrating through external feedback. As the article points out, the travesty seen in Gainesville ignored the warning signs that the design thinking was failing (“Meanwhile, the city was losing visible Black staff, including staff whose jobs did address these problems.“) and patted themselves on the back in splashy editorials. This distancing from real-world data and embracing of lofty intangible flattery is, to me, the reason the Gainesville experiment failed.
A powerful line from the article lingers with me: “You face wicked problems by struggling with them, not by solutioning them.” Design thinking is attractive in that it can shift outlooks from pessimism to optimism. However, when done poorly, it just becomes a miasma of toxic positivity.
