INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING DESIGN, ICED19

5-8 AUGUST 2019, DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS

DESIGN THINKING: AN APPROACH WITH VARIOUS

PERCEPTIONS

Bouwman, Sanne (1); Voorendt, Jesper (1); Eisenbart, Boris (2); McKilligan, Seda (3)

1: Delft University of Technology; 2: Swinburne University of Technology; 3: Iowa State University

ABSTRACT
Design Thinking has become increasingly popular across different disciplines. However, what it exactly
entails is becoming more and more vague, leading to the term being used for many different approaches
and applications. This paper presents an interview study with experts on the application and training of
Design Thinking in academia and industry. We find a divide with some seeing Design Thinking as a
mere toolbox of methods, while others see it as an umbrella term for the mindset that determines how
designers think and act. Subjects unanimously attest the approach large potential to support certain types
of businesses, when applied under the leadership of trained designers, but see a lot of danger for the
approach to become meaningless if it keeps being advertised as an all-purpose problem-solving tool.
The interviewees further share extensive experiences on specific success factors and pitfalls in applying
Design Thinking in practice.

Keywords: Design Thinking, Design practice, Design methodology, Design methods, Problem-solving

Contact:
Bouwman, Sanne
Delft University of Technology
Industrial Design Engineering
The Netherlands
sanne.bouwman@hotmail.com

Cite this article: Bouwman, S., Voorendt, J., Eisenbart, B., McKilligan, S. (2019) ‘Design Thinking: An Approach with
Various Perceptions’, in Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED19), Delft, The
Netherlands, 5-8 August 2019. DOI:10.1017/dsi.2019.150

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 1 INTRODUCTION
Design Thinking (DT) has been gaining increasing attention across disciplines, stretching beyond design.
It is acclaimed to be “an approach to innovation that is powerful, effective, and broadly accessible that
can be integrated into all aspects of business and society” (Brown, 2009, p. 3), supported with evidence
for pioneering, visionary business venturing on almost all levels of participation (Garbuio et al. 2018;
Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Lockwood, 2009; Verganti, 2009). As the industries desire to become more
creative and improve their dynamic capabilities, and given the success stories from large organisations
like Procter & Gamble, Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic (Martin 2009; Rae, 2008), it is hardly
surprising that the application of DT in business is growing.
However, DT, because of its versatile nature and large array of possible applications, is not well
defined (Schmiedgen et al., 2015). More so, in design research, many different descriptions of DT
have emerged (Dorst, 2011) and DT in its modern form has been criticised for being reductionist to the
decades of fundamental design research that preceded it (Badke-Schaub et al., 2010). Effectively, DT
has become a somewhat ambiguous term used for a host of approaches including different methods,
structures, and applications. “Even on a cursory inspection, just what Design Thinking is supposed to
be is not well understood, either by the public or those who claim to practice it” (Kimbell, 2011, p.
286). Some researchers suggest that DT should be more of a mindset and inert to company culture,
rather than a discrete approach or process to follow (Kolko, 2015). Ultimately, this variance blurs a
clear definition and communication of DT for researchers and practitioners alike.
Naturally, interests in DT are different across disciplines. Once a more consolidated definition on DT is
identified, companies can determine what is needed for successful innovation through DT. This will be
equally beneficial for educational institutions as the DT curriculum could be further developed and
solidified to improve innovative, human-centred practices. This paper describes an exploration of the DT
definitions across disciplines and expertise. Section 2 discusses the background of DT as a term, method
and approach. Sections 3 and 4 provide insights from semi-structured interviews with educators and
practitioners with DT expertise. Success factors and pitfalls for DT application are highlighted. These
insights are used in Section 5 to discuss the potentials DT can offer when applied appropriately.

