Getting to grips with design thinking in interaction design : lessons from architectural practice

In recent years, the concept of design thinking has received significant attention within the research literature originating from several design as well as management fields [1, 5]. However, there does not seem to be any agreement on what exactly design thinking is, nor on how it guides the activity of design. In this paper, we introduce one recently articulated view of design thinking originating from the field of architectural design [4]. We briefly discuss some characteristics of this view of design thinking and how it guides the activity of design and then apply the process of design guided by this view of design thinking to address the design brief provided by DTRS9. We conclude by pointing out that unlike the descriptions of the activity of design provided by design paradigms, the design process informed by architectural view of design thinking consists of both the process of problem decomposition and the process of solution focused process of the solution focused problem formulation which provides a means for designers to get to grips in a more practical way with real design issues.