(The) exploration of design thinking process using sketch analysis

Abstract

Recently, the notion of “design thinking” has been drawing attention as an art of innovation and creativity in the management and technology area as well as a design discipline itself for they are both required to solve fuzzy and complex problems in the real world. However, formal research into the theoretical anatomy of design thinking has not been sufficiently investigated, even though a range of practical techniques and practical case studies have been explored. Furthermore, “designerly” exploration into design thinking has been marginalized while the cognitivist approach inspired by information-processing theory has been extensively undertaken in academia. In that sense, we attempt to explore the design thinking process with a focus on the analysis of sketch activity: designer’s most favored and characteristic way of problem solving with particular emphasis placed on industrial design domain, as study on industrial designers’ sketches have received little attention compared with architectural and engineering design areas. Moreover, there is a general belief that designers, without regard for subject domain, extensively employ visual thinking stimulated by interaction among seeing, drawing and imaging, with sketch being the most common media designers utilize to interpret and reformulate the design concept, supporting the assumption that drawing activity and its external representations can provide a rich and valuable source for investigating the design thinking process. In investigating the design thinking process, the macroscopic design sketch analysis method as an instrumental approach to analyze sketches produced at the early stage of the design process is proposed. The method was devised on the basis of a wide variety of case studies and analysis of a series of manuscripts and literature in four representative design domains: architectural design, engineering design, graphic design and industrial design, followed by the construction of a sketch c...