2 BACKGROUND AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

DT has grown substantially in popularity over the last decade following a ‘reboot’ by Tim Brown
(Brown, 2009). This modern form is very different from the traditional interpretation of DT in research,
focusing on fundamental cognitive acts of designing, such as information search and generation, mental
imagery, assessment and evaluation, structuring and learning (Goldschmidt and Badke-Schaub, 2010).
The focus on the thinking and acting in creating new solutions underlying DT has shifted in what some
scholars refer to as the ‘new movement’ of DT. Industry has since started to interpret DT as more of a
business and management approach to creating novel ideas and innovating product portfolios. DT is
essentially perceived through the famous double-diamond process model of repeated divergent (or
explorative) and convergent (selective or defining) thinking steps. Divergent phases cover the
exploration of user needs and empathy building as well as solution generation, initial prototyping and
testing, respectively. Convergent phases focus on sense-making, selecting and defining target outcomes
for subsequent steps, the overall design aims or, eventually, the final design. There are usually frequent
jumps and iterations between phases, however, as insights generated at any stage in the process may
affect prior and subsequent stages. A key characteristic of this approach is its clear focus on user-
centricity, repeatedly (or even continuously) involving target user groups and other relevant stakeholders
from multiple disciplines along the entire process for input, feedback and co-creation. All involved steps
and activities can be formally supported with a variety of methods and tools.
The modern DT approach after Brown represents a generic, iterative problem exploration and solution
finding process to create solutions for a particular user group or set of stakeholders. As such, it is
unspecific to the context or aim it is applied in and for, respectively. Brown (2009) effectively stresses
that the DT approach, in its new form, is applicable equally to products, spaces, system or dealing with
abstract problems and services. DT is thus given the claim of almost limitless applicability to generate
innovative concepts (Gericke & Maier, 2011) stretching into transitioning businesses, management
and even societies (Garbuio et al., 2018). There are very famous examples of how DT has helped
transition large, established organisations to become more innovative (as discussed above), making

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 DT a plug-and-play solution to boost innovation anywhere (Carlgren et al., 2016). This perception is
fostered also by design and management consultancies like IDEO. They claim that DT is not just for
designers, but also an inherent requirement for business and management leaders that seek to outperform
in competitive settings: “design is now too important to be left to designers” (Brown 2009, p.37).
The thought leadership of consultancies in this field has a strong impact on the popularity of DT,
calling it a ‘useful myth’ even (Norman, 2010). This is based on the fact that its concrete meaning is
hard to grasp nowadays, but the term alone enjoys popularity and opens up pathways for designerly
ways of thinking to enter executive levels of organisations. In this research, we studied the different
views of experts on modern DT approaches. This is a first step towards consolidating the different
views, but also to explore what success factors and pitfalls are for its application.

3 STUDY DESIGN
The purpose of the presented exploratory study is to explore the various viewpoints on DT by a
selected group of seven experts in design research and education, through semi-structured interviews.

3.1 Participants selection

All participants were carefully selected from experts teaching and practicing DT, in an educational
context with advanced students on Master and PhD level; five participants also have a long-standing
track record of applying DT working in/with industry. With one exception, all participants have more
than 5 years of experience with DT (max. 25 years). Their applications include the traditional as well
as alternative versions of the modern interpretation of DT. The one person with less experience by
years, still has acquired extensive expertise working with large organisations seeking to implement DT
in their ranks. Educational backgrounds include design engineering, product design, psychology and
business administration. Six of the participants are faculty academic staff in design and innovation
who hold PhD degrees; the last participant holds a post-graduate degree.

3.2 Research questions

The study is guided by the following overarching research questions:
How do the experts describe the DT approach; what are commonalities and differences?
What are the essential elements and practices that are perceived as DT characteristics?
What are the success factors and pitfalls in applying DT?

3.3 Data collection and analysis

The semi-structured interviews were conducted over a period of four weeks. The interviews were
either carried out in person or through online channels. The interviews lasted between 34 and 55
minutes, with an average of 44 minutes. Audio was recorded and transcribed. The interview procedure
followed a questionnaire based on the overarching research questions. Qualitative data was inductively
coded and analysed following the Grounded Theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1994).

