The way of thinking that treats the problem statement as a first draft. It works on situations that cannot be fully specified in advance, by proposing something, watching how the situation answers back, and reframing as it goes.
Change the situation, and learn what the problem was by trying
Design thinking works on ill-defined problems by moving between problem and solution instead of finishing one before starting the other. Its research base is older and more careful than its workshop form: Cross on designerly ways of knowing, Schön on reflection-in-action, Rittel and Webber on wicked problems, Dorst on frame creation. It is strongest when the goal is clear enough to aim at and the path is not. It is weakest when the situation needs understanding more than it needs a proposal.
In ordinary life
Someone moves into a flat with a small kitchen. They do not write a specification. They put the kettle where it seems sensible, cook for a week, and notice they keep walking round the table to reach the bin. The bin moves. A month later the kitchen works, and nobody could have designed it on paper on the first day.
That is design thinking at domestic scale. Schön described designers holding a conversation with the materials of a situation. You make a move, the situation talks back, and the back-talk tells you what the problem was. Lawson’s studies found that designers learn about a problem mainly by proposing solutions to it, where scientists tend to analyse first.
Rittel and Webber called the problems of planning wicked. They have no definitive formulation, no stopping rule, and every attempt to solve one changes it. Most of the problems a school faces are wicked in exactly that sense. That is the case for a way of thinking built for them.
The educational experience
Every page follows the same school on the same kind of day. The school has decided to increase students’ use of generative AI, and the plan is due for review. The five people and the situation stay fixed. Only the way of thinking changes.
All five, interconnected
The five threads as they were written, interleaved, so the hand-offs between them are visible. Pick a person to follow their day on its own. The people are illustrative, and the same five appear on every way’s page.
08:10
Mr Osei, briefing the sprint
The brief he wrote says "increase effective AI use across the school". He expects the team to come back with a training plan. Ms Lim asks whether they can rewrite the brief after the first day. He says yes, slightly warily.
09:00
Ms Lim and five students, in the library
No sticky notes yet. Ms Lim asks the students to show her, on their own laptops, the last three times they used AI for school. Nadia shows a history essay, a maths explanation she did not follow, and a message to a friend asking what the homework was.
10:30
Ms Lim, reading back her notes
The pattern surprises her. Most of the AI use is not cheating. It is students trying to work out what a task wants. The problem the brief described, too little effective use, is not the problem in the room.
12:00
Rob, on a phone call
Ms Lim calls three parents. Rob says the homework instructions make no sense to him either, and that Nadia asks the AI what the teacher meant. He did not know that was the use until he said it aloud.
13:30
The reframe
Ms Lim brings Mr Osei a rewritten brief: how might students understand what a task is asking before they start it? He points out that is not about AI at all. She says that is roughly the point.
14:15
Nadia, testing prototype one
The first prototype is a paper slip on every homework task with one worked example of a good answer. Nadia uses it on the history homework. She still opens the AI tool, but to argue with her draft, not to write it.
15:00
Prototypes two and three
The second prototype, a two-minute recorded explanation from the teacher, is ignored by everyone. The third, a shared class document of questions about the task, gets forty questions in an hour. Ms Lim drops the second without regret.
16:30
Priya, on a visit
Priya asks what the sprint produced. Ms Lim shows her the questions document and the two essays Nadia wrote with and without the example slip. It is the first design sprint Priya has seen that shows her test results instead of a poster.
20:15
Rob and Nadia, at the kitchen table
Nadia shows Rob the slip with the worked example. For the first time in a year he can see what the homework wants, and he asks her a question about it.
The brief asked for more AI use. The first day of watching turned it into a question about understanding tasks, which AI use was a symptom of. Two of three prototypes survived a day of testing. The reframe was worth more than either, and it happened because the team was allowed to rewrite the brief.
Implications
The same five dimensions for all four ways. This is the part that can be tabulated. The two narratives above are the part that can be argued with.
What people actually do, as opposed to what they report or what the plan assumes. Design thinking pays close attention to workarounds, because a workaround is a user telling you the design is wrong. It notices when the brief itself is the problem, and it treats a failed prototype as information.
Structure that no single user experiences. Watching five students closely will not reveal the feedback loop between marking and homework, because no student sees the whole loop. Design thinking also struggles with the long delay. A prototype tested for a week says nothing about what happens in three years.
It can mistake the users in the room for everyone affected. The students in the sprint volunteered. The ones who most needed the change probably did not.
Comfort with making something rough and showing it to people before it is good. For students used to being marked on finished work this is hard, and for teachers used to planning thoroughly it can feel careless. The discipline is in the testing, which has to be honest enough to kill a prototype you liked.
Good work shows the reframe and the evidence for it. Weak work shows the final idea and a picture of the process.
In the word "preferred". Simon’s definition of design turns existing situations into preferred ones, and says nothing about whose preference. Buchanan argued that design has no subject matter of its own, which means the values come from whoever sets the brief. A design process run with students but briefed by management has already decided whose preferences count.
Five coloured stages, a morning of sticky notes and a solution chosen by the most senior person in the room. The workshop version keeps the stages and drops the two things that made the method work: sustained attention to real users, and the licence to rewrite the brief. What remains is brainstorming with better stationery.
Reading
Published works only. Start with the first on the list.
Cross, N. (2006). Designerly Ways of Knowing. Springer.
The research case that design is a distinct way of knowing, collected from Cross’s papers since 1982.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books.
Reflection-in-action, and design as a conversation with the materials of a situation.
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169.
Wicked problems, and why planning problems resist definitive formulation.
Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5–21.
Design thinking as a response to wicked problems, and why design has no fixed subject matter.
Lawson, B. (1980). How Designers Think. Architectural Press.
Designers learn about a problem by proposing solutions to it.
Dorst, K. (2011). The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application. Design Studies, 32(6), 521–532.
Frame creation, and what is worth transferring from design practice to other fields.