Can we skip to the making stage? (rewrite)

Zoe Beresford
Apr 22, 2021
3 min read

Updated: Apr 22, 2021

Why the process of design thinking is important in the classroom.

Design Thinking:

Design thinking encourages students to have confidence in themselves and learn how to tackle difficult tasks. The design thinking process was developed by a variety of scientists and is best applied for people centred creative problem solving (IDEO, 2021). The process features five phases. Empathy, defining the problem, ideation, prototyping a solution, implementing the idea beyond a prototype The making stage, is the final two phases (Barrett, 2021). Phase prototyping and the final product is created. So, can we skip straight to the making stage? In my experience, no, the making stage is key.

Why is design thinking relevant?

Creative processing is about planning and testing creative solutions (Barrett, 2021). The design process ensures that the solution is effective and the audience feels heard (Alrulbail, 2015). In a study conducted in 2010 by The Design Society found that the process of design thinking used in classrooms empowers students to gain a sense of "creative confidence” (Rauth, 2010) .This concluded that design thinking empowers students "creative confidence, which assures the students of their own ability of acting and thinking creatively" (Rauth, 2010) Therefore design thinking is relevant to the creativity of students, their confidence and self efficacy.

The benefits and limitations of design thinking

Design thinking has many benefits that students will learn that they can apply everyday creative confidence and empathy being key benefits. Some limitations of design thinking lie where the problem solver makes errors during the process. This is because the audience needs are not fully understood. This could lead to solving the wrong problem or creating more problems. Another limitation is that design thinking was created for complex issues that require brainstorming different solutions. I have found that this means that design thinking is not suitable for all problem solving, and other methods will need to be used.

My Personal View:

Reflecting on my past experiences has lead me to believe that the design stage is vital. In my experience, the making stage can be difficult to skip to. In year 8 I studied Design technology where we made co2 powered cars. When starting the cars there were problems with the co2 canister leading to our team planning and using the design thinking techniques to solve it. We also ran into problems where we used design thinking incorrectly.This is where the limitation sin design thinking showed. We did not discuss the root cause of the problem at hand in detail, and this resulted in creating more problems.

So, can we skip to the making stage?

No, the process of design thinking is important for understanding the root cause to a problem, and skipping to the making stage could result in solving the wrong problemThe making stage is a key phase of design thinking, but it is shaped and founded by the processes before it. These processes being empathy, defining the problem, ideation, and prototyping. If we skip straight to the making stage the importance of all of these phases may be lost, and the solution will be ineffective.