4 RESULTS

4.1 Defining Design Thinking

In the interviews, participants were asked to define DT in their own words. Often, this reflected their
background, education and their DT-focused current research. Across all interviews, a key difference
was found regarding whether the interviewee had a business-focus or a product/service design focus in
applying DT. Business-focused participants emphasised the tools and methods to create novel
strategies and/or business models.
Participant #1: “I make a difference between [Design Thinking and] strategic design, because for me, […]
Design Thinking is a set of tools that you can use, for [developing and] executing your innovation
strategies. I think the difference that I make, is that it is really about [it being] a set of tools and methods”.
Conversely, a design-focused participant highlighted the DT mindset as inherent to the work and
approaches used by designers. Interestingly, approaches and methods considered part of DT where
mentioned multiple times as something that designers would have acquired during their education,
without it necessarily being called DT.

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 Participant #6: “In one sentence it would be: The way how designers have learned to think and act during
their education. You can use that in several ways, especially to be able to improve innovation. It is mainly
about elements such as creativity, visual thinking, providing insights, holistic thinking and centralise
user”
In addition to DT being inherent to designers’ working, another participant described it as an entity
across methods and mindset alike.
Participant #6: “I know that some people describe it as a set of methods, some as an overall approach and
some as an overall mindset. For me it is actually a combination of them all. It is an integration between
overall mindsets, focused on human centeredness and prototyping combined with a set of methodologies
that you can use in a process [for the development of product solutions] with different phases.”
Human-centeredness, methods, methodology, mindset, and other terms were frequently used to
describe DT and are considered at the core. These are further elaborated in the following sections.

4.2 Characteristics of Design Thinking

4.2.1 Diversity of characteristics and their context-dependency

A broad spectrum of characteristics were mentioned by the participants as essential to DT, several of
which were recurring across interviews. Table 1 summarises these characteristics as they were
articulated in the interviews.
Participant #4: “I have done some research on DT definitions and there are some people who claim that
human centeredness is the core aspect of DT, some claim that it is a combination between human
centeredness, prototyping and something else, but there are also people who explain elements of DT on
micro level.”
Participants often referred to uniqueness of DT when it was also applicable to other methodologies.
The uniqueness was sometimes related to a combination of several elements, due to the fact that some
participants claim that stand alone elements are not representing DT.
Participant #6: “I think that all four elements that I mentioned are important, because they all have their
goal in a project. Focussing on the user is evident and you should definitely do that, but it is not always
enough to implement Design Thinking in the whole company. You should place the user in the centre, but
you should also be able to communicate this to all the stakeholders and cope with ambiguity, which is
often done with visualisations.”
Participant #4: “Other disciplines have no idea what human centeredness is, using the user’s perspective
as the key of DT might be the most unique.”
Some participants talked about one or more general elements, which were defined in two different
ways. First it could be an element that is not unique or which is used in other methodologies as well. A
specific example is an element is ‘framing-reframing’ which two participants advocated strongly.
Participant #1: “Problem framing fits both Design Thinking and design, but it is still part of the Design
Thinking approach.”
Participant #2: “When I was doing research in social sciences, I was already aware of the framing-
reframing theory. I thought that there was not a big difference between what had been written in design
and social sciences about it. It is part of what designers do, but it is not that different from others. That is
why I think that it is not a uniqueness of DT. Also framing-reframing comes close to rhetoric and for
example people who are working with the police can do the same.”
None of the elements is used all the time and it seems hard to rank the different elements on
importance. One of the participants mentioned that the elements are dependent on the context of the
users and the kind of project they are working on. Then, elements of DT are re-interpreted in a
different manner, but may address the same/closely related entities/actions. Yet, across their
experiences individuals were able to give a subjective ranking according to what they think the
element’s importance is to DT as a whole (even if not 100% the same in every case), this is reflected
in the order from top to bottom in Table 1.
Participant #6: “Many factors of Design Thinking are dependent on the context which the applicants of
Design Thinking work in, the company they work for, their job title, their organisation structure and the
innovation they are working on. […] An example can be a businessman, he is never talking about a user.

