The critique of design thinking that really resonated with me came from Michael Hendrix, the quoted IDEO partner: as you invest in fun stuff like “getting a bunch of Sharpie markers and Post-its and putting them in rooms for brainstorms,” you may be losing sight of the real issues at hand. The juxtaposition of colorful notes and exciting ideation sessions with the devastating imagery of food deserts and education inequality truly exposes the faults of design thinking. In many spaces, design thinking shields us from true immersion in the communities we would like to help.
I felt such a dissonance when I first moved to Stanford and attended in-person classes last year, and this article helped me articulate the reason why. Sure, I enjoy design thinking and believe it has helped me think about problems in new ways. However, it was weird to sit and talk about solving poverty for an hour and then go off to drink smoothies from Coupa Cafe, sunbathe on Meyer Green, enjoy an endless supply of dining hall fruits, perfectly washed and sliced – you get the picture. Stanford is a place where we discuss global crises, yet we are so insulated from these tragedies that I wonder if we’re going about problem-solving in the wrong way. Design thinking shouldn’t just be students drawing on whiteboards while lounging on free yoga balls provided by the cute little maker’s space in Lathrop. I love whiteboards and yoga balls, but we are best equipped to solve problems when we truly spend time with people who are suffering and get an in-person sense of how their world works.
The Gainesville design thinkers, for example, missed the mark as a result of not listening to people who had been historically silenced. The first step of design thinking usually pertains to empathy and need-finding, and it seems like IDEO missed this critical step. Sure, they may have recognized the need for stimulation and excitement among potential business owners in Gainesville. However, they largely ignored the more pressing needs of underserved residents. I also blame the mayor for steering IDEO in this direction as he was the one who hired them to build a “creative class” as a solution to Gainesville’s economic problems. Clearly, this mayor was not concerned with the plight of Gainesville’s lower classes, thus he gave IDEO permission to ignore fundamental inequities. Instead, both the mayor and IDEO should have prioritized making Gainesville a better place for people who already live there. If they used the design thinking process but centered their empathy exercises around the residents who endured the most suffering, they likely would have achieved a much more useful solution.
