Design Thinking is the Data Science of UX: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in.
Even though there might be universal design principle that can be applied in many fields, the Design Thinking people think that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field.
Design Thinking works for selling consulting and not much else. Nobody wants another Agile(TM) process imposed on software developers (in my particular case) that attempts to turn developers into factory line workers.
Isn't design thinking just... thinking? There may be different design methodologies you apply in different domains (e.g. civil, aeronautics, automotive, electronics, software), but once you abstract that away, what you get is thinking. I once attended a design thinking workshop many years ago, and no one there was able to adequately explain what design thinking was, except by means of jargon, metaphor, or example. My understanding of the subject has not advanced much further in the intervening years.
Can you give an analogous example for data science? I confess ignorance here, and always took the term at face value. Is the issue that "data science" tries to be agnostic about the source of the data? (I'm not claiming that that is true, just guessing)
Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem.
However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics engineer working in the field knows about it. So, without an expertise in a particular field, data scientists often reach for a big hammer, when more specialized tools exist and are known to the experts in the field.
Yet I suspect that mechanical engineers are not writing software for companies in the large. There are software developers doing so.
I suspect that they should be consulted by data science folks as domain experts.
That said won’t AI replace both? ;)
Uhh… What does Design Thinking have to do with UX? Sure, it could be used to come up with novel ideas for user interfaces but DT (nowadays) is an approach that's several orders of magnitude more general.
Sure. Let me then call it this way: "Design Thinking is the Data Science of design: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in."
I’d retort that software developers aren’t domain experts either. At the end of the day you either luck out if domain experts and actual users are involved in eliminating toil (in the sense that Google defines that) and optimizing the user experience, while reducing friction in applications and providing insights into data.
I'm a dev and recently picked up "The Design of Everyday Things" as an attempt to become more design-oriented. Everyone raves about this being like the bible of design.
So far I'm about 80 pages in and have found it extremely academic and not very practical, sometimes deriving conclusions that are so far from reality that they are a bit concerning, like how a strong password does not matter because once they inevitably leak they can always be cracked via rainbow tables (the author doesn't use this exact term). As we know the exact point of a strong password is that it will not be in a rainbow table.
Of course the original version is pretty old but I picked up the latest revised version. Still some interesting insights and I haven't given up on the book quite yet but it's been a ton of theory and a lot of terminology so far.
I've used The Design of Everyday Things in many classes I teach. I would agree that it's not practical, but that's not its goal. Instead, it gives you frameworks for thinking about things as well as vocabulary for talking about those things.
Off the top of my head, some of the key ideas include:
* Affordances, that objects should have (often visual) cues that give hints as to how to use things * Mental models, that every design has three different models, namely system implementation, design model, and user model, and that the design model and user model should try to match each other * Gulf of Evaluation (the gap between the current system state and people's understanding of it) and Gulf of Execution (the gap between what people want the system to do and how to use the system to do it) * Kinds of Errors and how to design to prevent and recover from them, e.g. slips (chose the right action but accidentally did the wrong thing, e.g. fat finger) vs mistakes (chose the wrong action to do)
What's particularly useful about Norman's book is that these key ideas apply for all kinds of user interfaces, from command-line to GUI to voice-only to AR/VR to AI chatbot. I'd encourage you to think about this book in this kind of framing, that it gives you general frameworks for reasoning and talking about UX problems rather than specific practical solutions.
I was gifted this book my a CIO when in college. She had a dozen copies in her office to hand out to various people.
It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on a touch screen, when all I want is a knob, button, or switch.
In the modern era of web design I think it would point to these websites (like most of Apple’s product pages), that make users scroll through indulgent animations, just to get to the content. It may be cool the first time, but is very annoying for repeat visits, and it feels like it breaks my scrolling expectations. Not to mention all the horizontal scrolling thrown in there, which becomes a headache for those without the hardware to do it easily, and confusing to change scroll direction all the time.
I love this. Thank you for introducing me to "Norman Doors". I hadn't realized someone else had described this in such detail. I have been complaining about this years.
Ok this will be a tangent, but I also take this one step farther and also talk about "documentation". Just for the record, I don't think documentation is all good or all bad, but it definitely can be used incorrectly and in excess. And Norman Doors and a great way to get this point across.
When someone creates or installs a Norman Door by accident or out of ignorance and then realizes there is a problem, they often think "I know, I will document it!" and they add little placards to the door that says "Push/Pull" or some such. They see that this helps with a small subset of users and thinks "there, I fixed the problem, people just need to read the documentation and now it is their problem if they don't". But if you watch users of the door, a large portion will still use the door incorrectly because... people don't read documentation. If they don't read documentation, is it the users fault the door was designed incorrectly or was it the designers problem?