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 He talks about the market and doing market research. That is a different way of looking at [the same]
element and using specific tools1.”
Table 1. Characteristic DT elements ranked by importance from the top by each participant
Participant 1 Participant 2 Participant 3 Participant 4 Participant 5 Participant 6 Participant 7
Consideration
Human Human Human Problem
Co-evolution about method Holistic
Centeredness Centeredness Centeredness understanding
use
Bias towards
Multi- Generative
Abduction Analysis Prototyping creation / Iterating
disciplinary Sensing
Creativity
Future Problem Visual
Visualisation Reflection Prototyping Testing
Oriented Framing Language
Problem Experi- Human Orchestrating Visual
Abduction Collaboration
Framing mentation Centeredness Ambiguity language
Framing - Coping with Human
Flexibility Visualisation
Reframing uncertainty Centeredness
Human
Visualisation Experimentation
Centeredness

4.2.2 Mindsets
Mindsets lie at the centre of DT. These are individual beliefs and tendencies that orient action. For
example, the empathetic mindset, which values user engagement throughout the design process and
emphasises development of empathetic, contextualised understanding of users, is a key DT mindset
(Carlgren et al., 2016). Schweitzer (2016) describe this mindset as: desire and determination to make a
difference – positivity, hope, and creating change, often marked by resilience, determination, and
optimism. DT borrowing inherent skills of designers, and the mentioned reinterpretation in different
context, the interviews then focused on the question if DT required specific mindsets for it to be
applied successfully. All the participants confirmed this, frequently mentioning things like being
empathic, motivated, open-minded and curious as vital to applying DT successfully and effectively.
Equally, pragmatism in terms of what can be realistically achieved was mentioned. This allows
companies to see how concepts generated by DT can be feasible within their means.
Participant #2: “You need a balance between a form of pragmatism on one hand and on the other hand
some kind of optimism to the world. The idea that everything is doable. Being completely pragmatic is
going nowhere unless you believe that it makes the world a bit better. So you need a compromise between
pragmatism and optimism.”

4.2.3 Other requirements

Interviewees highlighted additional requirements going beyond including DT related elements (tools,
methods, etc.) and having the right mindset. Such additional prerequisites include the right
environment for the applicants of DT to work in, a seamless collaboration between people in applying
DT and sharing the relevant technical expertise, organisational structures to support this, prior
knowledge of the approach and trust in its potential, the ability to zoom in and out to prevent fixation,
and also experience with what the user is doing. This pertains to personal insight to facilitate empathy
and allowing Design Thinkers more easily to take the user perspective.
Participant #1: “I think that it also depends on the physical environment. Design Thinking is a lot about
collaboration. Sharing ideas, being creative. You feel it when you enter specific companies and I think it
is because of the way it is organised.”
Participant #3: “Knowledge about specific disciplines is needed. For example, when I have to design a
printing machine, I have to have knowledge about the movement of the different elements in mechanics.
And I have to know how the electric components influence the mechanical components. So we can call
that domain specific knowledge; without [such] knowledge good design is not possible.”

1
Ultimately, the market is constituted by users, and their needs and wants drive their purchase
behaviour. This then, by extension, drives product/service design and inherent user focus.

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 Participant #4: “You need to be able to zoom in and out on system level and detail level. If fixation
occurs you need to be able to break out of it.”
Whilst many of these elements have been similarly highlighted by scholars as prerequisite of (radical)
innovation outside the context of DT (compare Carlgren et al., 2016), multiple participants stressed
one more element as absolutely essential in the interviews. This is the attitude shown by people in
dealing with design problems, i.e. ill-defined problems.

