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Design thinking glossary

38 terms from R03, Design thinking, used honestly — 19 defined in the guide itself and 19 more from the field around it. Every term the guide teaches links to the slide that teaches it.

The whole craft glossary

R03 · What to build

Design thinking, used honestly

Are we solving the right problem?

Every term below is defined in the words of design thinking, guide R03 of craft guides for educational technologists, and opens the guide at the slide where it is taught. 19 of the 38 are the field’s vocabulary rather than the guide’s own: words a reader will meet around this subject, defined here because the guide assumes them. 5 terms are also defined by another guide in the series; where the two differ, both wordings are given. The whole craft glossary holds all of them together.

TermDefinitionReferred to inRead further
B
Brainstorming

Group idea generation under four rules: go for quantity, hold back criticism, welcome unusual ideas, and build on the ideas of others.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. doi
  • Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied imagination: Principles and procedures of creative thinking. Scribner.
Brainwriting

Idea generation in which people write their ideas down in silence and pass them round for others to build on, which avoids waiting for a turn to speak.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. doi
  • Paulus, P. B., & Yang, H.-C. (2000). Idea generation in groups: A basis for creativity in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 76–87. doi
C
Co-design

Designers and people not trained in design working together in the design process (Sanders & Stappers, 2008).

  • Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. doi
  • Penuel, W. R., Roschelle, J., & Shechtman, N. (2007). Designing formative assessment software with teachers: An analysis of the co-design process. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 2(1), 51–74. doi
  • Druin, A. (2002). The role of children in the design of new technology. Behaviour & Information Technology, 21(1), 1–25. doi
Co-evolution of problem and solution

The observation that designers do not fix the problem first and then solve it: their understanding of the problem and their ideas for a solution develop together, each reshaping the other.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Dorst, K. (2011). The core of 'design thinking' and its application. Design Studies, 32(6), 521–532. doi
  • Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: Co-evolution of problem–solution. Design Studies, 22(5), 425–437. doi
Convergent thinking

Narrowing many options down to a focused choice.

  • Design Council. (n.d.-a). Framework for innovation. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from designcouncil.org.uk
  • Design Council. (2007). Eleven lessons: Managing design in eleven global brands. A study of the design process. idi-design.ie
Creative confidence

The belief that one can come up with new ideas and the willingness to act on them, treated as something that can be built through practice.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. (2013). Creative confidence: Unleashing the creative potential within us all. Crown Business.
Cultural probe

A kit of open, playful tasks, such as postcards, maps and a camera, given to people to complete on their own and return, to inspire designers with glimpses of their lives.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Gaver, B., Dunne, T., & Pacenti, E. (1999). Design: Cultural probes. Interactions, 6(1), 21–29. doi
Cynefin framework

A distinction between simple contexts, where leaders sense, categorise and respond, complicated ones, where they analyse with expert help, and complex ones, where they probe, then sense and respond (Snowden & Boone, 2007).

  • Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader's framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68–76. hbr.org
D
Design brief

The written starting point of a design project, giving the problem as first understood, the people it is for, the constraints and what would count as success.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. HarperBusiness.
Design partner

A child or adult who takes part in design as an equal stakeholder, not only as a tester (Druin, 2002).

  • Druin, A. (2002). The role of children in the design of new technology. Behaviour & Information Technology, 21(1), 1–25. doi
Design theatre

The visible rituals of design work, such as sticky notes and sprints, without the evidence and judgement behind them.

  • Kimbell, L. (2011). Rethinking design thinking: Part I. Design and Culture, 3(3), 285–306. doi
  • Vinsel, L. (2017). Design thinking is kind of like syphilis: It's contagious and rots your brains. Medium. sts-news.medium.com
  • Kolko, J. (2018). The divisiveness of design thinking. Interactions, 25(3), 28–34. doi
Design thinking

A way of framing and exploring a problem before solving it, drawn from how designers work.

  • Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92. hbr.org
  • Dorst, K. (2011). The core of 'design thinking' and its application. Design Studies, 32(6), 521–532. doi
  • Kimbell, L. (2011). Rethinking design thinking: Part I. Design and Culture, 3(3), 285–306. doi
Designerly ways of knowing

The claim that design has its own forms of knowledge and problem solving, distinct from the sciences and the humanities, centred on proposing solutions to ill-defined problems.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Cross, N. (1982). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies, 3(4), 221–227. doi
Divergent thinking

Widening the range of options or perspectives before choosing among them.

  • Design Council. (n.d.-a). Framework for innovation. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from designcouncil.org.uk
  • Design Council. (2007). Eleven lessons: Managing design in eleven global brands. A study of the design process. idi-design.ie
Double Diamond

The Design Council's model of design as two rounds of divergence and convergence: discover and define, then develop and deliver.

  • Design Council. (2007). Eleven lessons: Managing design in eleven global brands. A study of the design process. idi-design.ie
  • Design Council. (n.d.-b). History of the Double Diamond. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from designcouncil.org.uk
  • Design Council. (n.d.-a). Framework for innovation. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from designcouncil.org.uk
E
Empathy

In design, the effort to understand a situation as the people in it experience it, gained by observing, talking with and working alongside them, not by imagining them.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92. hbr.org
  • Kouprie, M., & Sleeswijk Visser, F. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: Stepping into and out of the user's life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437–448. doi
  • Leonard, D., & Rayport, J. F. (1997). Spark innovation through empathic design. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 102–113.
Extraction

Taking participants' time and ideas without giving anything back, including an account of what their input changed.

  • Penuel, W. R., Roschelle, J., & Shechtman, N. (2007). Designing formative assessment software with teachers: An analysis of the co-design process. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 2(1), 51–74. doi
  • Iskander, N. (2018). Design thinking is fundamentally conservative and preserves the status quo. Harvard Business Review. hbr.org
F
Five-step model

The basic, linear process of empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test popularised by Stanford's d.school, which its academic director calls just a first recipe, a suggestion for how to get started (Carter, 2016).

  • Carter, C. (2016). Let's stop talking about THE design process. Stanford d.school. dschool.stanford.edu
  • Stanford d.school. (2025). Let's stop talking about THE design process [Introduction to Carter, 2016]. dschool.stanford.edu
  • Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92. hbr.org
Frame

A way of seeing a problem that implies how value could be created (Dorst, 2011).

  • Dorst, K. (2011). The core of 'design thinking' and its application. Design Studies, 32(6), 521–532. doi
  • Dorst, K. (2015). Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design. MIT Press. mitpress.mit.edu
  • Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Front end

The early, uncertain stage of design where a team decides what to design, if anything (Sanders & Stappers, 2008).

R11 The part of a system that runs in the browser or app and that users see and touch.

  • Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. doi
  • MDN Web Docs. (n.d.). How the web works. Mozilla. Retrieved September 17, 2026, from developer.mozilla.org
G
Groan zone

The uncomfortable middle of a group decision, after ideas have been opened up and before they come together, when people struggle to understand one another's views.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Kaner, S., Lind, L., Toldi, C., Fisk, S., & Berger, D. (2014). Facilitator's guide to participatory decision-making (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
H
Human-centred design

An approach to designing systems that starts from the people who will use them, involves them throughout, and revises the design in response to evaluation with them.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92. hbr.org
  • International Organization for Standardization. (2019). Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO 9241-210:2019).
I
Ideation

The stage of design work given to producing many possible solutions to a framed problem, before any is judged or chosen.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 84–92. hbr.org
Ill-structured problem

A problem whose goals, constraints and permitted moves are not fully given at the outset, so that part of solving it is deciding what the problem is.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Simon, H. A. (1973). The structure of ill structured problems. Artificial Intelligence, 4(3–4), 181–201. doi
L
Lead user

A user whose needs are ahead of most others' and who has often already improvised a solution, making them a source of ideas that the wider group will later want.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • von Hippel, E. (1986). Lead users: A source of novel product concepts. Management Science, 32(7), 791–805. doi
N
Nominal group

People who generate ideas alone, whose ideas are then pooled.

  • Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. doi
  • Taylor, D. W., Berry, P. C., & Block, C. H. (1958). Does group participation when using brainstorming facilitate or inhibit creative thinking? Administrative Science Quarterly, 3(1), 23–47. doi
P
Participatory design

A tradition, begun in Scandinavian workplaces, in which the people who will use a system take part in designing it and share in the decisions about it.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. doi
  • Schuler, D., & Namioka, A. (Eds.). (1993). Participatory design: Principles and practices. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Problem setting

Naming what to attend to and framing the context around it (Schön, 1983).

  • Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
  • Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. doi
Problem space and solution space

The problem space is everything a team could learn about the need and its setting; the solution space is everything it could build in response. Design thinking explores the first before the second.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human problem solving. Prentice-Hall. doi
  • Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: Co-evolution of problem–solution. Design Studies, 22(5), 425–437. doi
Production blocking

The loss of ideas in a group because only one person can speak at a time (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987).

  • Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. doi
Prototype

Any representation of a design idea, regardless of medium, made to answer a question (Houde & Hill, 1997).

R07 Any representation of a design idea, regardless of medium, built to answer a question and then be thrown away (Houde & Hill, 1997).

  • Houde, S., & Hill, C. (1997). What do prototypes prototype? In M. G. Helander, T. K. Landauer, & P. V. Prabhu (Eds.), Handbook of human-computer interaction (2nd ed., pp. 367–381). North-Holland. doi
  • Houde, S., & Hill, C. (1997). What do prototypes prototype? In M. Helander, T. K. Landauer, & P. Prabhu (Eds.), Handbook of human-computer interaction (2nd ed., pp. 367–381). Elsevier. doi
  • Buxton, B. (2007). Sketching user experiences: Getting the design right and the right design. Morgan Kaufmann. books.google.com
R
Reflection-in-action

Thinking about what one is doing while doing it, and adjusting the next move in response to what the situation shows.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Reframing

Replacing the first description of a problem with another that opens different solutions.

R06 Shifting semantic perspective in order to see things in a new way, one of the main ways insights are formed (Kolko, 2010).

  • Dorst, K. (2011). The core of 'design thinking' and its application. Design Studies, 32(6), 521–532. doi
  • Kolko, J. (2010). Abductive thinking and sensemaking: The drivers of design synthesis. Design Issues, 26(1), 15–28. doi
  • Dorst, K. (2015). Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design. MIT Press. mitpress.mit.edu
S
Sketch

A quick, cheap, disposable representation made to explore rather than to confirm (Buxton, 2007).

R07 A quick, cheap, disposable drawing made to explore an idea rather than confirm it (Buxton, 2007).

  • Buxton, B. (2007). Sketching user experiences: Getting the design right and the right design. Morgan Kaufmann. books.google.com
  • Hartmann, B. (2009). Gaining design insight through interaction prototyping tools [Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University]. people.eecs.berkeley.edu
  • Tohidi, M., Buxton, W., Baecker, R., & Sellen, A. (2006). Getting the right design and the design right: Testing many is better than one. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1243–1252). ACM. doi
Speculative design

Design work that makes objects and scenarios from possible futures, not for sale or use but to prompt debate about which futures people want.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT Press.
T
T-shaped person

Someone with deep skill in one discipline, the upright of the T, and enough breadth and curiosity to work well with people from others, the crossbar.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. HarperBusiness.
Tame problem

A problem that can be stated clearly, has a definite end point and can be checked as solved or not, however hard it may be technically. The opposite of a wicked problem.

  • R03Design thinking, used honestlyFrom the field · not in the guide
  • Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. doi
W
Wicked problem

A problem whose formulation is itself the problem, with no single owner or stopping point (Rittel & Webber, 1973).

R02 A problem with no single owner, no agreed definition and no clear stopping point (Rittel & Webber, 1973).

  • Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. doi
  • OECD. (2017). Systems approaches to public sector challenges: Working with change. OECD Publishing. doi
  • Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21. doi

Nearby

The guide itself, and the ones either side

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