Wicked Problems in Design Thinking

1. Wicked Problems in Design Thinking Salome Asega CarrolShen Ye Han Qiuyi Wu

2. Introduction • design expands in its meanings and connections • unexpected dimensions in practice as well as understanding • a new liberal art of technological culture • part of the revolutionary transformation • Combine theory with practice for new productive purposes

3. Design and Intentional Operations John Dewey • New relationship between science, art and practice • Knowledge is no longer achieved by direct conformity of ideas with the fixed orders of nature; knowledge is achieved by a new kind of art directed toward orders of change • Science as art • Because of technology, a circular relationship between art and science has been established

4. Design and Intentional Operations • Design and design thinking continue to expand their meanings and connections in contemporary culture • Problem: discussion between designers and members of scientific community tend to leave little room for reflection on the broader nature of design and its relation to the arts and sciences  breakdown and confusion of communication

5. The Doctrine of Placement • Liberal art • Discipline of thinking that maybe shared to some degree by all men and women in their daily lives and mastered by a few people who practice the discipline with distinctive insight and sometimes advance it to new areas of innovative application

6. 4 broad areas in which design is explored throughout the world • Design of symbolic and visual communications • Design of material objects • Design of activities and organized services • Design of complex systems or environments for living, working, playing, and learning

7. Comparable movements • Primary concern begins in one area, but innovation coms when the initial selection is repositioned at another point in the framework, raising new questions and ideas • Eg. Architecture. Deconstructionist architecture • Reposition • study from experiences

8. Categories and Placement • Categories • Fixed meanings that are accepted within the framework of a theory or a philosophy • Basis for analyzing what already exists • secondary for designers but primary for design history • Placement • Boundaries to shape and constrain meaning • Not fixed and determinate • Sources of new ideas and possibilities when applied to problems in concrete circumstances • primary for designers, but secondary for design history

9. Wicked Problems Theory of Design • Design as an integrative discipline • Communication between designers and scientists • Design Process: • 1) Problem Definition analytic sequence in which the designer determines all of the elements of the problem and specifies all of the requirements that a successful design solution must have • 2) Problem Solution Synthetic sequence in which the various requirements are combined and balanced against each other, yielding a final plan to be carried into production

10. Wicked Problems Theory of Design • Horst Rittel • Most of the problems addressed by designers are wicked problems • Relationship between determinacy and indeterminacy in design thinking • Indeterminacy • No definitive conditions or limits to design problems

11. 10 properties of wicked problems (by Rittel 1972) • Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, but every formulation of a wicked problem corresponds to the formulation of the solution • Wicked problems have no stopping rules • Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false, only good or bad • In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations • For every wicked problem there is always more than one possible explanation, with explanations depending on the Weltanschauung of the designer • Every wicked problem is a symptom of an other, “higher level”, problem • No formulation and solution of a wicked problem has a definitive test • Solving a wicked problem is a “one shot” operation, with no room for trial and error • Every wicked problem is unique • The wicked problem solver has no right to be wrong – they are fully responsible for their actions

12. Designers • Conceive their subject matter in 2 ways on 2 levels: • General • Particular

13. Design and Technology • Design as communication, construction, strategic planning, or systemic integration • Interconnection of signs, things, actions, and thoughts • New awareness of how argument is the central theme that cuts across the many technical methodologies employed in each design profession • New attitude about the appearance of products: • 3 lines of reasoning: • Idea about their product • Internal operational logic of the product • Reflect personal and social values