4.3 Best practices in applying Design Thinking

4.3.1 Practices, methods and tools that support successful application of Design Thinking
A large part of the interviews focused on the methods and tools that constitute or support the
successful application of DT as an approach. Table 2 summarises the practices, methods and tools
mentioned by the interviewees. These were described specifically as beneficial to achieve (a) good
user-insight during the process, (b) empathise with the target user/market segment, and (c) allow
thinking beyond the premises of incremental innovation and thus opening up to more radical change.
Interestingly, one participant did not name practices or tools to be specific for the success of DT. In
her justification for this, she expressed doubts if there are any tools that are truly unique to DT.
Another participant emphasised that it is crucial to know when to use a specific tool/method, as there
is no generally applicable action plan for executing DT. One needs to find out for each particular
project how to structure the DT approach. This also pertains to what expertise has to be brought in at a
given point in time. According to this participant, it is the task of the DT facilitator to make a decision
if/when to add more/remove people to the process depending on the expertise needed at a given point
in time. This element of experience, rather than a formalised rule, in knowing when to apply what or
when to add a particular expertise was stressed by two more participants.
Participant #4: “I think you need a feeling for context and the situation you are in. I created the learning
history tool myself, that replaces context mapping. It is not that I do not like the tool, but it is not useful in
every situation.”
Participant #2: “Many people worked on tools and methods to gather insights about the consumer, but not
that many tools will be applied to define opportunities. Think about personas and journey mapping, which
are developed to create insights, but are also applied in service design to prototype.”
Tables 1 and 2 shows the differences in perspective between definition, element and practice. Certain
elements that are found in the previous sections are according to a participant tools instead of an
element. Visualisation is an element that is mentioned three times in the interviews as an element, but
can also be seen as task to execute or tool, e.g. as means to communicate ideas to others or idea
through form variance. Others cannot find tools for specific elements, because they have the feeling
that you only need a mindset to apply the element.
Participant #5: “Collaboration is more like an overall mindset. You need to involve different people at
different times with different expertise.”
Table 2. Interviewees’ perspectives on practices that make DT application successful
Participant Element (Practice)
Human centeredness (user-research), multidisciplinary, future oriented (vision, roadmap),
1
problem framing, flexibility, visualisation
Co-evolution (domain expertise), abduction, visualisation, experimentation (qualitative
2
processes), framing-reframing, human centeredness (personas, journey mapping)
3 Consideration about method use, analysis, reflection, human centeredness
Human centeredness (co-create with people, invite to play, customer journey mapping,
4 qualitative interviews, context mapping, learning history), generative sensing, prototyping,
abduction, coping with uncertainty
Human centeredness (personas, context mapping focus group), prototyping (mock-ups),
problem framing (point of view), collaboration (more an overall mindset for this), visualisation
5
(is a tool itself, synthesizing, business model canvas, customer journey mapping, persona
definition, storyboard) , experimentation (early prototyping)
Holistic, bias towards creation / creativity, visual language (prototyping, visuals, schemes),
6
orchestrating ambiguity
7 Problem understanding, iterating, testing, visual language (process sketch, computer sketch)

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 4.3.2 Benefits Design Thinking can create for organisations
Participants unanimously agreed that DT can offer a lot of benefits for companies. They all shared
both what exactly they experienced in industry to create benefit for the organisations and how this can
be measured. They also strongly advocated the notion of human centeredness as the one quintessential
driver of benefit DT offered for companies through creating a much deeper understanding of their
customers.
Participant #4: “For example, human centeredness, they can satisfy their clients better than before.
Understanding their needs better shows that Design Thinking works [well for them]. “
Participants also highlighted the concept of flexibility. This pertains both to the processes being
applied and also to not pre-determine what the final outcome is expected to be. In turn, DT applicants
were said to enjoy a larger freedom and flexibility in what they do and pour their efforts into, which
creates room for creativity and innovation. One interviewee also suggested that this flexibility,
inadvertently, makes people reflect on their progress more consciously, which is a positive effect,
although progress may not always be achieved as quickly as with more traditional, less flexible
approaches. Another participant suggested that learning effects, employee satisfaction and employee
innovativeness can be increased, though it is hard to quantify this in any way.
Participant #2: “I have always related the power of [Design Thinking] to flexibility, being flexible with
your goals and resources.”
Subsequently, the benefit of early prototyping and visualising was highlighted as ‘good practice’ to
facilitate design outcomes.
Participant #1: “[In my experience], many companies prototype quite late, but the good companies start
early making quick and dirty sketches, even [as early as] part of their [initial] strategy meetings.”
Finally, two interviewees stated that, ultimately, market success determines if DT has led to better/
(more) suitable outcomes.
Participant #5: “I think the success factor is actually that eventually there is a market for whatever you
have designed.”
It was admitted though that measuring a direct correlation between the use of DT and market success
is very difficult. Yet, the relevant participants argued that DT offers a higher likelihood of creating a
substantial market opportunity, given its focus on the prospect user and their needs and desires, which
then – by design – (should) make the created solutions appealing to the target user group.