I use this as an example for my developers on thinking before documenting troublesome code or a confusing interface to first ask "can I design this so it is less confusing?" and if so, that would usually be preferable to adding documentation "to solve the problem". Well designed code (or doors) with no documentation always beats poor designs with documentation.
The thing about norman doors is that it's not really a design flaw, not in every case. Like handles on push doors. It's tempting to think of that as a design flaw but more likely it's designed to be mass produced and reversible, the cost of making two (or more) configurations being much higher than the occasional confused user. You could argue this only enhances the metaphor as a lot of design issues occur when things are optimised for the company and not the user.
My car has a staggeringly bad UI design choice - the cancel active navigation the control to do this only appears when you hold your finger close to the screen. Pretty much every time I want to do this I am flummoxed as to "Where did the button go" - before I eventually remember.
The navigation system is good - I prefer it to using my phone and CarPlay but that design is terrible.
Is it a VW? I had a VW with a proximity sensor like that. I didn’t use the in-car navigation, but it did that for the favorites on the radio. They only showed as I moved my finger close to the screen.
VW Group yes - a Škoda
It tells lots of things but you can takeaway a few things.
One of the key takeaway example for me was that if you make an approachable flat surface, people will put things on it. This is a small example but tells a lot about design of common things.
Another was that I shouldn't be blaming myself for failing to use an everyday thing, I should be blaming its design.
After reading the book I now keep seeing so many design flaws in so many things around. It also made me appreciate good design similarly. I probably think a bit more about users of code etc now, doesn't mean I write better, but it has changed perspective quite a bit.
"Bible of design" might be a bit excessive. It's a good design 101 book. Definitely longer than it should be, and kind of fumbles the explanation of "affordances", which the author had to clarify later. It's representative of "design thinking" as a historically well-situated concept in design, but that's not necessarily a good thing in itself.
It really depends what you're looking for. If you want something deeper, more abstract, I would recommend going straight to something like Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander, which I think typically appeals to the more abstraction-oriented part of the mind of engineers. If you want to get more actionable, practical day to day recipes, Refactoring UI as suggested somewhere else in the thread is a decent suggestion.
The Norman door was a powerful example for me, as it emphasises that the user is not the problem but the push door with the handle is the problem.
And if you’re designing the door, it is your responsibility to think deeply and observe behaviour, to design an intuitive interface.
I do agree that it’s rather academic, but I did leave with that one takeaway.
For me the real capability unlock from The Design of Everyday Things was that it made me start noticing and thinking deliberately about design decisions, which pushed me to begin evaluating everything through that lens. In general it comes down to looking at something and asking "what is good / effective and what is bad / annoying about this". If you keep doing that enough you develop your own taste and a greater appreciation of the world. Donald Norman isn't handing you a map, he's teaching you how to build your own.
Yes this I agree with and was my whole goal with the book
Like you say, it's old and I'm nostalgic for the time that I associate reading it with. I think that explains some of the love folks (or at least me) have for it.
I've never revisited the book and thanks to your comment I might not ever now ha
my take on this book is that 1) it contains a lot of foundational knowledge/wisdom about design as interpreted broadly that is very useful across contexts, and 2) it is itself, ironically, an example of poor design. Not in the visual sense, but in that it's structure and writing do a pretty bad job actually conveying that knowledge to the reader and being navigable.
I tried reading it and hated it, then I came back knowing bits and pieces of its contents from elsewhere and was like "yup, this is the only place I've seen all of this together".
For Devs/Engineers and even many designers, things some of us tend to take for granted were amazing to them. So, my first recommendation is to read Refactoring UI end-to-end and keep a copy handy at your desk.
PS. Refactoring UI is from the guys who created TailwindCSS.
May be it's just me, but the very first example (contacts form) looks better (easier to read) on the left than text in empty space on the right (which is supposed to be the good design)...
It's not just you, I didn't even open the link and know exactly which two examples you're talking about because I left this same comment on HN a while ago.
So much of modern design is fashion yet the designers pretend it isn't. Like it's some scientifically provable truth or axiom that faint lines between list items is "bad".
$99 for a 218 page PDF which, while it has a Goodreads page which rates it highly:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43190966-refactoring-...
doesn't have a working "Purchase on Amazon" link, and searching there for:
"Refactoring UI Adam Wathan , Steve Schoger"
returns no results.
One can get two "free" chapters in exchange for one's e-mail address.
Book deal fall through? Why?
Either you want to support the authors and give them the price they ask or don't. You being on this platform gives me the assumption that you can definitely find pretty much any PDF on the Internet for free, in a way or another.
I would prefer to support the authors by the purchase of a dead tree/printed book.
I read it and thought it contained several good ideas, but was excessively wordy and would have benefited from being half as long.
i also picked up the book with high hopes and dropped off about where you are at. useful concepts like affordances and signifiers but felt like a lot of filler.
