The pros of design thinking I think mainly have to do with the potential of the whole process. Like what was mentioned in the article, design thinking gives everyone a process to follow, which emulates the best designers,thinkers, and engineers in the world(or so they say). It acts as both a template for how to design, but also as a motivating force for an entire team. However, while the motivation stays regardless of the quality of the design thinking, the results and effectiveness depend greatly on the investment into the entire design process independent of design thinking – while a short workshop might temporarily boost a team’s design process, after that, if there is insufficient investment into adequate designers, engineers, and tools that they use, there will be the same outcome at the end of whatever process is being designed.
One example of a badly failed design thinking project is the Gainesville Florida experiment. While trying to design the city to be more attractive to businesses and talent, they completely ignored the severe wealth gap in the city, meaning the city never became a better place for its residents. In this case, I think the problem lies in the failure of the designers, rather than design thinking. The designers took a cookie cutter approach to designing the new Gainesville, which ignored the unique problems that the city was facing, that can’t be accounted for unless they are specifically taken into consideration. In addition, they were also trying to design the wrong thing – instead of focusing on businesses, they should have focused on the well being of the poor people in Gainesville, which make up much of the city.
