The benefits of design thinking make it seem like the most obvious approach: infer needs, don’t ask for them; know what people need without them explicitly TELLING you, prototype and iterate, iterate, iterate, until you finally have the solution that people didn’t know they needed. And, oftentimes, this type of approach works. It works to stimulate team creativity, find motivation through empathy, and even aim to ensure empathy with the user.
The Gainesville, FL example shows us how this process might pose a trap that makes one assume they have realised the underlying needs of a group without actually doing so. The facade of creativity and empathy can sometimes fail to permeate the surface of the actual problem, like the well-being of the voices in Gainesville that remained unheard. Design thinking should be a tool and not the only means of solving a problem, especially if it’s assumed to be solving a problem for other people. It’s very easy for a project of that stature to embody the wrong voices, amplify non-pervasive ideas, and be more harmful than helpful if the intention behind the experiment isn’t thought through.
