The Role of Critical Thinking in the Design Process by Bryan
July 01, 2010 in Design Strategy with 5 Comments
We've written a bit before about what we think here at ZURB about critical thinking and design, but in most design companies critical thinking doesn't get the attention it deserves.
Critical thinking plays a big role in design. It helps define the pace of a project and keeps a team on a tight schedule. It also sets solid expectations and helps your team build confidence in its goals. Critical thinking often means repeating a task or revisiting a checklist, which brings efficiency to all parts of a project— and everyone loves efficiency, right?
We often hail design thinking as a savior for opening up problems. In a service organization, however, closing problems down is equally important for sustainability and profitability. A smart approach to critical thinking can expose and shut down a problem before it has a chance to become a big issue.
Designers often mistake creative freedom for controlled discovery, yet even in design thinking, constraints provide structure. Those constraints can provide a strong framework for goal-setting and having very focused goals helps balance the uncertainty of opening up lots of projects.
Don't assume reaching those goals means you have to do everything yourself, though. In fact, critical thinking is very much a collaborative process— as is design thinking. Designers need to understand that sometimes they're just a piece of a larger puzzle, or are there to apply their unique talents to a portion of the overall project.
At first glance, critical thinking may not seem important to the overall success of a design project. Yet it's a vital component that shouldn't be overlooked.
5 Comments
Max Luzuriaga says:
Interesting read, thanks!
Matt (ZURB) says:
Critical thinking, need structure and purposes to be successful.
Joshua Lay says:
Nice read Bryan,
So it's like understanding the needs and limitations of the business for every project? Know the limitations and create from them, rather than starting creative and trying to fit it back into what is really possible?
Reminds me of an exercise to draw a chair differently 100 times. There's a constraint, but each time you create a new representation you develop an understanding of the core elements of the chair itself.
Data Recovery says:
Really enjoyed this post. Really thank you! Keep writing.
Regards, Data Recovery Software
Jeremy (ZURB) says:
Critical thinking is about making decisions, editing things down rather than opening them up. It's important to know how to shut this part of your brain off at certain points in a project, but equally important to know when to exercise it.
At the beginning of a project it's defining goals and limits. This means knowing your company's strategy and understanding your customers. With those goals and limits established, you have a certain bounded freedom to explore within. It removes a lot of uncertainty.
But critical thinking is also something you use throughout a design project to keep yourself honest--knowing when to hue to the rules or break them--and to edit things down. After all, you'd never finish everything if you didn't stick to those clear goals and limits you setup for yourself.
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