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Design Thinking Books (2024)

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Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#101

Post by HillRat »

randcraw wrote: post #95
HillRat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design thinking, at least in its formal STS approach, is essentially applied sociology; it's about using various toolkits to build a sufficient understanding of a domain from the "inside out" (using desk and field research) so that you can design valuable experiences that build upon the expertise of those actually inside the domain. In this, it's a bridge between UX/product and users/stakeholders (technical stakehold…

That's a great answer that offers concrete insight into what design thinkers are trying to achieve. And it seems like they have a chance to succeed if they also employ iterative experimental methods to learn whether their mental model of user experience is incorrect or incomplete. Do they?

Traditionally you use a lot of paper and experiential prototypes to iterate on, which doesn't cover everything but helps refine assumptions (I sometimes like starting with mocking downstream output like reports and report data, which is a quick way to test specific assumptions about the client's operations and strategic goals, which then can affect the detailed project). When I can, I also try to iterate using scenario-based wargaming, especially for complex processes with a lot of handoffs and edge cases; it lets us "chaos monkey" situations and stress-test our assumptions.

More than once early iterations have led me to call off a project and tell the client that they'd be wasting their money with us; these were problems that either could be solved more effectively internally (with process, education, or cultural changes), weren't going to be effectively addressed by the proposed project, or, quite often, because what they wanted was not what they actually needed.

Increasingly, AI technical/functional prototyping's making it into the early design process where traditionally we'd be doing clickable prototypes, letting us get cheap working prototypes in place for users to test drive and provide feedback on. I like to iterate aggressively on the data schema up front, so this fits in well with my bias towards getting the database and query models largely created during the design effort based on domain research and collaboration.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#102

Post by Nevermark »

mythical_39 wrote: post #98
bsoles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem. However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics en…

huh. I'm a professional data scientist, and my masters was in signal processing. In one class the final exam required us to transcribe fourier transforms of speech into the actual words. In another the final exam required us to perform 2d FFTs in our head. Please be careful about generalizing. I agree that many 'data science' programs don't teach these skills, and you certainly have evidence behind your assertation.

I don’t think anyone is making the claim that data science has no merit, or data scientists are universally ignorant of anything.

Simply that some data scientists, formally trained or titled by themselves or others, have been known to apply their skills to data without having special knowledge regarding the data.

It is a bit of a cliche in some of our experiences. The consulting company that analyzes data for a decision paralyzed organization, that seeks outside guidance in lieu of getting better leadership, is something I see.

That is a real phenomenon, and despite good intentions, can have all the effectiveness of reading tea leaves.

Because there is always data to be scienced. Competently or not.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#103

Post by jjk166 »

65 wrote: post #86
jasonhong wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used The Design of Everyday Things in many classes I teach. I would agree that it's not practical, but that's not its goal. Instead, it gives you frameworks for thinking about things as well as vocabulary for talking about those things. Off the top of my head, some of the key ideas include: * Affordances, that objects should have (often visual) cues that give hints as to how to use things * Mental models, that e…

I read the Design of Everyday Things and most of it was painfully obvious examples and was overly philosophical. Design is solving problems so they're intuitive for the user. Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it. And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

> Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it.

And yet we've all encountered push doors with handles many times.

> And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

Good design is far cheaper and easier than bad design in the long run. Being able to articulate the benefit of good design such that stakeholders provide the resources for good design is perhaps one of the most important reasons to have such an education.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#104

Post by atoav »

hliyan wrote: post #73
bsoles wrote: post #60

Design Thinking is the Data Science of UX: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in. Even though there might be universal design principle that can be applied in many fields, the Design Thinking people think that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field. Design Thinking works for selling consulting and not much els…

Isn't design thinking just... thinking ? There may be different design methodologies you apply in different domains (e.g. civil, aeronautics, automotive, electronics, software), but once you abstract that away, what you get is thinking. I once attended a design thinking workshop many years ago, and no one there was able to adequately explain what design thinking was, except by means of jargon, metaphor, or example. M…

Well yes, but it is thinking from the other end, usually. The reason why companies may benefit from inviting a designer is that a good designer may both aesthetically and functionally take an entirely new approach from scratch, that has the end user in mind.

This is something certain types of companies and organizationa fail at often, because their daily involvement makws them hyperfocused on certain aspects while they are blind to entire classes of solutions.

That doesn't mean designers can be sprinkeled on every project and drive an evolutionary leap, but it can be a way to explore the solution space.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#105

Post by jjk166 »

gond wrote: post #56
turnsout wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design Thinking (and more broadly, human-centered design) is a pragmatic framework for doing product design in an effective and productive manner. Systems Thinking is a massively more general superset. I'm not really sure how you'd operationalize that on a design project, except by following first principles, which would essentially get you to DT / HCD.