I took a Computer Science class decades ago that used that book as the core of the class material. I don't remember a single thing about that class now except that I hate that book and the professor bragging about designing cockpit instruments or some such. I learned more out of a cognitive psych class.
Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative approach to creative problem-
solving, focusing on deeply understanding users' needs to develop innovative
solutions through phases like Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.
Yes I agree, and the replies don't really make it any more clear.
The biggest differentiator of design thinking is really addressing the XY problem. In 95% of cases clients will come to you to design their solution. Ie they already think they have a solution to their problem and now they want it to look good.
Design thinking is basically more like root cause analysis, or the 5 why's.. and an emphasis on taking to end users (the people with the problem) without having a solution.
Once you understand the problem more fundamentally is only when you start cooking up with a solution.
And the result of that process might not even be a traditional design, but perhaps just a tweak to something, like moving your onboarding to later in the ca process..
In practice however.. 95% of designers who say they practice design thinking disregard this, and just want to design wherever the client asks for
I think that's the point. The underpinning exhortation is to "think about design" where the outcome is something that successfully addresses users needs, is feasible to create, and commercially viable.
"Design Thinking" as a brand has codified that in several ways - not all successful. But the underlying principle is sound: there are plenty of examples of products/services that failed to address one or more of the 3 dimensions.
I found this quote from the linked article [0] more helpful:
> Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.
[0]: https://www.designorate.com/design-thinking-guide-what-why-h...
it is not - just a way to position design and untie it from the visual output that is also called design. Design thinking will not make you a logo (but a logo designer could pretty much do design thinking...)
It doesn't claim to be different? It puts more emphasis on the design part.
My two cents as a 20 year product manager with +10 enterprise applications under my belt (and having read several of these):
# "Don't make me think" is a seminal work on design thinking for online services. I've yet to come across a book with as much relevance and substance even though it was written for the dot com era.
# "Positioning" by Al Reis is a book I wish I read 15 years ago when I started my company... your product's strategic positioning will greatly inform and shape design decisions (typography, colors, tones, copy, etc)
# "Ogilvy on Advertising" - written by the legend himself, once you read this book, it will change the way you see all ads in any medium
I have similar experience and agree with your book recommendations. Depending on your vertical I would add the Toyota Way later to understand factory design and efficiency. It’s interesting to read back to back.
I know it is more niche to the online/websites POV, but “Don’t Make Me Think” is a book that needs to be somewhere in the lines of “The Design of Everyday Things.” Of course, I re-read the latter as reminders and catch-up readings.
I was surprised this wasn't on there, even with a caveat that it's for online sources like you note.
Ha ha, I love even the cover photo of “The Design of Everyday Things.”
Tom Kelley and David Kelley, founders of Stanford's Design School and IDEO (the industrial design firm that made things like Apple's first mouse and the standup toothpaste tube) have a great book, Creative Confidence.
Here's their website for the book, along with some tools and useful instructional videos https://www.creativeconfidence.com/tools/
+1 agreed, Creative Confidence is an insipiring book.
Noted couple of books.
I've been curating (mostly design) books on a digital library: https://links.1984.design/books
This isn't really a tasteful collection. It is just a bunch of popular books, all of which that I have read being about minimalism.
If that's what you want you can just use Apple as a case study because that's what you end up getting if you want "modern" and minimal. Even just drop the CSS file from source into an LLM and go through how it is implemented.
Any suggestions are welcome. I would be happy to increase the quality of the library.
My first recommendation would be to impose a hierarchy --- surely the books can be grouped in some fashion useful to the viewer? Perhaps by the intended reader? So maybe:
- beginning designer
- developer working with designer
- developer working without assistance from a designer
- supervisor working with team of designers and developers
Long flat lists of undifferentiated items are a common problem in design and your page not solving that is decidedly not confidence-building.
Also, was surprised not to see what I consider one of the best books on visual interface design listed:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/344729.Designing_Visual_...
Unfortunately, this book was marred reputationally by the reissue having a ghastly cover and poor quality screengrab reproductions --- track down a first edition if possible.
Most web design books are essentially going to tell you to put a navigation bar on top or on the side, with a big call to action button in the centre while laying everything out on a grid (hence why most websites now looks the same). Logo design books now are always going to tell you take inspiration from the Twitter or Nike logo e.g. something that is simple but easily recognisable from afar (everything is now a swirl or a a single polygon). The colour theory stuff is half pseudo-science and mostly going to tell you to pick from a small colour palette with a consistent primary/secondary colour while keeping in mind that colours are perceived differently in different cultures (now you have everything in black/blue/red and white). The only one that I liked was Refactoring UI because it demonstrated how small changes can add up to make something that looks amateur look professional. But you can probably learn more just by investigating things you like yourself and implementing them.
Nice collection, "Weniger, aber besser" by Rams will suffice and is at home on any shelf.
This looks like a really nice collection of books. Thanks for sharing!
