Design thinking is a methodology focused on leveraging design methods to address complex, ill-structured problems and improve people's lives through innovative solutions. It emphasizes understanding real human needs while considering viability, feasibility, and sustainability, and involves an iterative process of problem and solution development. Educators are encouraged to integrate design thinking into curricula to foster creativity and tackle meaningful issues through various applied learning strategies.

1. DESIGN THINKING?
WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED
WONG YEW LEONG
yewleong.wong@nie.edu.sg

2. Design thinking is the application of the methods, processes, and sensibilities
of designers to the creation of innovative ideas to better solve ill-structured
problems. The aim is to improve the quality of people’s lives.
DEFINITION
© Stanford University d.school

3. The PlayPump
There’s nothing worse than
answering well the wrong
question.
FOCUS ON PEOPLE

4. Chile 2010: What do people really want?
REAL NEEDS
© Roberto Candia

5. From http://www.rock985.com/concert-calendar/13876083/© Joel Goodman
PERSPECTIVES
The source of inspiration lies in the
interpretive frame you use to
understand the problem.

6. From http://www.rock985.com/concert-calendar/13876083/
PERSPECTIVES
The source of inspiration lies in the
interpretive frame you use to
understand the problem.

7. PERSPECTIVES
Work with users to find the right
problems and create the right
solutions.
© Elemental

8. Desirability
(human needs)
Viability
(resources)
Feasibility
(technology)
Sustainability
(ethics)
The design thinker aims to address real human needs in ways that are
financially viable, technologically feasible and ecologically and socially
sustainable.
GOALS AND DIRECTIONS

9. Embrace
ambiguity
Learn from
doing
Be optimistic
Be human-
centred
The attitudes and values of
the design thinker.
DESIGN MINDSETS

10. Problem Solution
Naming
Framing
Experimenting
Testing
Research
Understand
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
The design thinker moves iteratively through the problem space and the solution
space. Often, the design thinker works in the two spaces simultaneously, so that
his understanding of the problem and his solution co-evolves.
THE DESIGN PROCESS

11. Design problems are typically ill-structured and indeterminate. They are constituted by
multiple issues that are so intricately and dynamically interwoven that it is practically
impossible to untangle them so that we may address them separately, and it is
uncertain what would actually work as solutions to the problems.
TAME SLIGHTLY WICKED VERY WICKED
RESULTSWHAT HOW
(thing) (working
principle)
(observed)
? ? ?
(aspired
value)
(result) (what) (working
principle)(deduction)
?
(working
principle)
(induction)
?
(aspired
value)
(what)
(abduction -1) (abduction -2)
WICKED PROBLEMS
Conceptual framework from Kees Dorst

12. The real source of innovation– breakthrough innovation– lies in the
generation of problems.
? ?
(aspired
value)
(what) (working
principle)
(abduction -2)
(naming &
framing)
We name the issues to which we will
attend, and frame the context (social,
political, cultural, economic, historical)
within which we will attend to them.
?(result)
(deduction)
?
(aspired
value)
(what)
(abduction -1)
INNOVATION

13. WHY SHOULD EDUCATORS CARE
ABOUT DESIGN THINKING?
Surely, there are other ways to develop creativity—aren’t there?

14. 21CCs
Design thinking appears to tick many of these boxes.
© Ministry of Education, Singapore

15. SAFETY & SUSTAINABILITY
Designers, regulators and consumers have become increasingly aware of the
safety and sustainability of the artefacts created to improve our lives.
© Embrace

16. Wong Yi Xuan, Edith
Born. June 9, 2014
35 Weeks
1.7 kg
Wong Yi Xuan, Edith
Week 01
Christmas, 2015Christmas, 2015
NOV
2013
Week 6 Week 8
DEC
2013
Monochorionic twins
Twin Reversed
Arterial Perfusion
(TRAP) Syndrome
MC Twins: 0.3% of all
pregnancies
TRAP Syndrome:
1% of MC twins
pregnancies
JAN
2014
High risk
forTrisomy
13 and
Trisomy 18;
just about
“safe” for
Trisomy 21
FEB
2014
2 days before surgery date,
the perfusion stopped, by
which time the opportunity
to perform the more
invasive, but more reliable
test forTrisomy 13 and 18
had passed.
MAY
2014
Expected date of
delivery: July 4.
But rate of size-
growth seemed
to have slowed
dramatically.
“Morning sickness”all the way.
JUN
2014
Delivered by C-section surgery:
June 9, 4 p.m., 1.7kg. Discharged
two weeks later, 1.9 kg.
MORALITY OF ARTEFACTS
Artefacts mediate human decision-making.
© Wong Yew Leong

17. © Catalano
MORALITY OF ARTEFACTS
Socio-cultural norms and history play a part in how artefacts mediate human
actions and experiences.

18. TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIATION
Designers, users, artefacts, and socio-cultural norms and history jointly mediate
our actions and the interpretations informing our moral decisions, sometimes
in unintentional and unanticipated ways.
© Wong Yew Leong

19. RETHINKING DESIGN ETHICS
Human actions are always mediated.
© Wong Yew Leong

20. DESIGN AND ME
Artefacts can shape our sense
of who (or what) we are.
© Wired

21. DESIGN AND US
Design is a fundamental aspect of
humanity. One might even say that
it is our evolutionary advantage.
© Wong Yew Leong

22. ARGUING FOR DESIGN THINKING
The methods, processes and mindsets of design thinking predispose us to consider the
mediating capacities of the artefacts we are creating and provides us with the essential
tools to assess them and shape them in ways that will improve human practices and
experiences.
© Wong Yew Leong

23. DESIGNING THE FUTURE
Design thinking provides us with the means to explore different possible
futures for humanity.
© Revital Cohen

24. Desirability
(human needs)
Viability
(resources)
Feasibility
(technology)
Sustainability
(ethics)
The design thinker aims to address real human needs in ways that are
financially viable, technologically feasible and ecologically and socially
sustainable.
GOALS AND DIRECTIONS

25. INTEGRATING DESIGN THINKING
INTO SCHOOL CURRICULA

26. CHARACTER AND CITIZENSHIP
Design issues make meaningful Values-In-Action projects.
© The Straits Times

27. APPLIED LEARNING
Invite students to use what they have learned to
design a solution to a fairly well-defined challenge.
© Road Trippers

28. PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
Find real-world issues that require understanding and mastery of targeted
academic knowledge and skills to solve.
© Nisa Maier

29. THANK YOU.