Design Thinking: A Model Development Based On Archived Documents

Abstract

Design thinking is defined as a creative and analytic process that helps designers solve real world ‘wicked’ and ‘ill-defined’ problems. Studies on the design thinking are important, because they help educators develop more refined approaches of design pedagogy. This study creates a design thinking model based on literature and focuses on designs of senior interior design students to evaluate students` design thinking process and overall quality of their works. The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of design thinking using achieve documents from students of a design studio under the theoretical foundation of previous studies. This study consists of three steps: 1) creating the model, 2) examination and evaluation of students` design processes, and 3) comparison of the model we created and students` design thinking processes. Examination of students` designs revealed that students generally follow the basic steps of design process and following a better design process generally results in a better quality product. In addition, three critical stages that affect the final quality of a design product were identified.