4.4 Pitfalls of Design Thinking

The potential pitfalls mentioned by the participants for not being successful in DT application can be
discerned in two categories: (1) what DT is missing, and (2) situations in which DT simply is not a
suitable approach. Although both these two components were explored in the interview, most
participants focused on the latter. Participants widely agreed that the hype around the DT approach
creates problems. Some described it as ‘naivety’, because users tend to have the idea that it ‘can do
anything’, due to the commercialisation by design consultancies. They emphasised DT being valued
for its speed in application, ease of use and general applicability, although most applications were
superficial. One of the respondents even described it as ‘corporate entertainment’, referring to a lack
of time that would be needed to thoroughly understand the process.
Participant #5: “Many non-designers think they can learn it in one or two days and start using all these
methods, but the methods themselves require a lot of practice.”
Besides the criticism of DT being sold as ‘a simple cure for innovativeness’, one participant argued
that it has always been inherent to design activities. And, in fact, it is something that one would expect
designers to be doing anyway, every day.
Participant #3: “You can skip the term, because it’s same as if I expect that designers who go to work are
healthy. I expect healthy also in the sense of, if they have the flu, they stay at home.”
DT is agreed to be a good fit with young and progressive companies, e.g. design consultancies, but has
strong limitations in established corporate environments. This is due to the difficulty people experience
in changing their way of working and their mindset in traditional organisational structure and culture.

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 Still, most interviewees think all companies can benefit from DT, but not in all situations. It is seen as
not suitable in situations when a company is under significant time pressure, when there is not much
flexibility as to what the outcome should be or when the company is mainly interested in incremental,
rather than radical innovations.
Participant #1: “It depends on the type of portfolio they have. You have to have a coherent portfolio. And
your portfolio [should be] balanced between radical and incremental innovation. So you cannot be radical
all the time or looking for the great solution all the time.”
For some companies it is easier to adopt DT than others. Progressiveness and design orientation are
imperative. The number of designers in a company is also an influencing factor, since having
designers in the team adds to the skillset the team can draw upon in applying DT and having had
exposure to designers’ ways of working increases confidence in the benefit this can bring.
Participant #5: “In the end for any company that doesn’t have designers and doesn’t deal that much with
uncertainty, those are the most challenging for Design Thinking.”
Finally, DT was described to be not suitable for a highly competitive corporate culture (as this can
impede team work), emergency cases, i.e. failing companies, finally, start-ups in middle of their growth.

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The diversity of DT process definitions in literature is heavily reflected in the interviewee’s
perceptions. Some of the participants described it as a toolbox of methods and tools that - if used right
- will lead to more human-centeredness and creativity in teams or organisations. Others focused on
‘how a designer would do it’, implying DT as an umbrella term for the acts typically carried out by
designers as part of their typical work/approach in addressing a design task or to solve a problem.

5.1 Design Thinking as a practical toolkit

DT is seen as a practical innovation approach in managerial contexts that can be taught to everybody
(Liedtka and Ogilvie, 2011). This is most in line with the modern interpretation of DT as advocated by
others (Brown, 2009; McKilligan et al., 2017) and others. The content of the toolbox, however, can
vary significantly (see Table 2). Interviewees stressed the importance of experience in using the
encompassed methods and tools and/or having facilitation from design experts during the process and
or professional tutoring/training by them. This very much aligns with the mentioned pitfalls,
suggesting that DT requires more than the right tools and methods, but presupposes a significant level
of knowledge gained by experience. One participant was adamant in saying that the only way to
master DT is by year-long experience. Thus, proper use of DT is ascribed to significant tacit
knowledge (Reber, 1989) that is hard to transfer to another person by means of making it explicit,
writing or verbalising it. This would provide additional explanations as to the origin of the
ambiguousness which comes with the methodology, i.e. if ‘proper’ use of DT comes with long-term
experience, than what a person considers proper DT is inevitably flavoured by the specific cases and
application that this person has encountered prior.