That is exactly the point. Taking a theory (Systems Thinking), a mental model which has the primary goal of holistically identifying, describing, and understanding wholes and reducing it down to a set of methods/framework out of ease of use (the pragmatism) is exactly the wrong approach in my opinion. Systems Thinking and all of its applications scenarios are based on epistemology. To turn it into a recipe is a wrong…

So your argument is don't use an off the shelf tool that gets the job done, build your own tool every time which likely doesn't offer any advantage over the standard tool?

If you think using Design Thinking goes against Systems Thinking, I don't think you really get either.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#106

Post by logicprog »

gond wrote: post #13

Please don’t use Design Thinking. Design Thinking is a subset of Systems Thinking (this is the polite interpretation). Design Thinking does with its sole existence what Systems Thinking tried to avoid: Another category to put stuff into, divide and conquer. It is an over-simplified version of the original theories. Better: Jump directly to Systems Thinking, Cybernetics and Systems Theory (and if measurements are more…

I've been very interested in cybernetics and systems thinking lately — would you be able to recommend some good books? I'm not afraid of difficult academic or philosophical reading, but I'm looking for stuff that's large in scope, applies to general fields, etc.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#107

Post by bsoles »

mythical_39 wrote: post #98
bsoles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem. However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics en…

huh. I'm a professional data scientist, and my masters was in signal processing. In one class the final exam required us to transcribe fourier transforms of speech into the actual words. In another the final exam required us to perform 2d FFTs in our head. Please be careful about generalizing. I agree that many 'data science' programs don't teach these skills, and you certainly have evidence behind your assertation.

> ... my masters was in signal processing

But, you are making my point for me here. Most data scientists don't get masters in signal processing. You are also acknowledging that gaining expertise in a particular field was worth pursuing.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#108

Post by drivers99 »

Nemi wrote: post #55
al_borland wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was gifted this book my a CIO when in college. She had a dozen copies in her office to hand out to various people. It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on…

I love this. Thank you for introducing me to "Norman Doors". I hadn't realized someone else had described this in such detail. I have been complaining about this years. Ok this will be a tangent, but I also take this one step farther and also talk about "documentation". Just for the record, I don't think documentation is all good or all bad, but it definitely can be used incorrectly and in excess. And Norman Doors an…

There's a funny example of even the "documentation" going wrong. At a local mall, there is a set of doors and they have put the word "PULL" (vertically like:

P

U

L

L

) on the window of the door, so from the wrong/opposite side, you still see the word "PULL" when you should PUSH (even if most of the letters are backward) so you still are tempted to take the wrong action when you see it. (I tried to explain the ridiculousness of it to the person I was with, but I don't think they cared.)

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#109

Post by amai »

Design thinking is a scam. I once had to took part in a design thinking class (my company wanted that). The consultant clearly were just waiting to see what kind of ideas we would come up with for some product. If an interesting idea came up in their classes they would later try to monetize it. So basically you pay them so they get your product ideas for free.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#110

Post by al_borland »

creeble wrote: post #97
Nemi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. Thank you for introducing me to "Norman Doors". I hadn't realized someone else had described this in such detail. I have been complaining about this years. Ok this will be a tangent, but I also take this one step farther and also talk about "documentation". Just for the record, I don't think documentation is all good or all bad, but it definitely can be used incorrectly and in excess. And Norman Doors an…

Which reminds me of another "there, problem solved!" pet peeve of mine. I call it the Default Trap. In many cases (Norman Doors are an example), there are two or more equally valid ways to do something. By "equally valid", I mean there is no clear standard for whether it should operate one way or the other, and if you ask 100 people which way it should work (which no one ever does), you get something approaching 50%.…

The alternative I've seen to this is to ask the user which way they want it during the setup process. Light vs Dark mode is an example of this. The net result of this user choice is a longer, more complex, and burdensome onboarding process that is rife with decision fatigue. Once the user has chosen, if they don't like their choice, they may not know how to change it, since that initial action was outside of any standard interface.

The other issue with settings for everything is that the settings become bloated. In OS X, and to some extent iOS, I knew where all the settings were for the most part. Browsing them all to see what was available was a consumable thing, and I could largely remember where to go without much trouble. As macOS and iOS have added more settings to try and please everyone, and now redesigned the Settings apps... I've given up. I have no idea where most things are, what is in there, and have to search for everything and hope I use the right words.

There is an old video of Steve Jobs[0] talking about how every product is a series of decisions and trade offs. People pay companies to make all these decisions, and ideally, there is a company that makes decisions to similar enough sensibilities as yourself so that you can buy a product and use it without much fuss. It seems more and more that these decisions are all being pushed to the consumer, which in some ways makes a worse product. If I wanted infinite chose at the expense of complexity, I'd be running Gentoo or Arch. People choose macOS because it's supposed to be easy.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmRNIGqzuRI

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