Design thinking

I took this from IDEO's website. This diagram basically depicts design thinking as innovation in terms of the work IDEO has done.

Quite recently, after a short fascination with design thinking, I decided to try design thinking for real. And it's pretty impressive what you can do with the authority to direct your team's direction. I applied design thinking by working together with one of my club's portfolios in coming up with a research attachment internship programme which would hopefully enhance the student and scholar experience.

Another example in which I've applied design thinking was in my module in entrepreneurship. During the initial group discussion, one of my friends thought of runners, since he is quite a disciplined exerciser. Our project had to be science and technology based, so we began to think of a device which would enhance the runner's experience.

And the whole thought process itself was actually a very good practice in design thinking. our original design included a LCD screen on the arm with a GPS system, heart and breath rate monitor, etc... then eventually one of my group mates felt that this was a little too difficult. pretty true, i realised, it made the runner look like robocop.

So the design was reduced to something simple, based on what runners, casual runners, really want. they want a good running EXPERIENCE, not some fancy high tech gizmo that tells you how fast your heart is beating. And so it was reduced to a simple design of pressure distribution sensors in the shoe and a pair of headphones with pace-sensitive songs and digital verbal warnings of bad terrain or poor technique.

So design thinking is really something that I'd love to explore deeper. I'm often visiting IDEO's website and downloading some of their brochures. You can visit the link I've put up. You can also go see Tim Brown's TED talk in 2009 TED Global.

I'm also attempting to take design thinking to another level, to make it something that can transform people's personal lives, a bit like a self-help kind of thing. So perhaps you could say I'm trying to redesign design thinking?

Look forward to more :)