5.2 A ‘Design Thinking’ mindset

A set of DT mindsets was promoted by the majority of participants. De Lille (2012) prominently
describes the value of a designerly approach, from empathising, visualising, prototyping to other
creative activities, as the core essence of design as a discipline/field of study. The right mindset lets
designers see problems as opportunities to create new solutions, which is a different mindset from
non-designers who tend to favour analysis and selection of ‘the best option’ out of a set (Boland and
Collopy, 2004). This is not to say, non-designers cannot generate novel solutions, yet it stands to
reason that their inherent skills will not be as developed in doing so. DT is then referring to the
particular way designers deal with wicked problem, which is in the nature of design problems
(Buchanan, 1992). Equally, cognitive capabilities that are considered the life-blood of design like
analogising, (re)framing, abductive hypothesising, et cetera, are considered vital in the inherent
mechanism of DT in its modern interpretation, but not explicitly discussed as part of the ‘toolbox’ by
its advocates (Dorst, 2011). This provides explanations why almost all participants consider DT as not
suitable for small-scale problems or incremental changes to existing solutions. Designers have the

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 biggest impact when working with problems that are wicked, vague and need considerable
reformulation and exploration before they can be matched with a potential solution.

5.3 Help non-designers see a new world and foster innovation at the merging points
Ultimately, the expert interviews strongly support extant literature in highlighting the varied,
disjointed nature of how DT is interpreted, which might make it even more ambiguous for its
practitioners. Interestingly, there is a lot of agreement though as to success factors and pitfalls. Most
striking is the unanimous perception that seeing DT as some kind of plug-and-play solution to solving
any given problems and the related hype around it as a key issue. DT runs the danger of becoming
obsolete when it is advertised and perceived to be able to do much more than it can deliver and then
inevitably leads to significant disappointment with the people applying it. Eventually, this must reflect
badly on design as a wider discipline, if – mainly commercial – advocates of DT advertise it as the
core of design, and design also as being “too important to be left to designers” (Brown, 2009, p.37).
Participants also agree that it is imperative to have designers train others thoroughly in how to apply
DT for it to provide significant benefit. This aligns clearly with the concept of mindset and skill
inherent to design as incorporating DT as an approach. DT is not so much about methods and tool,
these are only instances of much deeper, but often tacit, skills and knowledge.
This research originally set out to find a consensus in what DT is and its applications. It seems
plausible that DT is both applicable as a toolbox and a mindset approach. Participants agree that its
main benefit is for people who are non-designers to start thinking explicitly about the user in solving
adequate problems and to generate creative solutions for them. This can generate very quick ‘wins’ as
novel insights spark for entirely new ideas for non-designers. Ultimately, it is a push into a creativity
mindset and perspective. Methods/tools like personas and user stories, or skills like visualisation and
prototyping or methodologies like co-creation are seen as practical ways to instil designerly ways of
working and thinking. On the verge of deep technical, business, scientific or other knowledge directed
towards a novel perception and facilitated by designerly cues and approaches, novel ideas and
combinations of disciplinary knowledge can manifest (Bason, 2010). As such, DT is a pertinent means
to inspire and to facilitate transdisciplinarity leading to novel solutions at disciplinary intersections. To
achieve this, and prevent DT from becoming meaningless, it is and remains vital for trained designers
to be involved, to lead non-designers, know when to do what and add particular expertise to use.

5.4 Limitations and future research

A limitation to this research is the low number of participants, which prevents generalisability. Yet, it
has to be highlighted that the interviewees can be considered true experts in their fields. The acquired
data was extremely rich and in many ways and helps in building a deeper understanding of what are
issues and strengths of DT. A second limitation is a potential experimenter bias, i.e. an unintentional
influence on the answers given by the researcher conducting the interviews. Given the multi-facetted
nature of the responses, and the missing consensus on DT that the researcher originally set out to find,
such an influence can be considered minor, if present. The results of this study show a broad diversity
within a small sample of researchers on what DT is, but, at the same time, reveal a strong consensus
on what its strengths and pitfalls are. These will be focus of future research. By using a combination of
qualitative and quantitative research methods, it becomes more feasible to research practices and
perception on DT from a larger group of people.

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