Wow excellent thank you
Please don’t use Design Thinking.
Design Thinking is a subset of Systems Thinking (this is the polite interpretation). Design Thinking does with its sole existence what Systems Thinking tried to avoid: Another category to put stuff into, divide and conquer. It is an over-simplified version of the original theories.
Better: Jump directly to Systems Thinking, Cybernetics and Systems Theory (and if measurements are more your thing, even try System Dynamics).
I can only recommend that anyone interested in this topic take a look at the work of one of the masters of Systems Thinking, Russel Ackoff:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9p6vrULecFI
This talk from 1991 is several dozen books heavily condensed into one hour.
(Russell Ackoff is considered one of the founders of Operations Research and ironically came to be regarded an apostate as he tried to reform the field he co-founded. He subsequently became a prominent figure of Systems Thinking)
My 2c. I'll show myself out.
Someone tried to explain systems thinking to me with respect to a planning effort we had.
I have to admit that it was very hard to me to follow what they were saying.
Maybe I’m dumb, maybe the person didn’t explain it well, or, maybe system thinking is really complex and thus hard to convey and use.
Design thinking on the other hand is easy to understand and apply.
I have no idea what the exact topic is, but
> maybe system thinking is really complex and thus hard to convey and use.
I'm pretty sure that's not true. If you can follow how A leads to -> B, then that's about it all. Systems thinking is the same principle at a larger scale, with interesting side effects at times (eg network effects/group think/emergent phenomenon showing up).
Design Thinking (and more broadly, human-centered design) is a pragmatic framework for doing product design in an effective and productive manner. Systems Thinking is a massively more general superset. I'm not really sure how you'd operationalize that on a design project, except by following first principles, which would essentially get you to DT / HCD.
That is exactly the point.
Taking a theory (Systems Thinking), a mental model which has the primary goal of holistically identifying, describing, and understanding wholes and reducing it down to a set of methods/framework out of ease of use (the pragmatism) is exactly the wrong approach in my opinion.
Systems Thinking and all of its applications scenarios are based on epistemology. To turn it into a recipe is a wrongdoing. The whole notion is that one size does not fit all.
The operationalization of Systems Theory for a given case at hand is the responsibility and the transfer function of the operator whose approach this is. The process itself yields understanding and should not be abbreviated.
I practiced Design Thinking at IDEO for 10 years, and I can assure you it's not "one size fits all." And you can onboard an intern or a client CEO in days, without requiring them to internalize a very abstract system for decomposing problems.
>I practiced Design Thinking at IDEO for 10 years
That may possibly explain your motivation but even ten years do not make it right, nor the speed of teaching.
You are saying it yourself: internalising the very abstract system for decomposing and adapting it has a value of its own you cannot replicate by pre-solving it. The spinning-off of Design Thinking only accomplished further segmentation of a space which was already too fractured and was a disservice to the field.
I don’t think we will approach a consensus here, and that’s fine.
It's always valuable to have a generalizable skill. But design is fundamentally a craft; an applied art. It's problem-solving. And like any craft, there are tools and techniques that are tried and true. You could approach woodworking with a ground-up Systems Thinking approach, but would you turn down the advice of a carpenter with 30 years of experience? Technically all you need to understand woodworking is a physics textbook and an organic chemistry textbook.
My guess is you're a software developer (as I am), and in my opinion the fatal flow of our group is the incorrect belief that we could do anything or solve any problem by simply decomposing it into smaller and smaller components. The thing is, for a big enough problem, there are an almost infinite number of ways to break it down and then build it back up. In optimization terms, complex projects are highly nonlinear problems, so you may be able to understand what the inputs are, but it sometimes takes wisdom and experience to tune the parameters.
I like how the author correctly shown the cover image for the "The Sciences of the Artificial", with plural 's' in 'sciences', but then in the paragraph praising it gleefully ignored it.
Probably means this article wasn't written by AI!
What most people fail to realise is something quite simple about “design” - it’s the discipline of bridging human behaviour and “things” (be that objects or software).
Don Norman’s book covers a lot on human behaviour, which is the correct lens through which to view “design”.
I love 101 Things I Learned at Architecture School.
It's a very light, approachable book, dealing with surprisingly universal principles. Also it has very nice pictures.
Most of it also applies to game dev, and to the design of experiences.
I improved my doodling skills from that book, but I'm not sure I learned anything generalizable.
I will add : "The Design of Design" by Fred Brooks (of The Mythical Man Month fame)
It seems that I have learned to distrust websites that show ads.
I don't think there's nothing wrong with wanting to get paid via ads. But I don't see why a list of "design thinking" books should be some piece of info that you should be paid for.
At least there's an author to the article I guess
I was very disappointed when I learned that this wasn't about designing books that think.
"Must read" ? Must?
GTFO with this hyperbolic language