Episode 83: Post-Its and Blocks

Michael and Jessica talk about the latest flare-up in the Design Thinking wars, beginning with Lee Vinsel’s article There’s So Little There There: A Response to the Stanford d.school’s Defense of Design Thinking. Jessica agrees with Vinsel that there is an “Emperor’s New Clothes” quality to design thinking:

He’s basically coming back to language, simplicity, clarity, honesty… Design Thinking, how dare it coopt language that speaks for us all? How dare it say that, in order to be empathetic, in order to be empathize, you have to follow this quid pro quo process.

Michael says that

It’s tempting and fun to piss all over design thinking, but I know a lot of smart effective designers, not just well-intentioned but actually really successful professionals, who take design thinking really seriously.

Also mentioned this week:

• Natasha Jen, Design Thinking Is Bullshit
• Lee Vinsel, Medium, Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your Brains
• Vinsel, Chronicle of Higher Education, Design Thinking is a Boondoggle
• Lilly Irani, Catalyst, “Design Thinking”: Defending Silicon Valley at the Apex of Global Labor Hierarchies
• Roger Martin, The Design of Business
• Alexandra Lange, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids
• Jessica on the Incredibles (Design Observer, 2004)
• Christopher Bonanos, Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous

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